Abstract
Despite widespread interest in corruption and how to root it out, the problem continues to grow. Anti-corruption strategies and methods have proved ineffective in achieving lasting reductions in corruption. Anti-corruption academic research has not been free of criticism, and part of the problem is its emphasis on macro-level analysis. The case studies in corruption and anti-corruption in this symposium focus on specific areas that have received surprisingly little attention in the literature: the effectiveness of political finance supervisory bodies; the impact of European Union post-conditionality on anti-corruption efforts; and the increased use of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in shaping the way that corruption is conceptualised and combated on a global scale. Together, the articles in this symposium offer some novel insights and approaches to the issue of how best to understand and assess different ways of addressing corruption in specific sectors which have received insufficient attention in the literature to date.
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Notes
Council of Europe, Group of States against Corruption, at: http://www.coe.int/en/web/greco (accessed 28 April 2017).
The Guardian, ‘Romanian parliament approves anti-corruption referendum’, The Guardian, 13 February 2017, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/13/romania-approves-anti-corruption-referendum (accessed 28 April 2017).
OCCRP, ‘Romanians March Against Corruption Bills’, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, 22 January 2018, available at: https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/7539-romanians-march-against-corruption-bills.
A Resource Guide to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (2012) available at: https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fcpa/fcpa-resource-guide.pdf (accessed 28 April 2017).
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Bull, M.J., Heywood, P.M. Introduction: towards a better understanding of corruption and anti-corruption. Eur Polit Sci 18, 185–188 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0152-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0152-0