Public governance experts and other practitioners are increasingly interested in the role of social norms and cultural codes in driving – or preventing – behaviour, including corrupt behaviour, and shaping the governance capacity of public and administrative bodies.
The Public Governance division supports the Basel Institute’s wider mission of developing evidence-based approaches to combatting public sector corruption. Our research both contributes to academic debate and translates into practical tools to support anti-corruption reforms.
News
Social norms and corruption research published in book on Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law
A summary of groundbreaking research into social norms and attitudes towards corruption by our Public Governance team has been published in Ellis, Jane (ed.) Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law – Exploration across the disciplines. Published by Routledge, the book is part of a series entitled The Law of Financial Crime.
This eye-opening exploration of social norms and attitudes towards corruption appears in Chapter 12 of Ellis, Jane (ed.) Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law – Exploration across the disciplines, published by Routledge on 15 May 2019 as part of a series entitled The Law of Financial Crime. See the publisher's flyer with full details of the book and a 20% discount code.
This article results from the project on Informal governance and corruption - Transcending the Principal Agent and Collective Action Paradigms, funded by the British Academy-DFID Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) programme.
The author's aim in this project was to explore local patterns of informality in Kyrgyzstan in order to understand how relations of power and influence are organised in daily life.
Some 13 students from all over the world are in Basel this week completing the final sessions of their International Master in Anti-Corruption Compliance and Collective Action, awarded by the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA).
The Basel Institute's Head of Governance Research, Dr Claudia Baez Camargo, attended a consultation event on a proposed international network focused on Anti-corruption, Transparency and Accountability (ACTA) measures for health systems.
The Basel Institute will be launching an innovative project promoting systematic, intelligence-led action against illegal wildlife trafficking (IWT) networks along the East Africa – Southeast Asia trading chain.
The Basel Institute's Vice-President, Prof. Dr. iur. Anne Peters, has published an illuminating paper on "Corruption as a Violation of International Human Rights".
Published in the European Journal of International Law, the article asks two basic questions:
- Can we legally view corruption as a violation of human rights?
- Should we?
Peters' clear writing and examples make this an essential read for anyone concerned about corruption, human rights and the link between the two.
States perceived to be highly corrupt are at the same time those with a poor human rights record. International institutions have therefore assumed a negative feedback loop between both social harms. They deplore that corruption undermines the enjoyment of human rights and, concomitantly, employ human rights as a normative framework to denounce and combat corruption. But the human rights-based approach has been criticized as vague and over-reaching.