Call for Papers on Corruption and Integrity - Deadline Feb 15, 2023

Photo by Jasmin Sessler on Unsplash

The ECPR Standing Group on Corruption and Integrity is calling for papers on corruption and integrity to be presented at the ECPR General Conference, planned to be hosted as a face-to-face event by Charles University in Prague on 4-8 September 2023.

The BIT-ACT team is chairing panels on the "Benefits and risks of AI and other emerging technologies in anti-corruption and integrity", "Whistleblowers and their human and non-human intermediaries", "Unpacking international (anti)corruption in the Global South", and "Corruption and anti-corruption in the EU".

In case you’re interested in presenting in Prague, please contact directly panel chairs (see details below). Send directly to panel chairs a 300-word paper abstract (with 4 keywords) by Feb 15. 

ECPR SECTION S17 - CORRUPTION: FROM DEVELOPMENT PROBLEM TO GLOBAL SECURITY THREAT

The academic and policy meanings of corruption have shifted considerably over the past three decades since the 1998 announcement of the World Bank president James Wolfensohn that corruption is no more “a political, but economic issue”. Twenty-five years later, corruption as a political issue has returned with a vengeance. This section reflects on these shifting paradigms of corruption across time and their consequences for politics, anticorruption, development, and security policies.

Section chairs: Fernanda Odilla (BIT, ACT - University of Bologna) & Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Hertie School) 

1. Corruption and democracy backsliding

In the current debate on democracy backsliding corruption has been understudied. We know little about the role corruption plays in Hungary and Poland, or how it obstructs consolidation of democracy from Albania to Peru, or even if corruption harms democracies more than it does autocracies. This panel invites quantitative and qualitative approaches to convey the answers to these questions.

Chair/Co-Chair Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Hertie School) & Richard Youngs (University of Warwick)

2. Gender and Corruption: new questions for improving anti-corruption policies

 The very first studies regarding gender and corruption indicated that improving gender equality could reduce corruption. However, the empirical evidence needs actualisation. This panel explores new questions about gendered forms of corruption, gender differences in accepting/offering bribes, and the effects of gender anti-corruption policies. 

Chair/Co-Chair: Robert Gillanders (Dublin City University Business School) & Giovanna Rodríguez-García (National Autonomous University of Mexico)

 3. Benefits and risks of AI and other emerging technologies in anti-corruption and integrity

 Many countries introduced digital tools to prevent or detect potential corruption cases and yet we lack in-depth knowledge on how anti-corruption technologies increase integrity, accountability, and transparency, how to deal with their unintended consequences and to measure their impact. This panel includes theoretical and empirical papers to discuss the application of anti-corruption emerging techs, their potentialities, and risks.

Chair/Co-Chair: Fernanda Odilla (University of Bologna) & Roxana Bratu (KCL)

4. Whistleblowers and their human and non-human intermediaries

 This panel reunites research on whistleblowing from all media and backgrounds: political, public and private sector. This panel examines both human whistleblowers and their technological enablers. It focuses on the comparative cost on whistleblowing across different media (i.e political parties versus private sector); technological advances for whistleblowing and their impact; the political economy of digital whistleblowing platforms, their dynamics of diffusion and sustainability.

Chair/Co-Chair: Alice Fubini (University of Bologna), Stephen Dawson (University of Gothenburg) 

5. Party finance and political corruption 

 Many governments have recently introduced regulation on funding, transparency, and oversight to deter political corruption, and public funding to political parties and candidates However, evidence is contradictory on the impact and mechanism of these reforms. This panel investigates the relationship between political corruption and political financing reform both ex ante, as causes leading to reforms, and ex post, as consequences of the reforms once adopted. The panel is open to equally welcomes quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies.

Chair/Co-Chair: Sergiu Lipcean (University of Bergen, sergiu.lipcean@gmail.com) and Fernando Casal Bértoa (University of Nottingham) 

6. Strategic Corruption and its implications for security and democracy

The denunciation by US foreign policy of ‘weaponization’ of corruption by Russia and China, and the latest corruption scandal in the EU Parliament highlight the new paradigm of ‘strategic corruption’ This panel invites contributions that conceptualize and operationalise strategic corruption and anticorruption; explore mechanisms of how strategic corruption works; discuss its implications and how does Western the response affect countries like China or Russia.

Chair/Co-Chair: Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez (Osaka University) and Bertram Lang (Goethe University Frankfurt)

 7. Unpacking international (anti)corruption in the Global South 

The emergence of global top-down anticorruption norms contrasts with the wide variation of meanings and imaginaries of corruption across different country contexts. The panel sets out to interrogate the universality and effectiveness of such norms in contexts which are vastly different from those in which they were created, by focusing on the work of diverse grassroots actors, the  perceptions and imaginary arising from global south countries 

Chair/Co-chair: Anwesha Chakraborty (University of Bologna) and Ina Kubbe, (Tel Aviv University)

8.            Methodological, Ethical and Security Challenges of Corruption Research

Corruption scholars and practitioners alike emphasize the need for theory-based and context-embedded empirical research. At the same time, researchers acknowledge that corruption is difficult to research empirically. As the field continues to grow, there is a need for summarising the practices, methodological choices and challenges of the (anti-)corruption research community. This panel invites contributions on the challenges faced when conducting empirical research and their responses.

Chair/Co-chair: Ilona Wysmulek (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw) and Marina Povitkina, (University of Oslo)

 9. Corruption and anti-corruption in the EU

Corruption remains a significant problem in the EU, despite three decades of targeted intervention at multiple levels. This panel invites theoretical and empirical contributions on causes, effects, and mechanisms of corruption in the EU; anti-corruption approaches and legal frameworks and criminalisation at the EU level and in the member states, as well as discursive aspects of corruption and anti-corruption in the EU.

Chair/Co-chair: Sofia Wickberg (University of Amsterdam) & Oksana Huss (University of Bologna)

10. Ethics regulation: Norms, supervision and enforcement

Research systematically assessing hard and soft law mechanisms governing ethical standards in democratic institutions is still scant. Casting light on institutional settings spanning from parties and parliaments, to cabinets and executive agencies, this panel seeks to systematically identify the current regime addressing integrity risks, and assess its effectiveness.

Chair/Co-chair: Dr Luís de Sousa (University of Lisbon) & Filippo Silano (University of Hamburg)