With Pausanias (and Others) in the Agora of Sparta

The authority of peer reviews among states in the global governance of corruption

“…The high levels of appropriateness reported in the survey are surprising considering the variation in legal and nonlegal instruments under review and some of the critique raised in interviews. Interviewed delegates particularly criticized the GRECO's assessment standards of the fourth evaluation round, which deals with nonbinding legislation (interviews 32, 33,35,39). Delegates reportedly disagree about what constitutes good performance and compliance under this review theme (interviews 22,32,33,35).…”

“…Interviewed delegates particularly criticized the GRECO's assessment standards of the fourth evaluation round, which deals with nonbinding legislation (interviews 32, 33,35,39). Delegates reportedly disagree about what constitutes good performance and compliance under this review theme (interviews 22,32,33,35). 14 Furthermore, interviewees found the standards of assessment in the GRECO vaguer, leading to longer discussions over what the minimum standards and expectations are.…”

“…This situation is not unique to the WGB but also happens in the GRECO (interviews 22,31,34,35) and other peer reviews, such as the Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights (Carraro, 2017). The plenary can partly offset such politically-motivated behavior, as delegates that themselves received certain recommendations may be particularly adamant on making sure that other states do not get away with fewer or less far-reaching recommendations than they did (interviews 33,41). Finally, and surprisingly perhaps, many interviewed officials reported that the IRM reviews are very technical and not politically biased; it is a legal compliance exercise (interviews 20,24,29,45).…”

“…What this analysis does reveal is that the extent to which context-specific expectations of uniform treatment are satisfied is somewhat lower in the WGB than in the IRM and GRECO. Interviews, for instance, revealed that the GRECO has pursued an approach of assessing each country on its own merits from the Fourth Evaluation Round onward (interviews 22,32,33,37,39). The extent to which standards of assessment are applied uniformly was overall assessed positively, although the GRECO has comparably the largest share of respondents that consider the degree to which this is done too high.…”