What other approaches help us better understand why corruption persists?
Just like ‘corruption’ is too complex to be captured in one word, it’s also too complex to be explained with one theory or approach. While evidence suggests that understanding corruption functionality is vital, there are other drivers and factors as well that require other lenses too. In addition to the lens of ‘functionality’, there are at least two other theories that help us understand why corruption persists and how interventions might be designed: principal agent theory and collective action theory.[7]
Principal-agent theory
Most anti-corruption policies and interventions are based on principal-agent theory (see Bardhan, 1997; Klitgaard, 1988; Rose-Ackerman, 1978; Ugur & Dasgupta, 2011, among others). At its simplest, these are based on a belief that corruption occurs when people have the opportunity to engage in corrupt activities, and that they expect to not be held accountable for doing so. The result is that effective anti-corruption interventions are those that reduce opportunities to engage in corruption and increase the costs involved for those who do.
Some examples of interventions informed by principal-agent theory include:
- Monitoring systems, such as conducting regular audits
- E-governance initiatives and similar initiatives that increase transparency
- Freedom of information legislation
Questions
The following questions are meant to help you think through whether and how principal-agent theory factors might affect your planned activities:
- Monitoring: Is it difficult to monitor and, if so, why? To what extent can the actors involved be monitored? How can monitoring be improved, and do you have the authority/ability to improve it?
- Opportunity: Is there a way to reduce opportunities for corruption? If so, what would this involve?
- Impunity: Are corrupt offenders likely to be punished if caught? Are actors fearful of being caught and, importantly, punished?
Collective action theory
There has been a growing interest in using insights from collective action theory when designing anti-corruption interventions. The main contribution so far is recognising that societal trust and social norms play important roles both in the persistence of corrupt patterns and as barriers to anti-corruption efforts (Marquette & Peiffer, 2019; see also Heywood, 2017; Hoffmann & Patel, 2017; Ledeneva, Bratu & Köker, 2017; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015; Persson, Rothstein & Teorell, 2012; Scharbatke-Church & Chigas, 2019, among others). Research on social norms, for example, has found that people are more likely to behave in a range of corrupt behaviours if they believe that others are doing so (Tankard and Paluck, 2016).
To put it simply, if a person thinks that most people around them are engaging in corruption, they may have few incentives or interest in refraining from corrupt behaviour themselves. The challenge this poses for anti-corruption efforts is significant. Research suggests that some anti-corruption efforts may be ineffective unless social trust around corruption is increased and widespread perceptions about others’ behaviour with regard to corruption are changed.
Questions
The following questions are meant to help you think through whether and how collective action and social norms/trust factors might affect your planned activities:
- Is there a general belief that corruption is ‘just how things are done’?
- Do the actors involved believe that most people in their position are engaging in this type of corruption? Are they pessimistic about whether this type of corruption can effectively be tackled?
- Is society in general pessimistic about tackling corruption? If so, is there a way to reduce this pessimism and increase willingness to do things differently? If so, what would this have to involve?