Changing Norms: Generating Public Will to Fight Corruption

The current, mainstream approach to anti-corruption work by the international community involves establishing a normative framework (such as the comprehensive United Nations Convention against Corruption) that details a set of recommended standards for countries to meet, requesting that countries ratify the framework, and assisting them in achieving these standards. The framework lists specific measures designed to help countries prevent and control corruption, such as the establishment of independent anti-corruption commissions, creation of transparent procurement and public financial management systems, and promotion of codes of conduct for public officials rooted in ethics and integrity, to name a few.

All of this work is hugely important and necessary, but there is a missing piece. As reported yesterday in The New York Times, for instance, the anti-corruption struggle is visibly wavering in Africa. If the fight against corruption is to make a real impact and produce sustainable change, the global anti-corruption agenda also needs to focus on generating widespread public intolerance of corruption. The missing piece is the study of norms and measures to transform norms as key to fighting everyday corruption.

Everyday (or petty) corruption, such as bribery, happens routinely in interactions between citizens and public officials, often to facilitate the delivery of public goods and services. Norms have an influence on people’s behavior; they drive people’s attitudes, perceptions, and actions. In many countries, the existing norms in place lead people to believe that bribery and other corrupt practices are not just normal, appropriate and acceptable, but even expected. While living in Russia, I saw my landlord taking chocolate and flowers to a housing official—a tiny gesture meant to gently prod the apartment registration process. When I asked him about it, he shrugged and said, “well, everyone does it.” I doubt he even questioned for a moment if the practice of gift-giving was wrong. “This is the way we do things around here,” people often say.

Professor J.P. Olivier de Sardan, co-editor of Everyday Corruption and the State: Citizens and Public Officials in Africa, has written a fascinating working paper entitled “The Quest for Practical Norms of Real Governance in Africa.” This work describes various types of norms that coexist in a society and their complexity. It provides not only an insight into what could drive citizens’ and public officials’ attitudes and behavior regarding public services, but also ideas on how to begin to think about norms and development of measures to transform them. For, without a solid understanding of norms, efforts to generate public will to fight corruption will not be successful. And without strong public support to combat corruption, all of the excellent work of the global community of anti-corruption champions and commissions may likely continue to falter.
 

Photo Credit: Arne Hoel, WB