The Politics of Corruption and Anti-Corruption Around the World

Corruption negatively impacts all areas of individuals’ lives, whether this be a simple transaction of paying one’s bill at the post office, or being able to take one’s child to the doctor. It is therefore important to understand why people sometimes act corruptly and sometimes not, as well as to reflect on what can be done to prevent corruption and reduce its consequences. Previous research offers different theoretical and empirical approaches that have been translated into a number of anti-corruption reforms at the national as well as the international level. Of these, most have been at the institutional level. In light of recent indications of persistent and, in some contexts, worsening corruption trends, the effectiveness of these policies has been questioned by scholars and practitioners alike (Charron, Dijkstra and Lapuente 2015; SIDA 2006; Mungiu-Pippidi 2011; Rothstein 2018), some of whom have termed it a policy failure. Understanding what works and does not work in the fight against corruption has thus become “the new frontier for anti-corruption research” (Johnsøn & Søreide 2013). This current turn of events, calling into question understandings of corruption and common reform strategies, requires scholars to return to the causal explanations for the emergence of corruption – ranging from institutional settings and individual motives, to culturally influenced norms or values. It also calls for a more systematic analysis of the underlying reasons for adopting anti-corruption policies and initiating reforms. Understanding anti-corruption efforts solely as problem-solving disregards the importance of politics and the symbolic dimension of policy-making, as well as the motives behind it. There is a need for more thorough research on the different factors shaping the anti-corruption discourse and policy prescription, taking into account multi-level governance, power play and local contexts.