Reforming Reform: Revising the Anticorruption Playbook

Three decades of anticorruption activism have yielded only indifferent results. It is time to step back and rethink some basic issues. Among them are what the opposite of corruption might look like; our excessive faith in transparency; the distinction between “grand” and “petty” corruption; our reliance on the concept of “political will”; and what the best ways are of measuring corruption and mobilizing civil society. “Best practices” are elusive and do not always transfer well from one setting to the next. However, “better practices” are possible if we understand how corruption arises as a political and social issue, and how well-governed societies got that way. We often turn history upside down, overemphasizing reform from above while neglecting contention from below; and get history backward by mistaking outcomes of contention for the causes of better government. “Deep democratization’ – enabling citizens to demand justice and better government – tailored to contrasting situations and syndromes may yield better long-term results.