WHY DO STATES ADOPT INEFFICIENT INSTITUTIONS?: EXPLAINING THE EMERGENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION REGIME

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, corruption began to be understood as a global problem. In this context, an international regime oriented towards curbing corruption emerged, which led to a large number of countries to adopt its prescriptions, namely: anti-corruption legislation and agencies focused on the public sector. This article proposes a constructivist explanation to this phenomenon, arguing that an anti-corruption culture was strengthen by a set of international bureaucracies, which reproduced and legitimized a discourse against corruption through epistemic communities which linked corruption and underdevelopment. Thus, these bureaucracies fixed the meaning of corruption and diffused a series of specific policies, despite the fact that their efficiency had not yet been proven.