What factors are important to a successful anti-corruption strategy?

Abstract

This literature review highlights important factors that the theoretic research on corruption has found out, which should be helpful when creating an anti-corruption strategy. This is done by first acknowledging the principal-agent relationship that is between a corrupt official and its principal. While this has been the dominant way to consider corruption in a society, I will present through past research how the principal-agent model while offering important insights for fighting corruption, has also its flaws, which need to be addressed to understand corruption comprehensively.

The factors important to anti-corruption are found by linking the past research with newer one through a central survey on corruption, which addresses possible ways to decrease corruption while also questioning the nature of corruption as simply a two-way relationship between a principal and agent. While this literature review does not offer a specific answer to corruption, it is clear from the review that corruption can not be considered a simple problem, and thus the creation of anti-corruption strategies is not a simple matter that as of yet does not have a universal answer.