Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature and elements of the latest anti-corruption strategies while developing the first comprehensive quantitative assessment index, which I call the Anti-Corruption Assessment Index (ACAI). First, I shall discuss the need for ACS by making a literature review of the fight against corruption. Then, I shall describe ACAI and its methodology. More specifically, I discuss the need for quantitative anti-corruption strategy assessments and the ACAI, including its components, research stages, mathematical formula, and scale, as well as weaknesses and further suggested lines of refinement of ACAI. The next section is dedicated to the presentation of findings and trends for overall and each ACAI sub-area.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explains why, among a group of relatively similar states, certain states but not others would comply with the same international legal commitment. Drawing on concepts from the ‘ideas’ literature in comparative politics, the literature on global norms in IR, and analyses of reasoning and adjudication in legal philosophy, the paper develops a theoretical framework with which to explain variations in compliance by the US, Germany, France, and the UK with the 1997 OECD anti-bribery Convention. The central argument is that state compliance with an international commitment is a function of the effectiveness with which the global norm at stake in that commitment is articulated in a state’s domestic politics. Effective norm articulation can create the conditions under which a state is unable to produce justifiable reasons for non-compliance, and can provoke compliance despite important countervailing material interests. In the case of the OECD Convention, both powerful strategic trade interests and a powerful international anti-corruption norm are at stake. An analysis of state compliance with the OECD Convention in light of strategic trade theory, however, reveals the limitations of a materialist explanation based on the rationalist framework. Instead, an analysis of norm articulation in the four cases shows the importance of non-materialist variables, having to do with features of the actor that is doing the norm articulation in the domestic political context – the norm entrepreneur – and of the domestic political and normative context into which the global norm is introduced. These features generate four key variables: the legitimacy of the domestic norm entrepreneur; whether the norm entrepreneur enjoys access to the relevant political institutions and policy makers; whether the norm is framed as an element of a high priority policy area, with this framing the result of strategic, instrumental rationality on the part of the norm entrepreneur; and whether the norm resonates in the domestic public policy context, with this resonance a function of public sentiment.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper I will discuss how institutions influence the development of corruption and the making of anti-corruption policies in China.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study investigates why and how countries fight corruption. It focuses on the latest anti-corruption strategies (ACS) across 15 Central and Eastern European countries. It builds the first quantitative measurement of ACS comprehensiveness by taking into account 12 ACS areas of which 9 are specific policy areas and 3 represent their specific application across the three branches of government. The 9 policy areas include overall anti-corruption strategy, anti-corruption policy, political party finance, asset monitoring, conflict of interests, freedom of information, public procurement, financial control and audit, and immunity. ACS variation is measured at three significant points in time for the region (1995, 2002, and 2003).

I find great variation in ACS from quite comprehensive in the Baltics to far less comprehensive in Ukraine and Macedonia. Nevertheless, over time there has been a dramatic increase in the comprehensiveness of ACS although different countries have prioritized differently the anti-corruption reform areas.

The study also investigates the factors that account for their variation. The factors investigated can be categorized as the level of corruption, political and economic factors and international organizations’ anti-corruption norms and standards. The political factors investigated are the level of democratization, regime type, frequency of government turnover, political affiliation of cabinets, and political fragmentation in both cabinet and parliament. The economic factors taken into account here are the level of GDP and its annual change, the level of unemployment, and foreign direct investment.

This study unequivocally finds evidence that increased political competition taking the form of increased turnover in government and increased party fragmentation in parliament has been beneficial for ACS comprehensiveness. One explanation is that increased political competition forces politicians to start fighting corruption to ensure their stay in power, as anti-corruption issues are high on the public agenda. It also finds evidence of the role of increased level of unemployment and membership into the Council of Europe by 1995 and candidate country status to the European Union by 2002. EU accession candidate countries were likely to have a more comprehensive ACS than non-accession countries such as Croatia and Ukraine.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: AAs the ideological gap between political parties’ narrows and party identification decreases, parties need new strategies to attract voters. Politicizing political corruption is one option and this paper explores to what extent and with what results political parties have used the issue of corruption in European parliamentary elections between 1983 and 2007. 171 electoral campaigns in 32 European democracies are analyzed and the main results are that politicization of corruption is correlated with the level of corruption. Moreover, the issue is rather under than over politicized, implying that it is not a used as a populist strategy to win votes. Rather it is established mainstream parties that are the main champions of anti-corruption. Finally, the results show that corruption allegations quite substantially increase the likelihood of governmental turnover in medium and highly corrupt countries, whereas corruption is not politicized at all in low corrupt countries.