034 Institutional Changes and Anti-Corruption Regulation in Europe

Wednesday, July 12, 2017: 11:00 AM-12:45 PM
Gilbert Scott Building - Room 656A (University of Glasgow)
New conceptions of systemic corruption as a dysfunctional informal institution consisting of a series of collective action dilemmas have recently emerged in anticorruption research. Such definitions of systemic corruption as an informal institution are a welcomed addition to the analyst’s toolkit. However, they describe an all-encompassing form of corruption that leaves very little room for human agency. And they refer only to extreme cases, supposed to represent the exception more than the rule. Moreover, the study of corruption and its regulation in the western world shows that discontinuous models of change exaggerate the rupture between past and present and pay insufficient attention to the adaptive nature of corruption. This is especially the case in democratic countries, where instances of corruption have often led to incremental (and often disparate) regulatory changes. In the end, social and political changes associated with anticorruption regulation are embedded in singular institutional environments. In these circumstances, the nature of changes in anticorruption regulation should be the focus of further investigation. The big question would then become: How can we explain changes in anticorruption regulation? And why similar episodes of corruption can lead to different legislative and regulatory actions? In that perspective, this panel invites papers that address the issue of changes in anticorruption regulation.
Chair:
Denis Saint-Martin
Discussant :
Carl Dahlström
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