Study on civic action and political financing in Uruguay to be presented at the EGOS Colloquium
Research highlights the struggle for social oversight mechanisms to combat corruption in political financing
Published on 22 June 2023
Picture: Christine Roy/Unsplash
The 39th EGOS Colloquium, scheduled to take place in Cagliari from July 6 to 8, 2023, will feature a presentation of the research paper titled "Innovative, but feeble - Civil Society’s Action and its Consequences for political financing in Uruguay."
The paper, authored by the researchers from the BIT-ACT team Fernanda Odilla and Germán Bidegain, who is also a professor at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay, focuses on the impact of civic action on political financing transparency and corruption reduction in Uruguay.
The study specifically examines the cases of two civil society initiatives, namely "¿Quién paga?" and "Finpol - Political Campaign Funding," which aimed to digitise and map information on funding received by political parties and politicians during the 2009 and 2014 elections, respectively.
Despite Uruguay's reputation as a clean country with a strong democratic history and a high level of digitalization in Latin America, the research paper points out a significant gap in the country's electoral court's accountability capacity. This limitation raises concerns about transparency and its effectiveness in combating corruption within political financing.
The analysis conducted by Odilla and Bidegain suggests that transparency alone is insufficient to reduce corruption in political financing. The study emphasizes the urgent need for complementary measures, such as implementing digital solutions for reporting and disclosing political finance information, as well as establishing effective horizontal and social oversight mechanisms.
The authors hope that their work will contribute to the discussions on social movements and their outcomes hold at the EGOS Colloquium.
The paper will be presented under the EGOS sub-theme “Social Movements and Organizations: Outcomes and Secondary Effects”. The 39th EGOS Colloquium is an annual event organized by the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS). It brings together scholars and researchers from various disciplines to discuss and exchange ideas on organizational behaviour, management, and related fields.