Anti-corruption agencies, multiple principals, and the institutional framework.

摘要

Over the recent decades, anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) have become an institutional feature of an ever-increasing number of world states. This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework for considering conditions under which anti-corruption agencies emerge as effective institutional actors. To that end, the following chapters assess more in-depth the impact of the legislative-executive context within which ACAs function on their effectiveness, as well as the impact of other accountability bodies or of external donors on the functioning or design of these agencies. In essence this project claims that ACAs always depend on some other institutional actor(s) for their top appointments, financial resources or oversight (which act similarly to principals for the ACAs). I would therefore expect anti-corruption bodies that are controlled by multiple principals with low incentives of collusion among themselves to be more effective. In addition to this, and based on an argument proposed by O'Donnell (1999), ACAs are also expected to be more effective when embedded in supporting networks of horizontal accountability. Finally, the existence of multiple principals can be tied to an opening up in the bargaining space triggered by the presence of external donors.;In order to assess these claims, I rely on both new and existing cross-national data. An additional contribution of this project is therefore represented by a data collection effort on anti-corruption agencies, which has resulted in a dataset with objective information on ACA principals and other features. These data are also described in the subsequent chapters.