As many GAB readers know, in addition to this blog, I’ve been co-running the KickBack anticorruption podcast–in collaboration with Nils Kobis and Christopher Starke of the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN)–since March 2019. We have all very much enjoyed the opportunity to interview leading anticorruption thinkers and practitioners on the podcast, and to use that platform to share our guests’ insights with the larger anticorruption community. That said, the time had come for us to move on to other projects. But we did not want the podcast to die, and I am pleased to say that it won’t! As of last month, the ICRN and GAB have officially handed over the podcast to the team at Sussex University’s Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC). I have no doubt that the CSC team will do an excellent job, and I look forward to being a regular listener. I’ve been remiss in announcing this changeover, as well as the first several episodes of KickBack that have been released under CSC’s leadership. Three episodes have gone up in the last month and a half:

• In the November 4, 2023 episode, Professor Elizabeth David-Barrett, the CSC’s Director, interviews Daniel Kaufmann, currently 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 (among other things) he helped develop the Worldwide Governance Indicators. The conversation covers many topics, but focuses primarily on the emergence and evolution of the concept of “state capture,” with attention to several case studies in countries such as the Balkans, South Africa, the UK and US.
• In the November 17, 2023 episode, Professor Dan Hough interviews Maggie Murphy, the CEO of the Lewes Football Club and a former Senior Global Advocacy Manager at Transparency International. After discussing her journey from anticorruption campaigning to football management, Maggie discusses the ethical problems affecting football, how these issues exacerbate inequity between the men’s and women’s games, and what an alternative vision for ethical club management could look like.
• Finally, in the most recent episode, released on December 6, 2023, Professor David-Barrett interviews yours truly! This functioned partly as an official “passing-of-the-torch” episode (and it’s admittedly a bit self-indulgent), as Liz and I discuss the background for the KickBack podcast, why we started it, and why platforms like this might make a valuable contribution. But we also have the opportunity to talk a bit about my advice for up-and-coming corruption researchers, as well some of the themes in my research over the last couple of years, including my theoretical work on incremental versus “big bang” approaches to anticorruption reform, and my coauthored work on anticorruption in nineteenth and early twentieth century U.S. history.