The politics of transnational accountability policies and the (re)construction of corruption: The case of Tunisia, Transparency International and the World Bank

Abstract

Corruption is a global systemic problem causing detrimental effects to both social and economic progress. Predominant research typically offers solutions that are based on the assumption that corruption is a problem originating in, and endemic to developing countries, an assumption that disregards corruption's production within a global system of economic power relationships and international regulatory institutions dominated by Western countries and multinational corporations. The anti-corruption discourses and accounting measures initiated by both international and local actors in their fight against corruption have not frequently been critically investigated in developing country contexts, especially not in the Arab region, despite the widely observed links between authoritarianism, corruption, and political upheaval. This study illustrates the struggle over the nature of corruption and the measures taken by multiple stakeholders to combat it in Tunisia, before and after the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. By using ethnographic material and critical discourse analysis, the study shows how Western global actors such as the World Bank and associated nongovernmental institutions such as Transparency International, account for and discursively (re)construct corruption in ways that defend and reconstitute postcolonial relationships of domination embedded within the neoliberal global order. The study contributes to existing literature by providing a conceptual framework that indicates the highly fungible character and the different emergent cycles of corruption. Based on its findings, the study offers novel research avenues that promote reflexive theoretical and methodological steps that aim to enrich anticorruption scholarship and practice. *Manuscript (with Author Details removed) Click here to view linked References

Corruption, Accounting Practice and Economic Growth: Evidence of ASEAN Countries

“…Incumbent politicians will adopt high-quality accounting practices to guarantee the transparency and credibility of financial statements so that they hope to be re-elected in the next period [57][58][59]. This condition is caused by threats from competing politicians to demand more information on monitoring political processes [60][61][62][63][64]. Thus, high-quality accounting practices can enable incumbent politicians to better demonstrate political accountability, so as to be able to fend off the attacks of competing politicians [1,9,65].…”

“…Fourth, high-quality accounting practices in a country can be measured by the adoption of public sector accounting standards and the strength of auditing standards and financial reports as in previous literature on accounting practices (eg, Kassem and Higson [66]; Changwony and Paterson [24], Paterson et al [26], Zelizer [67]). Institutional pressure from a professional and well-organized government will demand compliance or the application of good financial reporting practices [35,68], all of which are likely to influence the adoption of modern and innovative accounting practices with the aim of providing disclosed information in full [34,64,69]. Likewise, a strong government and independent oversight bodies, such as auditing agencies, ombudsman offices, and anti-corruption institutions, will likely put a lot of pressure on the government and demand accountability information [9,65,70,71].…”

From ‘sick nation’ to ‘superpower’: Anti-corruption knowledge and discourse and the construction of Indonesian national identity (1997–2019)

“…Anti-corruption became a central focus for international development agencies from the mid-1990s onwards, generating a canon of development management discourse, knowledge, tools and instruments designed to reform the governance and public administration of former Eastern-bloc and 'Third World' countries along Western ideals of a free market, liberal democracy and modernity (Koechlin, 2013;Marquette, 2012;Murphy and Albu, 2018;Sampson, 2010;Wedel, 2012). Organizations such as The World Bank (1997), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2018) and Transparency International (TI) (2020), helped establish corruption as an urgent problem requiring action.…”

“…The World Bank and TI in particular were both major producers of knowledge about corruption as well as involved in its implementation. Together with the IMF, the anti-corruption programme they launched enlisted a complex web of actors including some Western nations, NGOs and consultants (Baumann, 2020;Marquette, 2012;Murphy and Albu, 2018;Wedel, 2012). Such has been its success Sampson (2010: 263) argues 'anti-corruptionism' has become an industry because of the institutional investments it has attracted and the way it has kept corruption on the international 'policy agenda, attracting ever more attention and resources'.…”

“…The World Bank's (1997) original definition of corruption as 'the abuse of public office for private gain' (p. 8) 1 acquired epistemic authority (De Maria, 2008), establishing a nexus of power-knowledge relations around good governance, anticorruption and development management supported by 'technicist' instruments, expertise and practices that lent a scientific legitimacy, obscuring its origins and depoliticizing its assumptions and impact. While purporting to be universal, it had highly partisan effects, focusing attention on corruption among the governments and public sectors of 'Third World' countries (Koechlin, 2013), emphasizing 'bribe-takers' rather than 'bribe-payers' (Löwenheim, 2008: 270;Murphy, 2011), and diverting attention from corruption in developed economies (Murphy, 2011;Murphy and Albu, 2018;Wedel, 2012). In short, it has acted as a form of (neo)coloniality operating through knowledge, expertise and techne, (Quijano, 2007) rather than brute force.…”