Getting to Accountability: A Framework for Planning & Implementing Anticorruption Strategies Matthew M. Taylor Abstract: A key lesson from historical examples of anticorruption successes and failures is that bursts of anticorruption policy seldom develop into lasting shifts in the overall corruption equilibrium if these poli­ cies are not embedded in a broader accountability effort. This essay draws on past examples of anticorrup­ tion success to develop an accountability framework that can be broadly applied across a number of sec­ tors and contexts. This essay further proposes an iterative, strategic approach that uses the basic structure of this accountability equation to guide anticorruption efforts in order progressively to eliminate bottle­ necks to effective accountability. Corruption is a complex problem with enormous political salience. It is therefore not surprising that the solutions academics proffer for addressing cor- ruption–long-term structural remedies that may not mature for decades or quick solutions that are al- most certain to founder as they are battered against preexisting political conditions–frequently leave policy-makers dissatisfied. The first approach to combating corruption be- gins from the premise that it has deep and structural is Asso- roots in culture, social inequality, and the (un)rule of matthew m. taylor 1 ciate Professor in the School of In- law. Effectively targeting corruption when structure ternational Service at American is the driver requires a “big bang,” a critical juncture, University. He is the author of or a historical turning point momentous enough to Judging Policy: Courts and Policy Re­ pull a country off its current path. Describing the form in Democratic Brazil (2008) and Korean, Japanese, and Finnish cases, political scien- editor of Brazil on the Global Stage: tists Eric Uslaner and Bo Rothstein have suggested Power, Ideas, and the Liberal Interna­ tional Order (with Oliver Stuenkel, that external stimuli from the Japanese occupation, 2015) and Corruption and Democracy American postwar occupation, and the Soviet threat in Brazil: The Struggle for Accountabil­ led all three countries to invest heavily in education ity (with Timothy J. Power, 2011). as a means of nation-building. Given the strong ties © 2018 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_ a_00503 63 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed_a_00503 by guest on 23 September 2021 A Framework between education, systemic inequality, courts or independent auditors seem pref- for Planning & trust, and corruption, this investment paid erable to their dysfunctional or subservi- Implementing Anticorruption big dividends for development and, inci- ent alternatives, after all. But little is in fact Strategies dentally, for anticorruption.2 But it took known about what actually drives change in catastrophic war or the threat thereof to corruption levels in the short term, or how jolt societies into action. these solutions build on each other. The re- Other scholars in the structural-change sult is a laundry list of one-size-fits-all rem- school suggest that elite displacement may edies, provided without much guidance for be the key causal mechanism to com- implementation, sequencing, or concern bat corruption. A generational shift that for the systemic whole, which at best will changes policy priorities might do the correct topical maladies.5 Even broader na- trick: universal social-welfare policies, tional anticorruption strategies, very much for example, have in recent years helped in vogue these days, are frequently devel- generate a change in the corruption equa- oped without great thoughtfulness about tion in the new democracies of the devel- the prescribed reform measures and the oping world, whether by weakening old changes that they are designed to generate.6 patronage practices or reducing inequali- There is no theory of change undergirding ty and thus enhancing trust.3 Scandal, eco- their implementation, meaning that best nomic shock, or war may lead to elite re- practices may be plopped down without placement. The trouble with these struc- much consideration of local conditions, tural theories of change, of course, is that leaving them vulnerable to co-optation by anticorruption gains are often purely in- local power structures. cidental, external sources of change can- This essay uses anticorruption success not be conjured from thin air, and triggers stories to argue that strategic, incremental, for change (such as wars, genocides, or re- and iterative accountability reforms offer gime changes) may be even more damag- a pragmatic alternative to deeply structur- ing than the underlying disease of corrup- al or highly specific institutional anticor- tion. Further, the time horizon for these ruption approaches. The first section de- structural improvements is usually at least scribes the relationship between policy several decades long–hardly the stuff for bursts and anticorruption equilibria, pro- today’s results-oriented reformers. viding historical experiences from coun- At the other end of the spectrum, a sec- tries where small bursts of anticorruption ond group of anticorruption advocates of- efforts accumulated into lasting shifts in fers up immediate remedies for symptoms the local accountability equilibrium. The of corruption. But this literature all too fre- second section draws on these cases to quently suggests specific tactics without ex- argue that we already know a great deal plaining how those solutions will work to about the accountability systems required fight corruption. Jeremy Pope’s influential to generate lasting shifts in the corruption Transparency International handbook on equilibrium. Such knowledge may help us national integrity systems, for example, to speed up and focus contemporary anti- suggests the establishment of “integrity corruption efforts more strategically. The pillars”–institutions needed to fight cor- final section uses contemporary case stud- ruption–but does not provide a theory ies to propose a strategy for tackling the of what each is intended to accomplish or bottlenecks to effective accountability: the how to prioritize among them.4 One rea- goal is to pursue reforms that alleviate the son for this lack of clarity may be that the most binding constraints (“bottlenecks”), prescriptions appear self-evident: efficient and thus produce the “biggest bang for the 64 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed_a_00503 by guest on 23 September 2021 reform buck,” and to do so iteratively, so can peter out if left untended or unused. Matthew M. that one success builds on another.7 For example, passage of a freedom of infor- Taylor mation law may inspire a short-lived mo- Cold realism is needed. Many of the coun- ment of transparency before bureaucrats tries that today have reasonably effective an- learn tricks for blocking inconvenient in- ticorruption systems stumbled across them quiries. New prosecutorial tools (such as by historical happenstance. Historical cases anti–money laundering laws) may spawn of a significant and lasting shift in corrup- new cases until criminal defense lawyers tion levels are few and far between. Those adapt, prosecutions hit new roadblocks we do find appear to have arisen through in- further along in the judicial process, or crementally implemented changes in effec- criminals find new ways to transfer ill-got- tive governance rather than through whole- ten gains. Anticorruption agencies (acas) sale systemic reforms targeted specifically may achieve initial results but then found- at corruption.8 Depressingly, the shift from er, as they have in most countries, because “closed-access” political systems marked by of their insertion into a hostile environ- particularism and distrust to open-access ment marked by weak political will, low systems with inclusive political institutions, investment, and internal corruption.10 universalism, and formalized trust is rare; This is not to say that only isolated poli- economist Douglass North and colleagues cies are at risk of petering out. Wholesale note that only about twenty-five countries across-the-board approaches in which a have made that leap in the past two centu- broad range of instruments are simultane- ries. Indeed, closed-access systems are the ously adopted can also prove to be short- historical norm.9 lived. The Chinese case is emblematic: But realism need not imply nihilism. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s massive anti- Building on lessons from past successes, corruption campaign introduced a vari- it should be possible to introduce the kinds ety of compliance-based tools and even of improvements in transparency, over- changed some officials’ behavior. Yet be- sight, and sanctioning power that cumu- cause the campaign has privileged sanc- latively add up to a shift in the overall cor- tion over prevention and compliance over ruption equilibrium. The shift is likely to a broader norm of integrity, its anticor- be a multigenerational effort, with the pos- ruption efforts have naturally been ap- sibility of reversals along the way. But even plied selectively, with political motiva- if the process of strategically developing tions.11 In the political-economic context accountability institutions does not guar- of a Communist party-state, prevention antee movement all the way from a closed has few political payoffs, while enforce- to an open-access order, such a process