Why Anticorruption Reforms Fail—Systemic
Corruption as a Collective Action Problemgove_1604 449..471
ANNA PERSSON,* BO ROTHSTEIN,* and JAN TEORELL**
With an increased awareness of the detrimental effects of corruption on
development, strategies to fight it are now a top priority in policy circles.
Yet, in countries ridden with systemic corruption, few successes have
resulted from the investment. On the basis of an interview study conducted
in Kenya and Uganda—two arguably typically thoroughly corrupt
countries—we argue that part of an explanation to why anticorruption
reforms in countries plagued by widespread corruption fail is that they are
based on a theoretical mischaracterization of the problem of systemic corruption.
More specifically, the analysis reveals that while contemporary
anticorruption reforms are based on a conceptualization of corruption as a
principal–agent problem, in thoroughly corrupt settings, corruption rather
resembles a collective action problem. This, in turn, leads to a breakdown of
any anticorruption reform that builds on the principal–agent framework,
taking the existence of noncorruptible so-called principals for granted