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As the United Nations Convention against Corruption celebrates 20 years, there could be a sense that anti-corruption discourses, policies, and practices are settling into a stable, consensus-driven phase. This edited volume argues they are not.
Bringing together perspectives from around the world, this book captures the turbulent contemporary practice of anti-corruption. It shows it to be an arena in which domestic and transnational politics play out, shaping outcomes in often unpredictable ways. The purpose and means of this policy field are disputed and re-interpreted. Populist and illiberal leaders hijack anti-corruption to target opponents, restrict media and civil society, or even legitimise authoritarian rule. However, new forms of collective action and technology are emerging to forge novel paths forward.
Through various chapters, ranging from Russia to Brazil and Sri Lanka to the United Kingdom, the book shines a light on the contestation and abuse of contemporary anti- corruption, as well as on the innovation emerging to tackle one of the world's most pressing problems. The book looks to the future to consider the anti-corruption we need to meet the challenges of a discordant world.
This book will be an essential read for students, researchers, professionals, and activists interested in how anti-corruption practice unfolds in a volatile age.
List of contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World: Contestation, Abuse, and Innovation
PART II: CONTESTATION 2. Populism, Discourse, and Change: Anti-Corruption Policies in Mexico 3. Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Post-Brexit Britain 4. Ten years later, it's no more: unravelling the threads of all-out contestation to Operation Car Wash (Brazil) 5. Adapting anti-corruption to a discordant world: the missed opportunity of monitoring, evaluation and learning
PART III: ABUSE 6. Democracy Deferred: The Executive Presidential System and the Battle Against Corruption in Sri Lanka 7. Are We All Thieves? Countering the State's Strategic Absence with Superficial Anti-Corruption Measures in Mongolia's Coal-Gate 8. "All the King's Men": Selectivity in the Russian Anti-Corruption Reforms
PART IV: INNOVATION 9. Civil Society in an Adverse Environment: Transparency International Bangladesh 10. Anti-Corruption with a human rights lens: Latin American experiences of innovation amid contestation 11. Strengthening Anti-Corruption through Translocal Approaches: Nurturing more Resilient Forms of Collective Action 12. AI to innovate anti-corruption: Exploring development models for governmental and non-governmental applications
PART V: CONCLUSION 13. Anti-corruption in a Discordant World: Reflections and Conclusions
About the author
David Jackson is Principal Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Norway. He has published works in peer-reviewed academic journals, such as
Development Studies,
Public Integrity, and S
outheastern and Black Sea Studies, and contributed chapters on Future Research Agendas, Social Norms, and Corruption in the Middle East to several edited volumes.
I
nge Amundsen is Senior Researcher Emeritus at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Norway. He was Director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre from 2002-2006, and he has edited a book on the topic of Political Corruption in Africa.
David Aled Williams is Principal Advisor at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway. He coordinates U4's thematic work on Corruption and Anti-Corruption Efforts in Natural Resources and Energy Sectors. He is author of
The Politics of Deforestation and REDD+ in Indonesia: Global Climate Change Mitigation, published by Routledge (2023).
