Politics and Governance Open Access Journal | ISSN: 2183-2463 Volume 8, Issue 2 (2020) FightingFighting CorruptionCorruption inin thethe DevelopedDeveloped World:World: Dimensions,Dimensions, Patterns,Patterns, RemediesRemedies Editors Fabrizio Di Mascio and Simona Piattoni Politics and Governance, 2020, Volume 8, Issue 2 Fighting Corruption in the Developed World: Dimensions, Patterns, Remedies Published by Cogitatio Press Rua Fialho de Almeida 14, 2º Esq., 1070-129 Lisbon Portugal Academic Editors Fabrizio Di Mascio (University of Turin, Italy) Simona Piattoni (University of Trento, Italy) Available online at: www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance This issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). Articles may be reproduced provided that credit is given to the original andPolitics and Governance is acknowledged as the original venue of publication. Table of Contents Corruption Control in the Developed World Fabrizio Di Mascio and Simona Piattoni 72–77 Does Changing Electoral Systems Affect (Corrupt) Particularistic Exchanges? Evidence from the Italian Case Simona Piattoni and Matteo Fabio Nels Giglioli 78–91 Do Men and Women Perceive Corruption Differently? Gender Differences in Perception of Need and Greed Corruption Monika Bauhr and Nicholas Charron 92–102 Press Freedom and Corruption Perceptions: Is There a Reputational Premium? Michael Breen and Robert Gillanders 103–115 How Does Corruption Affect the Adoption of Lobby Registers? A Comparative Analysis Fabrizio De Francesco and Philipp Trein 116–127 Islands of Good Government: Explaining Successful Corruption Control in Two Spanish Cities Eliška Drápalová and Fabrizio Di Mascio 128–139 Oversee and Punish: Understanding the Fight Against Corruption Involving Government Workers in Brazil Fernanda Odilla 140–152 Corruption and the Network Structure of Public Contracting Markets across Government Change Mihály Fazekas and Johannes Wachs 153–166 Corruption Risks in Renewable Resource Governance: Case Studies in Iceland and Romania Johanna Gisladottir, Sigurbjörg Sigurgeirsdottir, Ingrid Stjernquist and Kristin Vala Ragnarsdottir 167–179 Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2020, Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 72–77 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v8i2.3274 Editorial Corruption Control in the Developed World Fabrizio Di Mascio 1,* and Simona Piattoni 2 1 Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, University of Turin, 10125 Turin, Italy; E-Mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, 38122 Trento, Italy; E-Mail: [email protected] * Corresponding author Submitted: 20 May 2020 | Published: 28 May 2020 Abstract Conventionally considered a developmental trait that would tend to disappear with the increase of wealth and the sta- bilization of democracy, corruption is rampant not just among developing countries and recent democracies, but also in mature democracies and developed countries. This editorial introduces the thematic issue and considers what the con- tributions tell us about new approaches to corruption control in the developed world. It also outlines avenues for future research in the field of corruption control. Keywords corruption; good governance; public integrity; quality of government; transparency Issue This editorial is part of the issue “Fighting Corruption in the Developed World: Dimensions, Patterns, Remedies” edited by Fabrizio Di Mascio (University of Turin, Italy) and Simona Piattoni (University of Trento, Italy). © 2020 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction the inappropriate theoretical foundations of the stan- dard solutions to the ‘principal-agent’ problem (Persson, Since the early 1990s, protests around the globe Rothstein, & Teorell, 2019). According to these re- against corrupt officials have stimulated academic re- searchers, the solutions to the ‘principal-agent’ problem search on the topic of corruption, as revealed by consider corruption as a problem of individual deviance new books being published on a never-ending ba- from the system, implicitly assuming that corruption can sis (Bauhr, Bågenholm, Grimes, & Rothstein, in press; be tackled if control instruments affect individual agents’ Mungiu-Pippidi & Heywood, 2020). Corruption control motivations to engage in corrupt behavior. They under- strategies have drawn on this expanding body of re- line that this assumption is flawed in those contexts search, but they have proved ineffective in achieving where corruption is systemic, meaning that corruption is significant and lasting improvement in quality of gov- widely perceived as the norm, and those principals mon- ernment. The discrepancy between the