Dan Hough, Prof. of Politics at the University of Sussex, and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption, discusses his new book Foul Play: Tackling Football’s Integrity Problem. Dan builds on analytical frameworks from the corruption and governance fields to analyse the integrity challenges facing the beautiful game, on and off th…

Professor David Jancsics (San Diego State University) discusses his research on the sociology of corruption. Drawing on sociological and other theoretical insights, he proposes a new typology of corruption with two cross-cutting dimensions (the type of resource transfer and the client) and four types: market corruption, social bribe, corrupt organi…

Many anti-corruption initiatives disseminate messages about corruption and its harms but how can these messages be framed to ensure they are effective? To explore this and related questions Caryn Peiffer (Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Bristol) and Nic Cheeseman (Professor of Democracy and International Development at the…

The U.S. Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) is a groundbreaking piece of anti-corruption legislation which makes it a crime for any foreign official to demand or accept a bribe from an American or American company, or from any person while in the territory of the United States. Our two guests, Tom Firestone, Partner at Squire, Patton and Boggs…

This episode unpacks the problem of sexual corruption and how to design effective policy responses to it. Our two guests are Associate Professor of Public Policy, Anna Petherick, who is based at the Blavatnik School of Government, University Oxford, and is also the Director of the Lemann Foundation Programme at the school, and Dr. Ortrun Merkle, Re…

Professor Lucio Picci (University of Bologna) speaks to Professor Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption) about his recent work on rethinking the current anti-corruption paradigm. Lucio argues for the field to pay more attention to potential 'side effects' from anti-corruption discourse, particularly when this agenda is hijacked by p…

Emmanuel Mathias, Head of the Governance and Anti-Corruption Division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), speaks to Prof. Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption). He discusses the main pillars of the IMF's 2018 Framework for Enhanced Engagement on Governance, providing insights on how the fund approaches its anti-corruption wor…

In this latest chapter on state capture, Ketakandriana Rafitoson (Vice-Chair, Transparency International; Executive Director of Transparency International Initiative Madagascar) outlines how this problem manifests in Madagascar and the harms caused. She speaks to Tom Shipley (Researcher, Centre for the Study of Corruption) about how state capture h…

John Penrose MP, the former UK government Anti-Corruption Champion (2017 - 2022), joins us for this episode. He speaks to Professor Robert Barrington (Centre for the Study of Corruption) about the lessons learnt from his time in the role. This includes taking us behind the scenes to understand what the role of the government Anti-Corruption Champio…

The journalist Tom Burgis speaks to Prof. Liz Dávid-Barrett about his work investigating corruption across different continents. Tom talks about he got into journalism and what goes into researching these books. His books cover what Tom calls the rise of kleptocracy since the end of the Cold War. The latest - Cuckooland - grapples with some of the …

Richard Nephew, the US Department of State's Coordinator on Global Anti-Corruption, speaks to Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption) about the US strategy on countering corruption. The episode explores some of the aims and practicalities involved in implementing different pillars of the strategy, including attempts to strengthen the…

In this episode Gretta Fenner (Managing Director, Basel Institute on Governance) and Daniel Eriksson (CEO, Transparency International) talk to Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption) about the links between corruption and national security issues. The episode follows from the Munich Security Conference where Daniel and Gretta raised …

Alison Taylor, Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, speaks to Prof. Dan Hough (Centre for the Study of Corruption) on the topic of business ethics. Alison talks about her early career investigating corruption by businesses before she moved into the broader space of corporate responsibility and business ethics. Alison descri…

In this episode, Liz Dávid-Barrett, Becky Dobson-Phillips and Dan Hough (all Centre for the Study of Corruption) talk through some of the key considerations involved in defining corruption. They begin by discussing the strengths and limitations of the mainstream public office centred definition of corruption developed by Joseph S Nye (see below). B…

Continuing our chapter on kleptocracy and state capture, this episode features Sankhitha Gunaratne, Deputy Executive Director of Transparency International Sri Lanka. She speaks to Liz David-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption) about TI's work to combat state capture in the country. The recent economic crisis in Sri Lanka has laid bare the …

Daniel Freund is a Member of the European Parliament and former Head of Advocacy for European Union Integrity at Transparency International. In this episode he speaks to Prof. Dan Hough about the different dimensions to the EU's fight against corruption. The discussion starts with the struggle to protect EU institutions from undue influence, a prob…

Dr. Andreas Bågenholm (University of Gothenburg) and Dr. Rekha Diwakar (University of Sussex) join Prof. Dan Hough to discuss anti-corruption political parties. These parties have proliferated in different parts of the world in the last two decades. Andreas and Rekha draw on their research in Europe and India respectively to talk about where these …

