Recently, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the Pandora Papers, so named apparently because they are ‘opening the box on a lot of things’. Along with the Panama and the Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files, the Luxembourg and Luanda Leaks, the Mauritius Leaks and so on, it does all start to feel a little bit like the Groundhog Day Discoveries.
There’s a real risk that the repeated ‘scandalous’ revelations of how the politically connected and powerful ultra-rich are able to evade international rules and regulations that apply to the overwhelming majority of citizens around the world will generate ever less outrage. Rather than anger, there may now be more of a sense of weary cynicism or powerlessness. As one letter in The Guardian (an ICIJ partner) puts it, ‘So extremely rich people are stashing money away to avoid tax. That’s news then?’.
The details revealed in these various leaks are often jaw-dropping in the sheer scale of the sums involved and the complexity of the mechanisms used to evade detection. But for researchers in the field of anti-corruption, such details are just a starting point: the real challenge is to identify the kinds of intervention that might be able to make a difference so people in positions of power are actually incentivised to drive change.
There are no simple fixes, no easy technocratic blueprints to ‘solve’ the problem of corruption. Instead, we need to redouble our efforts to ensure we focus ever more clearly on specific problems that need to be addressed, the context in which they take place, and the political realities that frame the possibilities for reform measures. The Global Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence programme has been designed from the outset to do just that, generating actionable evidence for use in designing and implementing more effective anti-corruption interventions.
In addition to the Global Integrity suite of projects and the SOAS-ACE consortium that focuses on feasible policies to generate coalitions for change in specific sectors, we are also delighted to welcome a new arm of ACE: the Serious Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme (SOC-ACE), led by our close collaborator Heather Marquette of the University of Birmingham. SOC-ACE focuses specifically on organised crime, illicit finance and transnational corruption and so will be of core relevance to the revelations in the Pandora Papers, as well linking closely to our own projects that explore the link between high-level corruption and the enabling international architecture that supports illicit financial flows and the role of professional intermediaries.
Paul Heywood
Programme Director, GI-ACE
We are deeply saddened by the passing of GI-ACE researcher Vanessa Watson. She was a truly inspirational leader for the Cities of Integrity team and her legacy leaves a lasting mark on the field of urban studies. We extend our sincere condolences to her loved ones.
RESEARCH UPDATES
from the project teams
Transparency International Uganda (TIU) in partnership with Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA), Makerere University, and with support from University of California Santa Barbara, and Brigham Daniels at BYU Law School are piloting a project in Uganda called “Recognizing Good Governance in District Procurement” (RGGDP).
So far, the project has mapped the district, developed training materials and held a number of training and outreach meetings in 50 target areas. For more information on this project and its findings, go to the project page.
Mark your calendars! Starting in November, ACE research teams will share how their research projects have aligned with the founding principles of the GI-ACE programme: developing anti-corruption interventions that are problem-focused, politically viable, have engaged practitioners throughout the research process, and provide avenues through which to measure the effects of the reforms. Set some time aside in your calendars, and come ready with questions! Sign up for the first event in the series here!
The Online Week of Central Eurasian Studies (CESS) is coming up this weekend – watch GI-ACE researcher John Heathershaw speaking on how “Western Professional Service Providers Enable the Elites of Kleptocratic States?“. The presentation will be chaired by Jacqueline Klopp, GI-ACE researcher from Columbia University. Tune in on Saturday 16 October, 9:15-10:45 (UTC-4).
PUBLICATIONS
journal articles & working papers
Social Audits in Rural Government Schemes in India
Measuring Performance: Performance Ranking State Success over Two Decades in India by Amrita Dhillon, Farzana Afridi, Arka Roy Chaudhuri and Saattvic proposes new composite measures of relative and dynamic state performance to improve governance and delivery of public programs in developing countries with a federal structure. The researchers have ranked the performance of 19 major Indian states on two large development programs launched by the Indian government over the last two decades using publicly available data. These findings have important implications for both the design and implementation of public service programs of such large scale.
Electoral Competition, Accountability and Corruption: Theory and Evidence from India by Farzana Afridi, Sourav Bhattacharya, and Eilon Solan looks at the effect of electoral competition on corruption when uncertainty in elections is high (or accountability is low), as is the case in many developing countries.
Grand Corruption in Nigeria
Grand Corruption in Nigeria: What can be learned from a review of cases? by Jackie Harvey and Petrus Van Duyne addresses how current international anti-corruption frameworks function in Nigeria, focusing specifically on “current approaches and system weakness for successfully identifying the beneficial owner of the proceeds of corruption around the globe”.
Exit, Voice, and Sabotage
Exit, Voice, Sabotage: Public Service Motivation and Guerrilla Bureaucracy in Times of Unprincipled Political Principals by Izabela Correa, Kim Sass Mikkelsen and Christian Schuster looks at how democratic backsliding has multiplied “unprincipled” political principals: governments with weak commitment to the public interest. They ask the question, why do some bureaucrats engage in voice and guerrilla sabotage to thwart policies against the public interest under “unprincipled principals,” yet others do not?
How can academia & policy communicate in anti-corruption?
Heather Marquette, Jonathan Cushing and Leslie Holmes share their expertise.
THE ARCHIVES
what we’ve been up to
In the last few months, Programme Director Paul Heywood has given numerous presentations on his Strategy, Scale, and Substance paper (with Mark Pyman) and the broader GI-ACE programme at USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Center, the Nordic Political Science Association, the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, and the Business Integrity Programme of Transparency International UK.
Liz David-Barrett and Mihály Fazekas won the ECPR Best Paper Award for a paper on Open Contracting Reforms in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in September. Read the paper here.
Tom Mayne from the GI-ACE project on Anti-Money Laundering & Banking/Reputation spoke at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs event on “The Political Economy of Kyrgyzstan’s Revolutions” on September 27th.
Jan Meyer-Sahling and research team members from their project on Integrity and Civil Servants in Nepal and Bangladesh presented papers at the IRSPM Conference, and the Annual Meeting of the Korean Association of Public Administration in June 2021.