high interest in itoring the agents are themselves corruptible if they can- corruption and the low capacity to curb it reveals that not trust that others will resist corruption. the phenomenon is broader and more diversified than Viewing corruption as a collective action problem the conventional literature and policy recommendations has made an important contribution to the literature by would lead us to think. Whilst previous work on causes highlighting the very difficult challenge that institutional and consequences of corruption has helped us to under- reforms face in changing levels of distrust in society. stand broad patterns of corrupt practice, and where it is However, this vision has little to say about what to do dif- most deeply embedded, it has been less helpful for iden- ferently, or how (Marquette & Peiffer, 2019). The call for tifying what can be done. ‘big bangs’ constitutes the theoretical answer, whereby For a growing number of researchers, the imple- a multifaceted attack on corruption is applied in an inte- mentation gap of corruption control efforts lies in grated manner to transform the system (Rothstein, 2011). Politics and Governance, 2020, Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 72–77 72 Yet, the idea of rolling out a broad set of reforms predi- the micro-level of individual organizations. As more cated on comprehensive institutional transformation is and more organizations improve their performance over simply not feasible in most OECD countries where state time, significant change could spread throughout the traditions are so entrenched that ‘remaking’ the state is public sector (Prasad, da Silva, & Nickow, 2019). unlikely. We thus need better ways of thinking about the The articles of this thematic issue move the debate design and sequencing of targeted reforms in conditions forward and point to more targeted interventions for cor- that are not hospitable for policies that change the basic ruption control. All in all, findings support the claim that social contract. In other words, we need greater sensitiv- policies should be underpinned by clearer conceptualiza- ity to multiple reform combinations that unfold within tion of corruption types, their meanings and functions different contexts (Fritzen & Dobel, 2018). within specific institutional contexts and policy dynam- Recently, two strands of research have emerged that ics (Heath, Richards, & de Graaf, 2016; Heywood, 2017; do not depend on the occurrence of a crisis to implement Jancsics, 2019). governance reforms. Drawing on policy making literature (Heclo, 1974), one set of scholars disagree with the ‘pow- 2. Overview of Contributions ering’ thesis that underscores those approaches that fo- cus on abrupt and wholesale change. Rather, they under- As the title of the thematic issue suggests, our aim was to stand anticorruption reform as ‘problem-solving,’ mean- take stock of the mechanisms through which advanced ing that reformers take advantage of small opportunities societies try to control corruption. We were, and still are, and use the complexity of policy areas to advance indi- particularly struck by the diffusion of corrupt practices vidually minor but often cumulatively significant changes in the developed world, that is, in a context in which (Bersch, 2016, p. 206). In contrast to approaches that the layperson would assume that corruption is marginal separate the question of stability from the question of and exceptional. On the contrary, we know from the lit- change, the problem-solving take on corruption control erature and from daily news that this is far from being echoes the sequencing approach that is well established the case and that also developed countries are beset in the historical-institutionalist literature (Mahoney & by corruption. Thelen, 2010). It also allows to account for the implica- As is commonly the case with phenomena that defy tions of the two-level governance structure of corrup- normative expectations, we knew that we would run tion control. Work on corruption control is characterized up against the difficulty of defining corruption. In com- by a strong focus on top-down conformance with pol- mon language, ‘corruption’ indicates a negative depar- icy recommendations issued by international organiza- ture from a normative standard, but what precisely con- tions. Governments are encouraged to adopt a global stitutes such a departure heavily depends on the culture, menu of tools that are proposed as universal cure for cor- institutions, and procedures of each country. Therefore, ruption (Rotberg, 2017). Conversely, the problem-solving we were not surprised to find that some articles tackled perspective emphasizes the role of policy implementers