Civilizing techniques: Transparency International and the spread of anti-corruption

Abstract

Transparency International (TI) is an international non government organisation founded in 1993 to combat corruption in international business activities. The paper looks at TI both as an agent and critic of ‘market civilisation’, paying particular attention to some of the techniques has developed including: networking; the franchising of national chapters; the publication of an annual ‘Corruption Perceptions Index’; the publication of a ‘Source Book’ on the web; and the development of Business Principles for Countering Bribery. Civilisation may be a coercive process, and the paper is particularly concerned with the kinds of power deployed in these techniques. It analyses them as examples of ‘policy transfer’ and as the results of processes of mimicry and professionalisation that lead to ‘institutional isomorphism’, and draws some conclusions about the spread of civilisation.