The eradication of corruption is a priority common to many countries emerging from periods of non-democratic rule. New or strengthened anti-corruption laws and high-profile prosecutions invariably feature in the strategies of new administrations. However, despite new laws and political commitments, efforts to control corruption during and after periods of democratization are often deficient. Analytical efforts to explain this generally adopt law- or institution-centred approaches. The logic of the former is that the judiciary will prosecute and convict acts of corruption if there is sufficient evidence that the accused violated relevant criminal codes; whereas the latter focuses on the way institutions structure the discretion of agents responsible for prosecutions, i.e. the police, prosecutors and judges. Although these analytical approaches are insightful—particularly at the cross-country level—they both struggle to account for significant sub-national variation in outcomes not attributable to the merits of the case. This puzzle suggests an approach that goes beyond law and institutions is necessary. Drawing on legal mobilization and signalling theories, this paper uses a sub-national comparative research design to identify factors that might account for significant variation in Indonesian districts across both time and place in the post-Suharto reformasi era. This analysis suggests that the way coalitions of local politicians and civil society groups signal their political interests and normative positions vis-à-vis instances of corruption is critical to determining whether corruption prosecutions proceed and result in convictions.
