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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the combination of anti-corruption measures, with simultaneous impact on the institutional, economic and cultural dimensions, is associated with lower levels of corruption. Design/methodology/approach The authors have developed a research that seeks to find statistical evidence of the relationship between levels of corruption and combinations of anti-corruption measures. To test the hypotheses, the authors performed panel regression analysis using different panel estimation methods, namely, fixed effects (FE) models. Findings The results do not fully support the idea that the combination of anti-corruption measures with simultaneous impact on the institutional, economic and cultural dimensions has more impact on corruption levels than other measures taken singly, but rather that the most determining factor in preventing corruption lies in government effectiveness. Originality/value The relevance of this study lies in the shortcomings of this type of research applied to anti-corruption measures. Moreover, the development of panel data analysis makes it possible to approach the phenomenon from a double perspective, over time and in comparative terms between different countries, incorporating non-immediate effects and possible interactive effects between different anti-corruption measures.

This volume provides an analytical framework and operational approaches needed for the implementation of results-based accountability. The volume makes a major contribution to the literature on public management and evaluation. Major subject areas covered in this book include: performance based accountability, e-government, legal and institutional framework to hold government to account; fighting corruption; external accountability and the role of supreme audit institutions on detecting fraud and corruption.

Penalties for corrupt acts are a vital component of integrity management systems within bureaucratic organizations, yet systematic inquiry into specific interventions is lacking. Drawing from the principal–supervisor–agent model, this article explores the criteria for imposing penalties on corrupt bureaucrats at the street level. We examine the impact of various factors on the severity of penalties for corruption, highlighting the influence of top-down anticorruption reform and local enforcement capacity. Utilizing text mining techniques, we build a comprehensive dataset containing 4025 cases of punishing corruption among grassroots officials in China from 2015 to 2023 and use multilevel analysis to explore these dynamics. Findings suggest that anticorruption reform directly led to an increase in the severity of penalties, but with substantial variation across practices. In particular, the analysis reveals a positive correlation between enforcement capacity and the severity of penalties. Moreover, while the relationship between harm and penalty severity represents a generalizable observation, significant disparities exist in the penalties imposed across various types of corruption. This study contributes to understanding the dynamics of multiple punitive measures and the factors leading to penalties imposed on corrupt street-level bureaucrats.

This book chronicles the anticorruption reforms that have transformed public service in Georgia since the Rose Revolution in late 2003. The focus is on the 'how' behind successful reforms of selected public services. This book tries to answer some of these questions. It is based largely on data and informed by interviews with past and current high-ranking government officials who provide insights from within government on the challenges and solutions, the decisions, and the trade-offs considered. This book does not assess Georgia's overall reforms since the rose revolution. It does not address efforts toward democratization, which were a key part of the rose revolution. The book focuses on how the state was able to root out corruption and eliminate red tape in selected public services. It does not analyze areas in which government efforts are still continuing or may have fallen short. Nor does it suggest any causality between anticorruption reforms and growth or social outcomes. From the case studies on each of these efforts, the book identifies a set of common factors that led to the success of the reforms.

Corruption is motivated by the possibility of securing something of value for oneself and ones allies. The desire to secure benefits is a human trait and generally positive for development; various forms of rewards drive humans to get up in the morning, do a good job, and act responsibly. The discussion now turns to the opportunity to secure more benefits than are entitled to within the existing rules of the game; specifically, the opportunity to grab at the expense of society. A decision maker has the authority to influence an outcome that matters to the briber. For steering a decision in the bribers direction, the decision maker is compensated with a bribe. The steered decision and the bribe now become assets that usually exceed what at least one of the players would have obtained without the corrupt act. The opportunity to seize assets through some form of power misuse differs across sectors, organizations, and decision-making situations. This chapter describes the circumstances in which the risk of corruption is particularly highin other words, where the drivers of corruption can be found.

