Mitigating Methodological Challenges in the Study of Corruption: The Importance of Case Selection and Interview Design

As documentary sources about corruption are often biased or unreliable, semi-directed interviews constitute the main source of information for researchers. However, people involved in corrupt practices are often reluctant to discuss them with researchers, as these practices are often intertwined with forms of coercion and violence. This paper suggests that these problems can be mitigated by carefully selecting cases and deliberately structuring the interview guide. It is based on the author’s case study of corruption in the Tunisian cement industry, which relied on 26 semi-directed interviews with managers within the industry. The context of political transition in Tunisia, after 2011, led both to an increased freedom of speech and to the collapse of the coercion networks associated with corruption. This facilitated the researcher’s access to participants willing to discuss corruption. The further selection of the cement industry meant to reinforce these advantages, as the industry was marginal to the interests of the economic elite associated with the previous regime. Finally, the researcher structured the interview guide around the issue of change — mainly related to the political transition and to privatization within the industry — which allowed participants to create a distance between themselves and the practices they were describing. The presentation further suggests that this approach to research design can be replicated in other cases.