The Necessity of Talking the Talk: The functions of Communication for Anti-Corruption Political Will and Policy Development in Ukrainian Local Government

Abstract

Corruption is a notoriously intractable problem. How do local public authorities manage to initiate and sustain meaningful anti-corruption efforts? To address this question, we examine the processes and interactions among key stakeholders in six local settings in Ukraine showing sustained reform effort between 2014 and 2021. The analysis identifies key communicative tasks that, taken together, induce initial commitments to tackle corruption, turn commitments into tangible policies, and sustain reform and processes of change. The cases suggest three recommendations for international and local policy actors seeking to support reform: invest in multi-stakeholder platforms, use facilitators, and build internal capacity for data collection and analysis among local governments.

This policy brief builds on Research Report 22, and is linked to Policy Brief 16.

Read the authors’ reflections about the impact of this research project in this blog post.