Grappling with the “real politics” of systemic corruption: Theoretical debates versus “real‐world” functions

Abstract

A growing body of research argues that anticorruption efforts fail because of a flawed theoretical foundation, where collective action theory is said to be a better lens for understanding corruption than the dominant principal–agent theory. We unpack this critique and advance several new arguments. First, the application of collective action theory to the issue of corruption has been, thus far, incomplete. Second, a collective action theory‐based approach to corruption is in fact complementary to a principal–agent approach, rather than contradictory as is claimed. Third, applications of both theories have failed to recognize that corruption persists because it functions to provide solutions to problems. We conclude by arguing that anticorruption effectiveness is difficult to achieve because it requires insights from all three perspectives—principal–agent theory, collective action theory, and corruption as serving functions—which allows us to better understand how to harness the political will needed to fight corruption.

Getting the basic nature of systemic corruption right: A reply to Marquette and Peiffer

“…This core insight generated by recent studies—which can also help explain the overall failure of contemporary anticorruption efforts to actually fight corruption (cf. Persson et al, )—is what has primarily provoked the critical piece entitled “Grappling With the ‘Real Politics’ of Systemic Corruption: Theoretical Debates Versus ‘Real‐World’ Functions,” written by Heather Marquette and Caryn Peiffer, and recently published in this journal (Marquette & Peiffer, ).…”

Thinking politically about corruption as problem‐solving: A reply to Persson, Rothstein, and Teorell

“…While we agree that a collective action‐based approach to anticorruption can (and should) consider any role that corruption's functionality plays in systemic corruption, something that we in fact argued in 2018 (Marquette & Peiffer, , p. 508), we strongly disagree with their assessment that this had already been done by themselves in their 2013 article or by most of the scholars writing under the “corruption as a collective action problem” umbrella. We maintain that this literature had not given enough consideration to the role that corruption's functionality plays in fostering collective action problems around corruption.…”

“…In civil society, innovators have emerged, like the Accountability Lab, with its “Integrity Icon,” designed to “name and fame” public officials discharging their duties with integrity in order to generate collective action for better governance . And, of course, there have been a number of academic papers on the subject, including, among others, Persson, Rothstein, and Teorell () and our article (Marquette & Peiffer, ). Persson, Rothstein, and Teorell have recently written a response to our article (Persson, Rothstein, & Teorell, ), and we reply in turn here.…”

“…Instead, what we observed in the literature on a collective action‐based approach to corruption was a strong tendency to emphasize the role that a lack of intragroup trust plays in engendering collective action problems around tackling corruption. We described this observation in 2018: “[C]ollective action theory has largely been used to emphasise how perceptions of others' likely actions factor into decisions to engage in corruption” (Marquette & Peiffer, , p. 508). The main argument emanating from most of this literature was that “agents may well understand that they would stand to gain from erasing corruption, but because they cannot trust that most other agents will refrain from corrupt practices, they have no reason to refrain from paying or demanding bribes” (Rothstein, , p. 231).…”

“…We want to restate our original position here that remains unchanged: By emphasizing the role that social trust can play in shaping corruption patterns, the “corruption as a collective action problem” literature offered an important contribution to thinking about anticorruption. As we wrote in 2018 “viewing corruption in this way makes an important contribution to the field by highlighting the collective, rather than individual, nature of corruption and the very difficult challenge that anticorruption efforts face in changing levels of distrust in society” (Marquette & Peiffer, , p. 502). Indeed, our own work has tested this, finding considerable support for the notion that when individuals believe that corruption is commonly practiced they become less willing to engage in anticorruption action (e.g., Peiffer & Alvarez, ).…”