In this episode Professor Dan Hough (Centre for the Study of Corruption) speaks to Professor Robert Klitgaard (Claremont Graduate University). Robert is a well-known and influential academic in the corruption field. He talks us through the origins of his ideas in applying institutional economic theory to understanding corruption issues, as original…

In episode 102 Robert Barrington (Centre for the Study of Corruption), Guy Beringer KC (Hon) (Chair of the Taskforce on Business Ethics and the Legal Profession), Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption) and Tena Prelec (University of Rijeka) discuss the topic of so-called 'professional enablers'. Distinguishing between legal and ille…

Leading academics from the Centre for the Study of Corruption sit down to discuss what we learnt from Episode 100. The anniversary episode featured insights on the state of anti-corruption practice from some of the leading global thinkers in the field. Here, Robert Barrington, Liz Dávid-Barrett, Dan Hough and Sam Power debate some of the key questi…

For this special anniversary episode, Kickback invited leading thinkers from around the globe to comment on the state of practice in the corruption field. We asked each individual to respond to one of two questions:a) ​'what is one thing about corruption that you've changed your thinking on in the past 10 years?' b) 'what is the most significant de…

Huma Yusuf speaks to Tom Shipley about the links between business integrity and environmental, social and governance (ESG). Huma is Director of Business Integrity at British International Investment, an impact investor, and a key public commentator on climate change in Pakistan. In this podcast, Huma describes how anti-corruption and business integ…

This is the second episode of the 'Introduction to' series in which experts provide an overview of some of the key issues in the corruption field. In this episode Liz Dávid-Barrett, Dan Hough and Sam Power (all Centre for the Study of Corruption) discuss the leading theories for corruption analysis, including rational choice, collective action and …

Michela Wrong, journalist and author of It's Our Turn to Eat, speaks to Dr. Sam Power, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Centre for the Study of Corruption. Named as the top book on corruption by The Guardian in 2023, It's Our Turn to Eat tells the story of John Githongo, the Kenyan activist and whistleblower interviewed in Episode 96. Michela tal…

The Kenyan anti-corruption campaigner and activist, John Githongo, speaks to Liz Dávid-Barrett (Centre for the Study of Corruption). The episode covers key moments in John's career including his involvement in the formation of Transparency International and time spent as Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in the Kenyan government in the …

Dr. Magnus Öhman, senior political finance adviser at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, speaks to the Kickback team. Magnus discusses the challenges of corruption and political trust against the wider global context of increased democratic backsliding. There is specific focus on approaches to tackling the problem of illicit financ…

Grant Walton, Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy (Australian National University, speaks to Dan Hough about his research on corruption in Papua New Guinea (PNG). A key focus for Grant has been to explore what people understand by corruption in PNG and how this compares to Western understandings of the term. The disconnectio…

Professor Dan Hough (University of Sussex), Professor Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett (University of Sussex/ International Anti-Corruption Academy) and Dr. Roxana Bratu (King's College London) provide an introduction to corruption measurement debates. They explore questions like:How has measurement of corruption changed over the three decades?What are the …

Andrew Wedeman, Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University, speaks to Professor Dan Hough about the politics of anti-corruption campaigns in China. Andrew analyses the anti-corruption campaign instigated by President Xi Jinping and also puts this into historical perspective. Andrew and Dan discuss the effects this campaign has had o…

Cheri-Leigh Erasmus, Global Director of Learning at the Accountability Lab, speaks to Dan Hough, Professor of Politics at the Centre for the Study of Corruption. She describes Accountability Lab's distinctive approach to building integrity in the civil service with examples from across the globe. She shares some lessons from this work and offers pl…

Claudia Baez Camargo, Head of Public Governance at the Basel Institute, talks to Liz Dávid-Barrett about her work on applying social norms theory to analysing corruption issues. The episode takes in examples of applied research in East Africa and Ukraine, while Claudia's thinking on corruption is also influenced by her upbringing in Mexico. Claudia…

This episode features Cecilia Müller Torbrand, CEO of the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN). She speaks to Liz Dávid-Barrett about the work of MACN, a network of shipping businesses which has been making some real headway in reducing corruption risks in this sector. The MACN story offers lots of valuable lessons for researchers and practition…

Luís de Sousa, deputy director and research fellow at ICS-ULisboa, speaks to Robert Barrington, professor of anti-corruption practice at the Centre for the Study of Corruption, on a range of topics. Luís is well-known for his research on anti-corruption agencies and in the episode he discusses country cases and conditions for success. This is also …

