Transparency, Accountability, and Corruption Displacement

透明度、问责制和反腐败

• 批准号: 1424348
• 负责人: Clark Gibson
• 金额: $ 31.54万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1424348&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Transparency; Accountability; Corruption; Displacement

Despite ample funding from the international community, anti-corruption interventions have largely failed to contain corruption. Scholars and policymakers agree that increasing transparency and improving accountability should reduce corruption. Armed with information about corrupt actions, citizens will punish corrupt officials. Institutions of accountability are a key part of this mechanism, as they provide the channel through which citizens and political superiors can act on the information. Yet, the evidence to support these arguments is mixed. Corruption is common across different transparency and accountability environments, from countries rich in information and avenues for taking action against corruption to countries lacking in both. This project will address several possible reasons for this divergence between theory and results. Drawing on work in behavioral economics, it will discern whether politicians respond strategically to anti-corruption interventions by shifting their corruption to forms less vulnerable to detection and punishment. Furthermore, it will combine top-down anti-corruption efforts, such as large-scale audits of accounts, with a bottom-up effort targeting citizens, which typically are executed separately. Finally, the interventions in this project will educate citizens about the roles and responsibilities of government and the action options available to them, in addition to informing them about corruption among their government officials. The interventions of this project will occur in Malawi's local (district) government. To address some of the deficiencies of past anti-corruption interventions, the interventions will combine a regularly scheduled top-down audit of the district government with a bottom-up intervention designed to involve citizens in the anti-corruption process and educate them about their government and avenues of action available to them. The citizen transparency intervention will include broadcasting the main findings about their officials on the local radio, providing written reports about the treated officials to a randomly selected group of citizens, and calling selected district officials before a group of chiefs, civil society representatives, media representatives, and a randomly selected group of citizens to discuss the findings. The meeting will also educate citizens about the avenues of reporting corruption and demanding a reduction in corruption available to them. Shifts in corruption patterns within each district will be measured by conducting a survey of the district officials after the transparency interventions and comparing the results to the 2013 baseline survey. This work holds great promise for both policymaking and science. Donors and international organizations believe that corruption undermines prosperous and peaceful governments in Africa. By providing a specific theory of behavior and creating precise measures of individual corruption, this project will advance the debate regarding institutions, politician incentives, and behavior. By using randomized experiments, this project employs some of the most rigorous designs and tests available to social scientists. Finally, by sampling actual politicians in the surveys measuring outcomes, this project explores political phenomena with those who actually practice politics. Insights from this project can prove invaluable to inform not just the study of corruption, but also its practical dimensions. The design uses actual audits executed by official government personnel, making this study's findings and implications very relevant to those interested in combating corruption. The project findings will be presented to policymakers and researchers in the form of discussions, policy papers, and research articles to academic, government, and policy audiences. This project will also train dozens of citizens -private and government officials- in research methods.

尽管国际社会提供了大量资金，但反腐败干预措施在很大程度上未能遏制腐败。学者和政策制定者一致认为，增加透明度和改善问责制应该减少腐败。有了有关腐败行为的信息，公民将惩罚腐败官员。问责制度是这一机制的关键部分，因为它们提供了公民和政治上级根据信息采取行动的渠道。然而，支持这些论点的证据却好坏参半。腐败在不同的透明度和问责环境中都很常见，从拥有丰富信息和采取反腐败行动途径的国家到缺乏这两者的国家。该项目将解决理论与结果之间出现这种差异的几个可能原因。它将利用行为经济学的研究成果，辨别政治家是否通过将腐败行为转变为不易被发现和惩罚的形式来战略性地应对反腐败干预措施。此外，它将把自上而下的反腐败工作（例如大规模账户审计）与自下而上的针对公民的工作结合起来，这些工作通常是单独执行的。最后，该项目的干预措施将教育公民了解政府的角色和责任以及他们可以采取的行动选择，此外还让他们了解政府官员的腐败行为。该项目的干预将由马拉维当地（区）政府进行。为了解决过去反腐败干预措施的一些缺陷，这些干预措施将把定期对区政府自上而下的审计与自下而上的干预措施结合起来，旨在让公民参与反腐败过程，并教育他们了解政府和他们可以采取的行动途径。公民透明度干预措施将包括在当地广播电台广播有关官员的主要调查结果，向随机选择的一组公民提供有关受处理官员的书面报告，以及在一组酋长、民间社会代表、媒体代表和随机选择的公民组面前召集选定的地区官员讨论调查结果。会议还将教育公民举报腐败的途径并要求减少腐败行为。将通过在透明度干预措施后对地区官员进行调查并将结果与​​ 2013 年基线调查进行比较来衡量每个地区腐败模式的变化。这项工作对政策制定和科学都有着巨大的前景。捐助者和国际组织认为，腐败破坏了非洲繁荣与和平的政府。通过提供具体的行为理论并制定个人腐败的精确衡量标准，该项目将推动有关制度、政治动机和行为的辩论。通过随机实验，该项目采用了社会科学家可用的一些最严格的设计和测试。最后，通过在衡量结果的调查中对实际政治家进行抽样，该项目与那些实际从事政治活动的人一起探讨政治现象。事实证明，该项目的见解不仅可以为腐败研究提供信息，而且可以为腐败的实际层面提供信息。该设计使用了政府官方人员执行的实际审计，使得这项研究的结果和影响与那些对反腐败感兴趣的人非常相关。项目研究结果将以讨论、政策文件和研究文章的形式向学术界、政府和政策受众展示给政策制定者和研究人员。该项目还将对数十名公民（私人和政府官员）进行研究方法培训。