Category Archives: Announcement

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Casey Michel

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this week’s episode, I interview the American journalist Casey Michel about his new book, American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History. In our conversation, Casey and I touch on a variety of topics raised by his provocative book, including the dynamics that led to the U.S. and U.S. entities playing such a substantial role in facilitating illicit financial flows (including the nature of American federalism, the broad exceptions to the coverage of U.S. anti-money laundering laws, and the role of U.S.-based “enablers” of illicit finance), the challenges of regulating lawyers and law firms, the role and responsibilities of universities in light of concerns about “reputation laundering” by kleptocrats and others, the impact of the Trump and Biden Administrations in this area, and the challenges of generating and maintaining bipartisan/nonpartisan support for fighting kleptocracy. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:

KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the ICRN. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends! And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Dan Hough

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this week’s episode, I interview Professor Dan Hough, Head of the Department of Politics at the University of Sussex, who previously served as the Director of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. After starting out discussing how Professor Hough got interested in studying corruption, the bulk of out interview focuses on Professor Hough’s most recent research project focused on integrity and corruption in sports–including not only cheating on the field and in the organization of major sporting events, but more broadly why better understanding threats to integrity in sports can help the anticorruption community better understand important aspects of the fight against corruption in other contexts. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the ICRN. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends! And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.

Announcement: CIPE’s Anticorruption Podcast Roundup (and Contest!)

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As most readers of this blog are likely aware, in addition to this blog I also co-run an anticorruption podcast series–called “KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast”–in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network. Ours is certainly not the only anticorruption-themed podcast out there. Indeed, it seems that there’s been a proliferation of such podcasts in the last couple of years, and it can sometimes be hard to keep track of all the podcasts that people in the anticorruption may want to follow. Fortunately, the Anti-Corruption & Governance Center at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) has put together a list of ten anticorruption podcasts which are worth checking out. (My ICRN colleagues and I are grateful that KickBack is included in this list!)

Also, as a fun way to publicize all of these podcasts and attract new listeners, CIPE is running a “People’s Choice” contest, where you can vote for your favorite anticorruption podcast and your favorite individual podcast episode(s). You can vote here. I feel like I should put in a plug for KickBack, but really, as folks always say at awards shows, it’s an honor just to be nominated. 🙂

In all seriousness, thanks to CIPE for calling attention to all of these podcasts–some of which I already knew about and listened to, but others of which I only learned about from CIPE’s list, and all of which are worth a listen. I’m providing below links to these ten podcasts, but I would recommend going to CIPE’s post, which provides more detailed descriptions of each podcast. (I’m sure there are more podcasts out there that the anticorruption would find of interest, so I invite readers to publicize other podcasts in the comments on this post.)

Here are the ten anticorruption podcasts on CIPE’s list so far:

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Michael Johnston

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this week’s episode, I interview Michael Johnston, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at Colgate University. Professor Johnston is one of the leading academic voices on the study of corruption, and has been working in this area for over three decades. In our interview, we discuss the trajectory of his own research on corruption, including his identification and analysis of four distinct “syndromes” of corruption, as well as his broader perspective on the overall direction of the field, how his own views have shifted in light of new findings and developments, and his advice for a new generation of researchers interested in better understanding corruption and how to combat it.

You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:

KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the ICRN. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends! And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.

Anticorruption Bibliography–November 2021 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage. A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here. Additionally, the bibliography is available in more user-friendly, searchable from at Global Integrity’s Anti-Corruption Corpus website. As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

Conference on Empirical Approaches to Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crimes

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The Central Bank of the Bahamas hosts the Third International Research Conference on Empirical Approaches to Anti-money Laundering and Financial Crimes this January 20 and 21 in Nassau. 

Countering the laundering of the proceeds of corruption and other financial crimes has become a critical issue at both the national and international level. Enormous time and attention has been devoted to putting an end to money laundering and enormous sums spent complying with existing laws and directives. Few, however, are happy with the results to date. 

The principal reason for the failure of anti-money laundering laws is the lack of a sound empirical base on which to build an enforcement regime, a point their critics have made at since Reuter and Truman’s 2004 Chasing Dirty Money. The conference is an important step towards remedying our lack of knowledge about how such basic issues as how money launderers works, where the risks are the greatest, and what are the most effective means for reducing them. Details on attending either in person or online here. Current list of speakers and papers follows.

[Submissions to last week’s poll on the definition of corruption still being received.  It is not too late to enter with the chance to win a lifetime subscription to GAB at the current rate.]

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New Podcast Episode, Featuring Peter Solmssen

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this week’s episode, I interview Peter Solmssen, an American lawyer who currently serves as the chair of the International Bar Association’s Subcommittee on Non-Trial Resolutions of Bribery Cases, and who previous served as the General Counsel of the Siemens Corporation in the immediate aftermath of Siemens’ foreign bribery scandal in 2007-2008. In our interview, Mr. Solmssen discusses his perspective on the Siemens case, including both how and why a successful and large company like Siemens developed systematic bribery schemes in the first place, and how Siemens new leadership in the aftermath of the scandal took steps to clean up the company and change its culture. Our conversation then moves from the Siemens case to broader questions concerning how best to combat transnational bribery, whether statutes like the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) are effective, and the role of the private sector in promoting ethics and integrity.
You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the ICRN. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends! And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.

Is Italy Backtracking on the Fight Against Foreign Bribery?

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Press reports, informed commentary, and the recent acquittal of ENI and Royal Dutch Shell despite overwhelming evidence they bribed Nigerian officials provide alarming evidence that Italy’s commitment to curbing foreign bribery is waning.

That commitment was never that strong to begin with. Although bound by the OECD Antibribery Convention to investigate and prosecute foreign bribery cases, in 2011 the OECD Working Group on Bribery found Italy had done little to comply. In the decade since ratifying the convention, only a few dozen cases had been brought, almost all against individuals for small-time bribery, and most had ended in acquittals. This dismal record was not surprising, the Working Group observed, given no one had been trained on how to investigate foreign bribery cases, and no public prosecutor’s office specialized in such cases.

The one bright spot the Working Group found was the Milan office of the public prosecutor.  It had aggressively pursued foreign bribery cases, opening by far the lion’s share of cases, including all those where a corporation was involved. Its future is now in doubt.

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Anticorruption Bibliography–October 2021 Update

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An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage. A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here. Additionally, the bibliography is available in more user-friendly, searchable from at Global Integrity’s Anti-Corruption Corpus website.

As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Will Fitzgibbon

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this week’s episode, my colleague Christopher Starke interviews Will Fitzgibbon, a senior reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), about the Pandora Papers leak and what this evidence, and the associated reporting, reveals about international financial secrecy and the ways in which this system facilitates illicit financial flows and enables corruption, tax evasion, and organized crime. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:

KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the ICRN. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends! And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.