THE CORRUPTION IN
FRAGILE STATES BLOG

Without deliberate attention to sustainability from the outset, even strong technical interventions remain externally dependent and struggle to outlast donor funding.

Lingchi corruption is not just a metaphoric catch-all for corrupt events of a certain magnitude. It is a process, in a double sense, encompassing both ongoing corrupt activities and the longer-term, systemic erosion of governance.

I want to start by saying I didn't go into this work naive. I'd been reading corruption reports for years, citing them in my own papers, nodding along to the usual language about "weak oversight" and "institutional capacity gaps." I thought I knew the shape of the problem before I ever sat down with anyone.

If corruption persists despite legal and institutional reforms, the explanation lies elsewhere. The decision to explore social norms was not theoretical abstraction but an empirical necessity.

Whether you call it conscious bias or unconscious bias [….] procurement is still male dominated. The leaders are still men, decision-makers are men and procurement officials will find every reason to give a contract to a man, even though there's no objective reason.

For nearly half a century, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has made it illegal for U.S. citizens and companies to bribe foreign officials. Since 1998, that has been the case for foreign companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges or acting in the U.S., too.

The Trump administration’s policy process is idiosyncratic and fluid by design. More seriously, anti-corruption practitioners at home and abroad have criticized Trump and other officials for intentionally diminishing anti-corruption efforts or being corrupt themselves, with charges ranging from conflicts of interest to bribery.

Donor decisions made without attention to conflict dynamics or internal vulnerabilities can deepen corruption risks.

The conceptual understanding of endemic corruption as a collective action problem does not mean the field has mastered how to pursue collective action as an effective strategy for change.

The United States is facing an emerging corruption problem that so far has drawn relatively little notice. Relying primarily upon federal prosecutors to check state and local corruption has always been a questionable strategy, and it is now about to become even less of a deterrent.

We must not ignore the nexus between the state and the politically well-connected lobbies in business.

Systems mapping and stakeholder analysis are two excellent tools for corruption analysis.

Strategic Corruption must become part of the anti-corruption lexicon.

Conflict sensitivity in AC programs: why standard approaches might not be enough.

Drawing on invaluable lessons learnt, CJL’s Co-Director offers some useful Do’s and Don’ts for identifying social norms.

For AC practitioners, systems mapping is essential but also difficult. To lessen obstacles, Peter Woodrow proposes a scaffolded approach.

Assumptions matter: Scharbatke-Church and Chigas offer eight key don’ts to improve anti-corruption programming in FCAS.

Our editor chooses the top five posts of 2022.

Though intersectionality of social norms remains a black box, CJL’s co-directors suggest that programming may need to reckon with it.