Layers of repression and civic efforts against corruption: unveiling systemic constraints on societal accountability

Nowadays, scholars from corruption and collective action studies agree on the necessity of complementing top-down and state controls with bottom-up societal efforts in the struggle against corruption. Civil society actors all over the world have indeed variously intervened in anti-corruption efforts, facing personal risks, institutional resistance, and normative obstacles. The rich set of bottom-up non-institutional mechanisms to hold power accountable that derives from such efforts is generally summarized under the label of "societal accountability". However, a comprehensive understanding of the systemic constraints on these bottom-up mechanisms is still lacking in the literature. Whistleblowing, civic monitoring, or pro-transparency campaigns are all considered relevant means to advance the accountability of political systems and reduce the spread of corrupt deals. Research from various fields has hence tried to shed light on the endogenous and exogenous factors that ease the emergence of societal accountability, sometimes even assessing its influence in the complex struggle against corruption. However, few contributions have tried to critically reflect on the systemic constraints that hamper the emergence and the impact of societal accountability mechanisms, from general constraints affecting the whole population to specific factors targeting individual activists. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of repression studies, the paper constitutes a first step in delineating the multiple layers of repression that shape societal accountability efforts, reflecting on how these could curtail civil society's efforts to intervene in the anti-corruption struggle. The argument will be presented based on secondary literature and supported through examples from primary and secondary empirical research.