Review of anti-corruption strategies Rob McCusker - Australian ...

Sound anti-corruption strategies must involve the construction of a set of incentives to encourage ruleabiding,
and discourage rule-averse, behaviour by agents who are predisposed to be opportunistic and
driven by self-interest within their currently corrupt working environment. Broadly, strategies which might
assist in achieving this outcome include:
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reducing the scope for corruption through policy change
increasing the costs of corruption through external monitoring and sanctioning
devising systems to induce self-restraint within government including rewards for non-corrupt
behaviour or the reporting of corrupt behaviour (Hamilton-Hart 2001).
A generic but important point concerning the creation of anti-corruption strategies is that ‘[t]he design
and practical delivery of anti-corruption programmes should not be over-influenced by definitional and
desk perspectives which offer an indiscriminate, broad-brush approach which belies in-country realities
or cross-country differences and neglects the sequential linkages between hypothesised goals and the
building blocks to achieve them’ (Doig 1998).
This one-size fits all approach to anti-corruption strategies is no longer acceptable or practicable, if it ever
was, given that the focus of anti-corruption reform will be unique to every country. It has been suggested
that the instigators of anti-corruption reforms should query whether adverse consequences, anticipated
or otherwise, might result from the introduction of a particular reform or as a result of its interrelationship
with other reforms. Equally, proponents of anti-corruption reforms should ascertain whether the reform
in question requires long term support by the recipients rather than externally driven efforts alone.
Proponents need to be aware of the correct and most effective sequence of reforms to ensure long term
sustainability and eventual weaning off of external aid.
Anti-corruption strategies should be designed with longevity in mind. To meet this long-term goal, a
number of assessments need to have been made if the anti-corruption strategy is to be successful.
Certain reforms (especially those of a radical nature) should be assessed for potentially adverse and/
or disproportionate consequences. Awareness of the importance of the sequential nature of reform,
noted above, would note, for example, that an anti-corruption agency’s success may depend upon an
honest judiciary and that the latter may take longer to establish than the former. Attempting to create the
equivalent of the Hong Kong SAR’s ICAC without the requisite reform of the judiciary would be costly and
broadly ineffective, especially in the longer term. Related to this point is the importance of determining
whether police corruption is a greater threat than judicial corruption and if so, how that might impact upon
the anti-corruption strategy as a whole.
The importance of recognising the interrelationship of certain anti-corruption reforms and, moreover,
the consequences of failing to recognise the often subtle nuances of such relationships should also be
noted. Thus, for example, promoting an independent press to investigate and report on corrupt activity is
of reduced utility if a literacy campaign to ensure that the public can actually read those accounts is not
introduced simultaneously. Recognising what is actually achievable through an anti-corruption strategy
is as important as creating the strategy in the first instance. It might be possible, for example, to create
an environment in which political parties are funded sufficiently well to be able to realistically challenge in
state elections but it might be more difficult to actually ensure that an effective opposition is created in the
first instance to utilise that funding.