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- ItemCivil Society Against Corruption in Ukraine: Pathways to Impact(2019) Bader, Max; Huss, Oksana; Nesterenko, Oksana; Meleshevych, AndriyThe 2013–2014 Revolution in Ukraine has spurred a boom in civic anti-corruption initiatives across Ukraine. There is as yet little consolidated understanding of how effective these initiatives are and what explains variation in effectiveness. Insights from academic and practitioner literature suggest that factors associated with success in anti-corruption activism fall under three broad categories: environmental factors, advocacy strategies of civil society organizations, and their organizational characteristics. Drawing on a comprehensive study of anti-corruption activism in the regions of Ukraine, this article asks how these insights relate to anti-corruption activism in the regions of Ukraine. We find that anti-corruption initiatives generally face two key dilemmas: insufficient capacity in terms and financial and human resources, and the absence of a credible base of support. Anti-Corruption organizations that are most effective tend to be those that convincingly solve either one of these two dilemmas. In addition, we find that political will among local authorities is an important conducive factor to the effectiveness of anti-corruption activism. The article also discusses the implications of our findings for practitioners of international assistance.
- ItemCorrupting or Stabilizing: The Political Economy of Corruption in Donbas’s "People’s Republics"(2019) Gricius, GabriellaA wide range of normative implications exists between corruption and the stability of de-facto states. While some claim that corruption inherently disrupts institutional development and stumps economic growth, others argue that corruption in some cases acts as a stabilizing factor for authoritarian regimes. Regardless, corruption generally plays a role in the political economy of any state. In de-facto states, corruption tends to play an outsized role, either or equally impacting the exercise of political authority or the allocation of public goods and services. This research aims to examine the case study of the Luhansk and Donetsk "People’s Republics" and the relationship between corruption and governance in these two de-facto regions to better understand how corruption and stability are interrelated. Methodologically, I plan to use mostly political economy methods, namely focusing on using Goodhand’s framework of analyzing different economies during conflict. I will rely mostly on open-source information for this preliminary research to determine what the governance structure is, namely focusing on the DPR’s and the LPR’s respective governments.
- ItemHumanizing (Anti)Corruption: The Socio-Legal Values of a Human Rights-Based Approach to Corruption(2019) Castro e Silva, BrunaThis article intends to contribute to the current academic and policy debate on the values of determining whether a particular human rights violation was caused by a corrupt behavior; and to defend a human rights-based approach to corruption, based on its added socio-legal values. With this purpose, it analyzes and compares the legal reasoning and socio-legal dynamics of three human rights court cases involving and not involving corruption. By applying a directed content analysis combined with a socio-legal interpretative technique, the study explores and compares the rationality and the values addressed in both corrupt and non-corrupt cases. The results reveal that there are interconnected and mutually reinforcing socio-legal values in applying a human rights lens to combating corruption: (i) it is an improvement towards the justiciability of economic and social rights; (ii) it is a change of paradigm from the insufficient criminal approach to a focus on the social harm; and (iii) it is a more satisfactory approach to the overlapping harmful effects of corruption and inequality. The combination of these values can be used as a legal empowerment strategy, with a particular social accountability dimension, in order to strengthen the disadvantaged, and fight the encroachment caused by corruption on the enjoyment of human rights, especially economic and social rights.
- ItemThe EU’s Trifecta Mechanisms: Analysis of EU’s Response to the Challenges to the Rule of Law and Corruption(2019) Panov, StoyanThe following paper examines the envisaged framework and effectiveness of the triangulation of mechanisms currently planned at the EU level: the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), proceedings under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) against Poland and Hungary, and the mechanism to protect EU’s budget in deficiencies with regards to the rule of law in Member States. This research focuses on the overall structure and powers of the EPPO with special attention on its role in investigating and prosecuting offences affecting to the EU’s financial interests. This includes active and passive corruption among others with particular emphasis on the expected interaction between the EPPO and the national authorities. However, not all EU Member States have joined the EPPO framework. Here the role of the EU institutions is analyzed in light of the recent developments in Article 7 TEU proceedings. A third possible mechanism to react to the growth of executive powers in some states and the corresponding imbalances is the EU Commission’s proposal for a mechanism on the protection of the EU’s budget in case of generalized deficiencies as regards the rule of law. This may include corruption or other breaches to the implementation of the Union budget.
- ItemThe Influence of Public Corruption and Human Values on Trust in the Police: A European Cross-National Perspective(2019) Pfister, SabrinaPolice forces are an important part of every democratic system and depend on societal legitimacy to perform their duties. Societal legitimacy stems from compliance with binding principles, like human rights and national law, and from broad acceptance from the people. Accordingly, police forces need the public’s trust to perform their duties in today’s European democracies. This paper investigates trust in police forces based on individual and contextual factors found in European countries. To explain trust in police forces, this paper uses human values on an individual level as well as perceived public-sector corruptionon a macro level. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey 2016 (ESS) and the Corruption Perception Index 2015 (CPI). It combines individual and contextual factors using multilevel models to explore differing levels of trust in police forces as well as the dynamics between perceived public-sector corruption, human values, and trust in the police. The results confirm previous findings that trust in police forces erodes in the face of perceived public-sector corruption, while human values play a sub-ordered role in the explanation of trust in the police in European countries.