Corruption is not just a collection of isolated acts by individuals. It is a complex, adaptive system that evolves in response to efforts to control it. And seeing it this way opens up new possibilities to tackle it more effectively.
This was the central message of a recent Basel Institute on Governance research webinar exploring how corruption evolves and what this means for designing interventions that remain effective over time.
Corruption is frequently associated with money alone and the behaviours of a few individual “bad apples” operating in otherwise healthy governance systems. This is too simplistic. As the latest research shows, including research in Tanzania and Uganda on which this Policy Brief is based, corruption is a networked phenomenon. This Policy Brief explains what this means and its implications for anti-corruption practice.
What can we learn from studying corrupt informal networks linking the public and private sectors? A lot – including how to build stronger multi-stakeholder partnerships against corruption through Collective Action.
This Policy Brief distils recommendations for Collective Action practitioners based on empirical insights on certain forms of corruption involving private-sector actors.