State capture has emerged as a major problem for development and security across the world and yet another front where democracies confront autocracies. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought about corruption as a central concern not only within autocratic states rife with kleptocracy, oligarchs and crony capitalism but also within Western democracies with individuals, firms or groups facilitating corrupt practices. Globalization and the end of the Cold War ushered in novel, relatively unregulated venues where individuals found new opportunities to take advantage of to make illicit gains across borders. Consequently, targeted sanctions have increasingly been used as a tool to punish corrupt foreign officials such as the Magnitsky Act, named after Sergei Magnitsky who was imprisoned for exposing large-scale corruption by Russian government officials. The introduction of these new tools promises to redefine global dynamics. In addition to being a developmental problem, corruption is thus increasingly recognized on the global scale as a major obstacle against fundamental human rights principles, such as non-discrimination and equal participation in all aspects of social and political life. Building a clean and accountable government and society is the declared goal of United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNACAC, 2003) and of Sustainable Developing Goals (Goal 16). In this course, we explore corruption as a policy problem and discuss anti-corruption not merely as a repressive tool but as the capacity of a society to formulate, implement, and sustain policies that promote merit and fairness over patronage, clientelism, and corruption in the allocation of shared resources. We also review the anti-corruption experiences of the past 25 years, investigate the right balance between a country’s sovereignty and international anticorruption interventions and discuss how can globalization survive crony capitalism. The class assignments are structured to enable students to apply their knowledge to practice by participating in policy design exercises and rigor academic research. The UN country indicators assignment provides students the opportunity to contribute to the Bridgegap project, an EU- funded initiative and the largest project ever won by the university. By supporting data collection to measure corruption comprehensively, students will be directly contributing to the deliverable of the project, acquire first-hand experience in high-level academic research and be introduced to EU official anticorruption. By using the data collected for the UN assignment, students will be required to write a short blog post (not to exceed 1000 words) and make a country diagnosis by discussing whether corruption is an exception or norm in the selected country. The best paper will be published in the European Center for Anticorruption and State-Building website (ERCAS, www.againstcorruption.eu). Group and individual class exercises will allow students to gain experience in how to design a stakeholder analysis for corruption problems, build coalitions and get familiar with key concepts such as crony capitalism, kleptocracy, state capture and clientelism.

No prerequisites apply, although students should have and interest in public policy and understand terms such as market failure, policy analysis, public goods, etc.

This course addresses the core themes, theories and methods within the field of corruption studies. Teams link of the course here.

Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2023). Rethinking Corruption. Edward Elgar Publishing. Mungiu-Pippidi, A. (2015). The Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption. Cambridge University Press. Johnston, M. (2005). Syndromes of corruption: wealth, power, and democracy. Cambridge University Press.

One per week initial on-site lecture (90 min) followed by a seminar session (75 min). Each session includes an interactive lecture (12 in total) and a seminar (12 in total), featuring guest speakers, group and individual exercises, movies, and debates. Please note that the class days are subject to change and the final schedule will be agreed with the professor and students in the beginning of the semester. Students are expected to complete the assigned readings and come prepared to the class to answer questions and engage in critical discussion. Participation in class exercises and debates contributes to the overall grade, alongside the continuous assessment of individual assignments.

The grade for the course will be determined as follows, on a continuous assessment basis allowing students to become fully trained analysts. 1) UN country indicators diagnosis matrix (delivered end semester) – 40% 2) Crony capitalism exercise – 15 % 3) Stakeholder analysis coalition building exercise – 15% 4) Blog assignment – 10% 5) Participation grade – 20%

The multisite European Center for Anticorruption and State-Building (ERCAS, www.againstcorruption.eu) owns databases on corruption, either public (www.corruptionrisk.org) or private, and has several donor clients (such as World Bank, UNODC, European institutions). Theses are encouraged based on both quantitative and qualitative (country studies, international organizations, policy analysis designs) using the data and the real clients cooperating with the centre. The best will be published as working papers (see examples in the WP collection of www.againstcorruption.eu).