Anti-Corruption: What Do We Know? Research on Preventing Corruption in the Post-Communist World
| Date | 01 May 2007 |
| Author | Diana Schmidt |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1478-9299.2007.00129.x |
| Published date | 01 May 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Anti-corruption: What Do We Know?
Research on Preventing Corruption in the
Post-communist World
Diana Schmidt
Research Centre for East European Studies
This review assesses the anti-corruption literature in a first attempt to identify systematically significant
trends so far and challenges remaining to future political science research. Research on anti-corruption
is a young métier.While reflecting on the field at large, the review focuses on two issues that have been
central to its development: the role of post-communist Eastern Europe and of civil society involvement.
Organised in a chronological way, the review distinguishes and discusses four phases, in order to trace how
scholars have addressed these two issues in the context of a rapid evolution of anti-corruption debates,
ongoing transformations in Eastern Europe and increasing insight into the controversial matter of
anti-corruption efforts. It considers four crucial periods: (1) earlier scholarly debates on corruption
(pre-1990s); (2) initial anti-corruption debates (1990s); (3) a period of reorientation (early 2000s); and (4)
latest anti-corruption debates (mid-2000s). Changing perspectives on anti-corruption in relation to
post-communism and civil society involvement are discussed for each of the four phases in order to
delineate the different research trajectories. This leads to the conclusion that future research, while
addressing the theory deficit, needs to take account of increasingly complex conceptual challenges posed
by the (interrelated) changes in international and domestic governance.
Corruption – The New Menace from the East?
By the late 1980s, Robert Klitgaard (1991, p. 201) concluded from his study of
corruption, which was guided by the central question of how to control it,
‘Obviously a lot more research is needed’. His attention was on studying public
management in developing countries, and his primary concern was to trigger
improving frameworks for anti-corruption-oriented policy analysis.Thereupon, it
seemed that history got in the way of corresponding research efforts with the end
of the Cold War.The breakdown of communism in Central and Eastern Europe
(CEE) and the Soviet Union deflected scholarly interest from many disciplines to
this region and the ongoing transformations.Yet, in fact, rampant corruption in
Eastern Europe, partly inherited from communist or Soviet times, partly caused
by the post-communist restructuring in all spheres of political and economic life,
has caught much of this attention.1
Anti-corruption debates and activities, in addition to existing scholarly literatures
on corruption, have since then experienced a new boom. Analysts agree on a
significant increase of attention paid to ‘corruption’ in the political discourse
throughout the 1990s.2 Most importantly, the anti-corruption idea has entered
international debates with a move towards framing corruption as a major
‘global problem’ requiring collective counteraction in the form of international
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
A N T I - C O R RU P T I O N : W H AT D O W E K N OW ?
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mobilisation, agreement and regulation. Anti-corruption measures were initi-
ated in a rapid and far-reaching way, including the emergence of new inter-
national and non-state actors, the organisation of anti-corruption conferences
and portals and the establishment of agreements, conventions, legislative acts
and voluntary standards.Two fundamental phenomena of the post-Cold War era
have given substantial impetus to this rise of transnational advocacy against
corruption: the comparatively high levels of corruption in post-communist
CEE3 and the emergence of civil society organisations (CSOs) throughout this
region. Accordingly, the anti-corruption discourse is paying much attention to
the post-communist world, and Russia in particular, as well as to fostering civil
society involvement. ‘Anti-corruption’ remains a pressing issue for both inter-
national actors and political scientists to this day. However, as this article shows,
this has not been a steady crusade. The anti-corruption sphere has experienced
turbulences, in particular concerning the issues of post-communist countries
and civil society involvement. Moreover, political science studies have hardly
addressed related questions in a systematic way.