More than 1 billion people around the world live without access to safe, potable water, in part because of poor governance and corruption. Illegal connections and substantial losses caused by deferred maintenance have eroded the revenues of water utilities, leading to a downward spiral in performance. Embezzlement of funds, bribes for access to illegal water connections, manipulation of meter counters, and collusion in public contracts add to the litany of corrupt practices. 'Improving Transparency, Integrity, and Accountability in Water Supply and Sanitation' is a useful tool for diagnosing, analyzing, and remedying systemic corruption in the water supply and sanitation sectors. It will serve as a practical guide for governments; utility regulators, managers, and staff; civil society organizations; contractors; and citizens in their quest for a model of service provision that responds to the pressing needs of people in the developing world. The book aims to increase the involvement of civil society by engaging all stakeholders in setting priorities and monitoring performance; help water and sanitation delivery contribute to poverty reduction by increasing the service quality and coverage provided by service delivery organizations to poorer communities on an equitable basis; provide a tool that promotes the financial sustainability of service delivery organizations, thus building stakeholders' confidence in those institutions' ability to expand and improve service; and raise ethical standards among all stakeholders, especially service delivery organizations, thereby instilling a sense of public service in these organizations.

The past decade has witnessed major shift thinking about water, including how water infrastructure development strategies can help advance sustainable development and the global fight against poverty. This reflects, in part, greater attention now being paid to governance reforms promoting integrated water resource management (IWRM), the efficient and wise use of water, and expanding access to water and energy services. In addition, the increased emphasis on developing and implementing anti-corruption strategies increases confidence that water infrastructure can be developed efficiently and equitably. There is also growing appreciation of the strong linkages between water, environment and energy security and climate change - impacting on decisions about the development and management of water infrastructure, especially in water-stressed regions, and of the central role that public, private sector and civil society partnerships can play in encouraging innovation, tackling challenges, promoting transparency and accountability and creating synergy. Communication is the thread that links these concerns and underpins achievements in sustainability and governance reform in water. Not only to ensure that up-front strategic assessments mobilize all viable options to meet the challenges unique to each situation, but also to better integrate governance and anti-corruption reforms and sustainability into all stages of planning and the project cycle of infrastructure. Wider acceptance of multi-stakeholder dialogue is a trend which characterizes beneficial change. This LHWP is notable for its progressive learning approach as it moved through its implementation phases and is an example of the shift s that are occurring globally in approaches to dam planning and management as they have become more inclusive. It is also a key example of the critical importance of political will in tackling corruption in a large water infrastructure project.

This Article grapples with the instrumentalization of the past in Romania, in the specific context of “judicial lustration” measures. It argues that decommunization and lustration policies, which could not be pursued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of state socialism in 1989, were weaponized much later and used in order to advance other purposes. In 2006, an expedited judicial vetting procedure, in the context of the EU-driven fight against corruption, was repurposed by the center-right as a lustration instrument. In the same year, the dismantling of an intelligence service created after 1991 in the Justice Ministry (SIPA) to monitor ‘vulnerabilities’ in the justice system has set in motion a long series of failed attempts to bring closure to the question regarding the service’s archives, fomenting continuities of suspicion until today. More recently, in 2018, a form of ‘mock-judicial lustration’ has been used by the political left to deflect or at least delegitimize repressive anti-corruption policies. The new “lustration procedure” implicitly equated the recent cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, in the context of the fight against corruption, with past practices of collusion between the members of the judiciary and the communist Securitate . These three episodes of ‘dealing with the past’ are reviewed in order to showcase path-dependencies. Such path-dependencies are not linked only with carryovers from or throwbacks to the communist past. Rather, pre- and post-communist deficiencies of modernization, combined more recently with gaps in post-accession monitoring by the EU Commission, create continuities of peripheral instrumentalism. Various narratives, such as decommunization, the fight against graft, judicial reform and the rule of law are used to legitimize short-term consequentialism, evincing a resilient, structural resistance to legislative and legal normativity.

This Handbook offers 'how to' ideas to help infrastructure practitioners identify good practice improvements in communication, starting with the World Bank?s own expanding portfolio of dam projects. In-depth case studies prepared for this Handbook show the considerable scope, value added, and many practical reasons to link governance, sustainability, and communication aspects at all stages of the project cycle. The Handbook reflects a philosophy of continuous improvement in development practices. Improving communication in dam planning and management not only achieves consensus on imbedding anti-corruption measures in projects but also builds multi-stakeholder partnerships that are fundamental to advance the wider development effectiveness of large dams and creates synergy to combat poverty with sustainable infrastructure provision.

Corruption is a multidimensional phenomenon that rears its head in many places. For this reason, it is difficult and challenging to assess how well a country is doing in addressing it. This title provides guidance to practitioners and policymakers in the design of anticorruption reforms.