Building Political Will to Combat Corruption

Authors: Marcia Grimes, Oksana Huss & Ksenia Ivanyshyn (2021)

Pervasive corruption presents a challenge to scholars, practitioners, and activists. This policy brief reviews academic and policy perspectives on political will in anti-corruption efforts. The importance of political will for the success of anti-corruption reforms is widely cited, but knowledge gaps remain regarding why political will arises (or fails to do so). This policy brief summarizes the academic literature on political will to combat corruption and identifies key strategies and questions that may help policy actors to better measure, analyze but also to mobilize anti-corruption political will.