Oksana Huss’s book is a welcome addition to two important literatures—the politics of anticorruption and Ukrainian political development. It is thoroughly researched, theoretically ambitious, and engagingly written.
The central argument of the book is that corruption and anticorruption are two faces of the same coin. The categories of the corrupt and the non-corrupt are co-constructed. Anticorruption policy fundamentally legitimizes control and punishment of those who are defined as corrupt. The drivers of anticorruption policy assume a dominant position and by dominating the process of defining corruption and anticorruption, they subordinate those who are construed as corrupt. They create a hierarchy using degree of corruption as the criterion. A second contribution of the book is the proposed system of corruption model, which is defined as a cluster of corruption practices and mechanisms, which are interrelated and cannot be conceptualized independent of each other. The model is distinguished from systemic corruption or endemic corruption and conceptualizes corruption as not culturally, but structurally determined. The model is then applied to a rich analytical narrative of the system of corruption, anticorruption measures, and framing strategies under three Ukrainian presidents—Kuchma, Yushchenko and Yanukovych. The book thoroughly documents the changes in both corruption and anticorruption practices, which suggests that the system is dynamic rather than static as culturally or historically rooted explanations would predict. It also lays out how these Ukrainian presidents talked about corruption and the ways to reduce it. The short answer is: very differently.
The book will be useful both analytically and empirically. It provides a comprehensive overview and a useful synthesis of the literatures on corruption and anticorruption. It masterfully navigates both positivist and constructivist approaches across several disciplines—political science, economics, anthropology, and criminology. Anyone teaching undergraduate or graduate courses on corruption and good governance would benefit from assigning parts of this book. The empirical analysis of the Ukrainian data is also impressive. Anybody interested in the evolution of anticorruption legislation and institutions in Ukraine should read this book. Current analyses of Ukraine’s post-Maidan governments’ innovations, failures and successes in controlling corruption should use the book as a baseline and starting point.
Dr Huss’s work raises important questions for future research. The first one is about the relationship between corruption and anticorruption. As co-constructed as they may be, it seems that the nature of this relationship depends greatly on whether anticorruption is pursued in earnest as an attempt to weaken or dismantle the system of corruption or whether it is pursued as a weaponization tool against political opponents or as diversionary tactic masking other political problems. We know that in Ukraine, under Yanukovych especially, anticorruption was used as a political weapon (Popova, Reference Popova2013) and more research is needed to understand how anticorruption functioned under Poroshenko and now under Zelensky. However, if anticorruption, by definition, goes hand in hand with subordination and the creation of hierarchy, as Dr Huss argues, then does this model allow for an exit from a system of corruption? There seems to be a “damned if you do and damned if you do not” element at work. If no one is prosecuted and there is no anticorruption, then the system of corruption thrives. If anticorruption is pursued through prosecution, the argument is that this is just a way to dominate your opponents. So how does a country exit a system of corruption altogether?
Another question that the book raises for this reader concerns the relationship between political conditions, public understanding of the meaning of corruption, and the frames that presidents use. The book shows convincingly that Kuchma framed corruption as individual behavior (“corruption perpetrators are criminals”), implying a meaning of corruption based on principal-agent theory. This is the most politically useful frame for any politician who presides over a functional system of corruption. Is it that this is how Kuchma perceived the meaning of corruption or is this how he wanted Ukrainians to understand it? Probably the latter. But do presidents always have agency in choosing the frames? To what extent are the differences in the system of corruption under Kuchma and Yushchenko a function of the broader political conditions (fragmentation, level of popularity, pre-existing connections in some but not other corner of the state, institutional changes, etc.) vs. a function of the President’s agency?
What is the role of the electorate and public opinion? The electorate comes off as a bit passive in the book, mostly following the frames provided by the presidents. For example, in the chapter on Yushchenko’s presidency, the data on increased perceptions of political corruption and decreasing trust in institutions is interpreted as evidence that the public internalized the message from the president’s framing that corruption is rooted in political institutions. But what if the president was responding to popular opinion instead? How would we know the direction of influence?
The broader question is how could we tell whether a President wants to work to dismantle the system of corruption? What kind of combination of framing and anticorruption steps would he/she take to send a credible signal that the goal is to move the country out of a system of corruption quadrant and into a quadrant where everyone competes by the rules? Would we be able to recognize such a move only in hindsight based on the effects?
My final question is about the broader implications of the model for anticorruption campaigns in hybrid regimes and their variation. Do different systems of corruption tend to produce different types of anticorruption campaigns? Is it possible that a politically weaponized anticorruption campaign would significantly undermine the foundations of a system of corruption, rather than solidify them? I hope that Dr Huss and others continue researching these important topics that are at the core of our goal of understanding how good, clean governance comes about.
