Civil society as an anti-corruption actor in post-Euromaidan Ukraine

Harasymiw, Bohdan

doi:10.1080/00085006.2019.1636630

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Uncovered cases such as The Philippines, for instance, reveal that even at the onset of high levels of democracy with a robust civil society, independent media, and institutional guarantees for participation and deliberation, high corruption still persists-a trend entirely opposite of South Korea whose corruption is rather low. The same is true with Ukraine whose robust civil society has not contributed to successful anti-corruption efforts (Harasymiw, 2019). This is, however, in line with the expectations in QCA, particularly the existence of multiple pathways for the same outcome.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…In policy, anti-corruption experts caution that if corruption reform does not tackle other actors or issues simultaneously with other concerns, they are most like to fail (You, 2015). From a similar configurational fashion, that civil society plays an ambivalent role in anti-corruption (Harasymiw, 2019) is not surprising. Several scholars have put forward that civil society may or may not be decisive in addressing corruption depending on circumstances and contexts.…”

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…As structuralists claim, the state establishes the framework within which civil society operates (Bernhard, 1993;Linz and Stepan, 1996). States can thus empower CSOs by providing them public recognition and access to policy-making through consultation mechanisms or disarm them through denial of such opportunities (Harasymiw, 2019). Among the drivers for civil society's ineffectiveness as an anti-corruption actor stems from this lack of domestic structural support even at the presence of international pressure (Harasymiw, 2019).…”

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…States can thus empower CSOs by providing them public recognition and access to policy-making through consultation mechanisms or disarm them through denial of such opportunities (Harasymiw, 2019). Among the drivers for civil society's ineffectiveness as an anti-corruption actor stems from this lack of domestic structural support even at the presence of international pressure (Harasymiw, 2019). The worry over the shrinking of the civic space as part of a state's autocratization efforts thus becomes all the more material.…”

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, and in a seemingly configurational manner, Mela (2009) found that where press freedom accompanies and democratic governance sustains rule of law, the effect of rule of law in curbing corruption is evident. Among the critical supporting factors for CSO to be consistently an effective anti-corruption agent is the media (Harasymiw, 2019), and governmental crackdown on such apparatus has serious implications in anti-corruption. Thus, the existence of extensive media freedoms is considered another important condition.…”

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conditional and Differential? Locating the Role of Civil Society in Anti-corruption Policy Outcomes

Villanueva¹

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Quantitative, and to a much lesser degree qualitative, research is the dominant approach to corruption. However, the call to investigate the contextual dependencies of corruption is brought about by the failure of anti-corruption approaches that do not tackle other actors or institutions and issues simultaneously. One approach that can tackle the complex nature of corruption from this perspective but remains wanting in corruption research is Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Much more limited is the application of QCA in understanding civil society’s anti-corruption role. The supposed place of civil society in anti-corruption is even more compounded by contemporary events that directly assault their presence in countries, regardless of the type of government or economic development in place. This closing of civic space phenomenon is part of the broader democratic backsliding or autocratization that has pervaded even long standing and consolidated democracies. Locating the place of civil society given such contexts poses a daunting challenge, as one may ask: if democratic grounds are backsliding, where are anti-corruption efforts anchored on? As such, the dissertation intends to look at configurations of (democratic) political institutions that enhance or mitigate corruption while trying to locate the position occupied by civil society in this respect. Taking a cue from the civil society-corruption nexus and the broader democracy-corruption linkage scholarship, with institutionalism as an overarching theory, the dissertation hopes to contribute to the discourse via three related studies. Results • The first of these serves as a springboard for the argument that civil society cannot battle corruption all alone. While internal civil society characteristics may have a part in corruption mitigation, through a large-N quantitative analysis, the study highlights the importance of civil society environment, transparency of laws and predictability of enforcement and rigorousness and impartiality of public administration on corruption. • Noting that the formula derived from regression analyses shows the average net effects of the independent variables, the second study looks at the combinatorial effects of conditions necessary and/or sufficient for the outcome high perceived corruption to occur through fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). o The configurational analysis of 33 episodes of contemporary autocratization from the third wave (1994- 2017) confirm the conditionality of civil society’s effects as the condition robust civil society organizations combines with the presence of extensive media freedoms and simultaneously the presence of wide and independent public deliberations to produce the outcome high perceived corruption. o The pathway to corruption in these states experiencing autocratization also includes two sufficient conditions: the presence of high political exclusion as well as the absence of sociopolitical integration. No necessary precondition was found for the outcome presence of high perceived corruption. Given the pretext of equifinality and multifinality in QCA, the third study extends the second but in the context of 30 democracies that did not experience substantial autocratization episodes in the same given period. o The results are interesting although not surprising under the theoretical underpinnings of QCA: the absence of high perceived corruption in non-autocratizing states is not brought about by robust civil society organizations (in their presence or absence; or individually or in combination with other conditions) but instead by the presence of wide and independent public deliberations combined with the absence of high political exclusion. The latter is also a necessary condition for the outcome of interest. o While the conditionality of civil society’s effect is confirmed in the second study, the third highlights the possibility of the differential impacts of civil society depending on context. Limitations of the dissertation are discussed and venues for future research are presented.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Conditions For Corruption and Why Civil Society's Anti-c...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Conditional and Differential? Locating the Role of Civil Society in Anti-corruption Policy Outcomes

Villanueva¹

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Memories of a onetime Sovietologist

Harasymiw

2024

Canadian Slavonic Papers

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Victim of Its Own Success (?) – The European Union's Anti‐corruption Policy Advice in Ukraine Between Grand Visions and (Geo)political Realities

Richter

2023

J of Common Market Studies

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The European Union's (EU) external governance enjoys significant attention in the literature. Yet its outcomes are usually assessed with reference to strategic documents or scholars' self‐designed criteria. This article contributes to the ongoing debate with a discourse analysis focusing on the perceptions of anti‐corruption reform outcomes in Ukraine by actors on different levels in the EU. Simultaneously, structural factors are incorporated into the analysis. It demonstrates that although constant progress is officially proclaimed by the EU, even technical advisers disagree on how success in this crucial domain is understood and how to measure it. High‐level representatives face a balancing act between conditionality demands, sovereignty limitations and geopolitical considerations. This explains the official signalling by the EU and the development of its rule‐of‐law reform conditionality. The outcome is a potential state of moral hazard and raise the question whether EU external governance has not become a victim of its ‘own success’.

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Civil society as an anti-corruption actor in post-Euromaidan Ukraine

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

Conditional and Differential? Locating the Role of Civil Society in Anti-corruption Policy Outcomes

Conditional and Differential? Locating the Role of Civil Society in Anti-corruption Policy Outcomes

Memories of a onetime Sovietologist

Victim of Its Own Success (?) – The European Union's Anti‐corruption Policy Advice in Ukraine Between Grand Visions and (Geo)political Realities

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