Designing effective anti-corruption interventions by gauging the role of formal legal frameworks in network-based governance systems

In our research to date we mapped and analysed the dynamics, functionality, and ubiquity of network based governance systems predicated on informal practices in East Africa and post-Soviet Eurasia, demonstrating the presence of common features and patterns. In the second phase we propose to adopt a specifically sociolegal perspective and approach to analyse the interface and interdependence of network and formal governance in the same seven countries and to develop a diagnostic for assessing the viability of anti-corruption reforms. We will undertake a review of specific anti-corruption reforms (legislation, regulations, institutional charters etc) introduced in the last three years as well as broader background legal-constitutional reforms: a study of all relevant legal provisions, travaux preparatoires, decisions, statistics and reports, supplemented by interviews with legislators, drafters, justice system and administrative personnel, other legal professionals, civil society and donor representatives. We will also identify successful network-based rather than formal anti-corruption efforts.