With the ambition of offering ‘a representative, up-to-date and authoritative
guide to the literature on corruption’ (Williams, 2000c, p. xvii), a team of editors
has recently compiled a four-volume corruption edition with most relevant
articles from the late 1980s up to 1998, which includes an extra volume with
articles on anti-corruption strategies (Williams and Doig, 2000). Nevertheless,
this seminal contribution has forfeited some topicality. The editors mention the
difficulty in deciding whether to place Russia in the volume on the developed
world or in that on the developing world (Williams, 2000c, p. xvii). Another
recent volume on corruption places its only chapter (out of 48) on post-
communist CEE in the section on ‘authoritarian regimes’4 while the sections on
‘entrenched and transitional corruption’ and ‘international efforts to control
corruption’ do not refer to the post-communist world.The latter remains clearly
under-represented in the seminal contributions. Yet this does not mean that
analysts have remained silent on the subject.
To date, a multitude of actors have established immense databases and portals on
anti-corruption and associated issues, and ‘the flow of publications on corruption
has now turned into a raging torrent’ (Williams, 2000c, p. xiii), making it difficult,
even for specialists, to monitor or read everything written on the issue in news
media, official reports, analyses or books. Recent research on corruption has
incited or amended anti-corruption strategies pursued by policy-makers, donors,
businesses and civil society. Still, corruption fighters stress that ‘Serious efforts to
combat corruption are still believed to be in their infancy in most countries, and
reliable information about the nature and extent of domestic and transnational
corruption is difficult to obtain’ (United Nations, 2004b, foreword). Scholars, in
turn, keep lamenting that ‘We still lack firmly grounded theories of corruption
and the shortage of analytically informed empirical inquiries continues’
(Williams, 2000c, p. xiii). Moreover, how to reduce corruption ‘is not clear at all
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Political Studies Review: 2007, 5(2)
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D I A N A S C H M I D T
although suggestions for fighting corruption abound’ (Jain, 2001, p. 98). Finally,
few reforms have been completely successful and some have proven
counterproductive. All these concerns have been reiterated regarding the post-
communist world.While ‘Central and Eastern Europe have been a major focus of
increasingly sophisticated analyses of corruption and for the development of
anti-corruption initiatives’ (Philp, 2005, p. 94), meagre progress and contested
results incite anti-corruption experts to rethink the particularities of post-
communist (and communist) contexts. More generally, a recent review of the
corruption literature suggests in the final footnote:
A rich area for research would appear to be the influence of transitional
states of societies on the level of corruption ...The study of corruption
during politically instable periods may offer fertile ground for further
work ( Jain, 2001, n. 81).
It is true that anti-corruption in CEE is an under-represented field.Yet this does
not mean that research has totally ignored this theme over the past fifteen years
of post-communist transformation. Still, researchers themselves keep contending
that ‘good data are often unavailable and much more in-depth research is needed’
(Karklins, 2005, p. 126) or point to various unintended consequences of anti-
corruption measures looming through recent findings (e.g. Krastev, 2004; Philp,
2005).This field has produced some valuable case and comparative studies, but it
remains scattered.The lack of dialogue across research communities has curtailed
conceptual, methodological and theoretical advances. A survey of the existing
literature may be a helpful move.
This article reviews the anti-corruption literature in a first attempt systematically
to identify developments and deficits. It does not aim at comprehensively
covering the ‘ever expanding literature on anti-corruption strategies’ (Williams,
2000c, p. xvi) in its whole multidisciplinary and variegated thematic scopes.
Rather, it seeks to identify trajectories with a relevance to political science and
with a focus on the role of the post-communist world and of civil society as two
concerns that became central to and have initiated many of these debates.
Moreover, rather than discussing the contents of individual contributions in much
detail, the review addresses the field at large, in order to delineate significant
trends so far and the challenges remaining to future research on anti-corruption
in the post-communist region. It is thus organised in a chronological way,
distinguishing four phases, in order to trace how scholars have addressed the rapid
evolution of a rather recent topic in the context of ongoing transformations in
CEE. Regarding the developments in international political practice, Bryane
Michael distinguishes...
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