In this episode recorded on the margins of the International Anti-Corruption Conference, Paul Massaro, senior policy advisor for the U.S. Helsinki Commission, speaks to Liz Dávid-Barrett. Paul discusses the drivers behind the Enablers Act and the role of the US in countering kleptocracy. The conversation also covers the effectiveness of internation…

Kicking off 2023 we were delighted to have Dame Margaret Hodge join us to talk about integrity issues in the UK. She speaks to Dr. Sam Power, Senior Lecturer at the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption, to talk about her fascinating route into politics and how this naturally led her to focus on integrity. The episode covers corruption issues i…

This episode from the margins of the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Washington DC features Shannon Green, Executive Director of USAID's Anti-Corruption Task Force. Shannon talks to Liz Dávid-Barrett about the agency's new anti-corruption strategy. They also focus on the challenge of fighting kleptocracies and USAID's new dekleptificati…

We are delighted to announce that the Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC) at the University of Sussex is the new home of Kickback. The centre will be hosting the podcast over the next three years. We look forward to continuing the great work of the original Kickback team and welcoming an interesting range of guests from across the anti-corrupt…

Ahead of the Qatar World Cup, we welcome Maggie Murphy, CEO of Lewes Football Club and a former Senior Global Advocacy Manager at Transparency International. She speaks to Dan Hough, self-professed football obsessive and Professor of Politics at Sussex University.Maggie takes us through her journey from anti-corruption campaigning to football manag…

In the first of a series of episodes hosted by the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, we welcome Daniel Kaufmann. Daniel is a senior fellow at Results for Development (R4D) and President Emeritus at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). He is also a former Director of the World Bank where he headed programme…

We welcome Andrii Borovyk (@Borovyk_UA), Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine, and Gretta Fenner (@gretweets), the managing director of the Basel Institute for Governance. Andrii and Gretta describe their background and how they ended up in their current positions. How the invasion changed anti-corruption work within Ukraine, ho…

We welcome Mihaly Fazekas, assistant professor at the Central European University, Department of Public Policy, who works on a range of topics related to corruption. The interview covers how how his own personal experience with bad public infrastructure inspired him to conduct corruption research, why he believes that corruption research would bene…

Michel Sapin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Sapin) served as a Minister of Finance in France from 1992 to 1993 and 2014 to 2017 and now works as a Senior Advisor for Franklin Lawyers with a specialization in anti-corruption laws. Valentina Lana is a Lecturer at the Sciences Po law school in Paris. Matthew Stephenson interviews the two to dis…

We are thrilled to welcome Ray Fisman (@RFisman), Professor of Economics at Boston University, long-standing corruption expert and author of Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations (https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691144696/economic-gangsters) (with Ed Miguel) and Corruption: What everybody needs to know…

Today, we welcome investigative journalist Frederik Obermaier (@f_obermaier). In the interview, we cover the Suisse Secrets (https://www.occrp.org/en/suisse-secrets/). Frederik also mentions the China Cables uncovering surveillance and mass internment without charge or trial of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, China (https://www.ici…

We welcome back Gary Kalman, director of Transparency International’s United States Office, for the third time. Find out more about the coalition at us.transparency.org(00:40) - Progress the U.S. is making on the fight against global corruption, and the role of U.S. entities in facilitating corruption(05:19) - The White House Anti Corruption strate…

In this special episode, we welcome Anastasia Kirilenko to the podcast. She is an investigative journalist and the co-author of the documentary "Putin and the Mafia" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttM-O-j1AVs&t=462s). (02:55) - Kirilenko's background(06:59) - Documentary "Putin and the Mafia"(10:55) - Media restrictions in Russia (15:50) - The ro…

In this special episode, Oksana Huss, who has been working on anticorruption in Ukraine for the last 10 years, talks with Svitlana Musiiaka, who is a lawyer based in Ukraine and Head of Research and Policy at NAKO. Musiiaka was previously Head of Corruption Detection in the Ministry of Health, and worked with the Prosecutors Office in Ukraine. (01:…

We welcome Oksana Nesterenko as part of our series on Ukraine. She is an Associate Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the Anti-corruption Research and Education Centre at National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy. (01:06) - Nesterenko’s interest in anti-corruption and her work as an academic researcher and advocate(02:39) - The war for…

As a continuation on our series about Ukraine, we welcome Igor logvinenko, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College.(01:14) - Igor’s background and his book, “Global Finance, Local Control: Corruption and Wealth in Contemporary Russia”(06:51) - Russia’s historical corruption and current financial integration into …

We welcome Inna Melnykovska from the Political Science Department at Central European University. She is an expert on state business relations and crony capitalism in Eastern Europe. (01:50) - The direction of Inna’s research(06:00) - Political pluralism and the competition of big business in Ukrainian politics(08:50) - Putin and Ukraine’s competit…