Welcome to the Global Anticorruption Blog. This blog is a forum for analysis and discussion of the problem of corruption, particularly (though not exclusively) public or political corruption around the world. While “corruption” has a range of different meanings, our intended focus is on a set of familiar activities — including bribery, extortion, embezzlement, nepotism, and related conduct — that entail the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption has become a high-profile, high-stakes topic in international development, and figuring out the best strategies to combat corruption is a high priority for governments, international organizations, advocacy organizations, and scholars.

The Global Anticorruption Blog is intended to facilitate interaction between the academic, policy, and advocacy communities. Such interaction is important to ensure both that policy initiatives are based on the best available research, and also to promote scholarship that is relevant to pressing real-world challenges. This blog also aims to promote the sharing of information and insights across disciplinary boundaries, so that scholars and practitioners with a range of professional backgrounds – in law, politics, economics, business, public management, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and more – can learn from one another and work together in pursuit of the common goal of promoting effective anticorruption strategies. Our goal is to foster discussion and debate that is rigorous, vigorous, and constructive.

To this end, my co-blogger Rick Messick and I, along with participants in the Harvard Law School Global Anticorruption Lab, will post our perspectives on recent articles, news stories, legal cases, policy initiatives, and other material related to global anticorruption.  We will occasionally try to be provocative, and we may often be wrong, but we hope that our posts will be able to spark productive conversations.  Thank you for visiting, and we hope you will participate in the conversations!