The Politics of Anti-Corruption Endeavors

After the first participatory diagnosis, government might sponsor further workshops at several levels (including government officials, international businesses, local businesses, and aid donors). Studies can also play a catalytic role. Of particular interest are studies of systems of information and evaluation (their extent, quality, how used and misused), analysis of actual and hypothetical incentive systems, and studies that contrast successful and unsuccessful cases within the country in question.

For example, in a given country certain public enterprises may be a significant source of corruption in international business transactions. Yet other public enterprises may be functioning well and relatively cleanly. Why? What lessons can be learned from the successes?

Studying successes has a psychological benefit. Locals see that they are not perceived as inept by over generalizing outsiders. Transparency has a new meaning, that with good information they can learn from each other.

Other studies might attempt to gauge the existence and degree of corruption in public procurement, foreign aid projects, and debt repayment (to name three possible locations for corruption in international business transactions). The studies would examine a particular case of an alleged corrupt transaction, but would simultaneously analyze the general class of cases of which that was an instance. The methodology would involve interviews on a confidential in the public and private sectors. In other words, we are not talking about a dry academic study, but research that evokes from local people their knowledge of how corrupt local systems work and what might be done to make those systems function better.

Such studies would carry an indirect benefit. They would create certain uneasiness among the locals as basic problems are uncovered and documented. They would also build a baseline of data from which future progress can be judged.

It is a curiosity: political scientists who study administrative change often seem to overlook politics. An effective strategy for fighting corruption should not. Part of the "assessment" of the enabling environment should also focus on the political forces that might aid or block various changes.

"Politics" has another dimension: relations in the country leadership. Ideally, local leaders will already be convinced of the need to undertake institutional adjustment. If not, their incentives and constraints must be carefully analyzed. The proposed strategy of administrative adjustment ideally would be transparent. It would be "incentive compatible" even for political leaders with less than ideal motivations.


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