This paper uses survey data from Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) to examine what determines people’s willingness to act against corruption. It tested two main hypotheses suggested in recent literature: 1) The more a person perceives corruption to be pervasively practiced in society, the less willing they will be to engage in anti-corruption activism; and 2) The more a person perceives their government’s efforts to control corruption as effective, the less willing they will be to engage in anti-corruption activism.
The study focuses on nationally representative GCB samples, using data from 77,535 respondents across 71 countries, in order to perform logit analyses. The study examined four categories of possible determinants of active opposition to corruption: respondents’ perceptions of corruption, their experiences of the state, their resources, and country-level contextual factors.
Key Findings:
- People’s perceptions of the corruption environment, and how these perceptions interact, significantly affect people’s willingness to act against corruption. People’s perceptions of corruption becoming more of a problem can increase their willingness to engage in anti-corruption activism. Respondents’ perceptions of the level of government corruption do not affect their willingness to engage in anti-corruption activity. However, people across the 71 countries are 7% more likely to be willing to report corruption when they believe it has ‘increased a lot’ over the last two years than when they think it has ‘decreased a lot’ over the same period.
- The perception that the government is effective in controlling corruption has different impacts in OECD and non-OECD countries. When influential, it reduces people’s willingness to act against corruption in OECD countries and increases it in non-OECD countries.
- Younger people, men and people who come into contact with the state frequently tend to be more willing to act against corruption.
- While greater participation in bribery reduces people’s willingness to report corrupt exchanges, it does not affect their willingness to engage in the other forms of anti-corruption activism analysed.
- Respondents in societies where women are more fully integrated in the formal workforce are more likely to see themselves as potential anti-corruption activists.
- A country’s level of democracy, measured by the Freedom House Index, has no estimated impact on people’s willingness to actively oppose corruption.
Recommendations:
- The results suggest that a shift of focus might make anti-corruption campaigns more effective. Instead of highlighting government successes in identifying or prosecuting cases of corruption, should publicity focus more on corruption as an increasing problem in society? More research is needed to answer this question.
- The data used in this study only enable analysis of what citizens say they are willing to do. It is important to examine the perceptions, motivations and behaviour of those people actually participating in anti-corruption activism.
- If civic action is important in reducing corruption, we need to consider not only how people perceive their corruption environment, but how those perceptions are shaped, and what role anti-corruption programmes play in shaping them.
