Description
Controlling corruption is a global concern and oftentimes a crucial aspect of democratisation. This study explores the impact of democratic international organisations (IOs) on states’ control of corruption, focusing on the conditions under which democratic IOs are most effective. The existing theoretical body of work on IO impact has highlighted the importance of enforcement through conditional rewards and changing norms through socialisation. This paper supplements it by exploring a potentially new theoretical condition for impact, extrapolated from sanction-busting literature: the importance of alternative actors, sometimes called black knights. These actors offer an alternative source of rewards and benefits to a state, non-conditional on anti-corruption (conceptualised as state capture and petty corruption). It suggests an avenue to explore: whether a state's efforts to control corruption are hindered if an influential alternative actor, who does not prioritise anti-corruption, has strong economic and cultural ties with that state.
