In episode 37 of the podcast Sophie au pays des possibles, host and anti-corruption expert Sophie Lemaître conversed with Claudia Baez Camargo, Director of Prevention, Research and Innovation at the Basel Institute on Governance.

Claudia leads a specialised team of researchers who leverage behavioural science, political economy analysis and field research to design context-sensitive anti-corruption strategies. Among others, they advance approaches based on understanding and targeting social norms.

This Q&A is an edited extract of their discussion on why top-down laws often fail against local realities and how practical, bottom-up solutions can empower citizens to drive real change.

Sophie Lemaître: What are social norms, and why is it essential to consider them when addressing corruption?

Claudia Baez Camargo: Essentially, social norms are what we perceive as typical, expected or socially accepted behaviour in a given context.

For example, if a traffic officer stops you in Mexico – where I was born and grew up – most would offer a bribe to get out of the predicament. Or when accessing healthcare services, people might give a “gift” or bribe before receiving care. If they don’t, they fear they won’t receive the service or the correct medicine.

Even if they are personally against corruption and know the law forbids it, the social expectation can push them to do it anyway.

Understanding these expectations is key to designing effective anti-corruption interventions.

Sophie: I’ve heard statements like “Corruption is part of the culture of this country.” Can we say some cultures or countries are more corrupt than others?

Claudia: I’ve often been told, across Africa, Latin America, the Balkans or Asia, “Oh, Claudia, it’s in our culture. What are we going to do?”

But these regions have such vastly different cultures that I doubt culture is the defining factor. In my view, the real drivers are structural.

• First, there are resource constraints: living in poverty and unmet need drives corruption.
• Second, there are weak state institutions. When the state fails to deliver, it generates incentives to bypass the law just to solve problems, make money or access services.

Culture simply adapts around these realities, absorbing corrupt practices through local names and jokes.

Social norms apply to concrete, narrow situations – they dictate what we’re expected to do.

Culture is something we all have an emotional stake in, so calling a culture corrupt is self-degrading and ignores how rich cultures are.

I prefer to focus on social norms because they provide a concrete entry point where we can actually act and change things.

Sophie: Have you noticed people saying that addressing corruption is a Western thing?

Claudia: Government and anti-corruption officials across the board have assimilated the language of good governance, largely because their laws follow UN Conventions. At that level, a Westernised view definitely prevails.

At the grassroots, it’s completely different. In research in Uganda and Tanzania, we used fictional “vignettes” to ask citizens about their perceptions of public officials, presenting two characters:

• One who strictly abides by the law and refuses bribes.
• Another who uses their authority to extract resources, but distributes them to their family and community. Stealing in order to share, like Robin Hood.

Almost without exception, people said the one stealing and sharing was great, loved and respected, while the law-abiding official was called a traitor who ignored his community responsibilities.

From this view, the “corrupt” ones are those who fail to use power to look after their network.

Ultimately, there is vast room for interpretation regarding what corruption is, depending entirely on social norms, cultural environments and practical needs.

Sophie: How can we induce behaviour change to create a culture of integrity when the situation involves so many social norms, informal practices and other drivers?

Claudia: A lot of anti-corruption projects and investments are still very prescriptive. Focusing purely on top-down “best practices” and laws creates an “implementation gap”: countries with excellent laws on paper but terrible results in practice.

To achieve sustainable change, we must go bottom-up.

Working at the subnational or municipal level shows a lot of promise, because it allows local governments to engage directly with constituents, jointly identify priorities and co-design solutions.

As scholar Yuen Yuen Ang argues in her work on adaptive political economy, you cannot expect context-defying behaviours to emerge just because you pass a law. We need to use what is already there – local practices, social networks and community groups – to solve problems sustainably without corruption.

It does not have to be a textbook Western “best practice”, as long as it works.

Sophie: Do you have a success story or promising initiative you could share?

Claudia: On success stories, once I worked on a project on a remote island in the Philippines where the mayor was a true champion for his community. He even gave his personal mobile number to every citizen.

It was a very poor community, but because things were decided collectively, their few resources were visibly used in the best interest of everyone.

On promising initiatives, I’m currently supporting a Swiss-funded project in Moldova that takes this bottom-up approach seriously: its first year is dedicated purely to building trust among local stakeholders. Without trust, people can’t collaborate or identify joint priorities.

Investing in trust, then letting the community take the driver’s seat, is essential for sustainability. Otherwise, once funding dries up, everything regresses.

Sophie: Anti-corruption progress is slow, and we’re experiencing a global backlash. What keeps you motivated?

Claudia: What I love about my job is going to different countries and speaking with mayors, citizen groups, civil society organisations and the private sector – the real people on the ground whose lives would be transformed if there were less corruption.

That’s what motivates me. Corruption remains a devastating barrier to development and poverty reduction. We often hear we need to “raise awareness”, but that isn’t true; in almost every context, people already know what’s corrupt, suffer from it and dislike it.

We simply cannot give up. The climate can be demotivating, but if we’re passive spectators, we can say goodbye to the institutions we’ve fought for. With our actions, we can intervene and change the course of events.

Sophie: One final question: how can we as individual citizens play a role in fighting corruption?

Claudia: First, by understanding our duties. Good governance is fundamentally linked to democracy, and whether you live in an established or fragile democracy, the legal framework almost always gives citizens instruments to engage with their representatives.

If we normalise using these tools to question authority and demand accountability, we strengthen the rule of law and put corrupt actors under scrutiny. If enough people do this, a lot can change.

Learn more

• Quick Guide: Social norms and corruption

• Research Case Study: Harnessing behavioural approaches against corruption

• Blog – Bridging the gap: How behavioural science can strengthen anti-corruption and crime prevention

• Article – Corruption and Social Norms: A New Arrow in the Quiver

• Episode 37 of Sophie au pays des possibles