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Macedonian municipalities should pass anti‐corruption ordinances in order to reduce corruption. The purpose of this paper is to review the legal issues involved in drafting such ordinances and provide legal advisors to local councils with the legal and economic analysis needed to tackle some of the more difficult and detailed questions.

The most important issue revolves around the creation of a model ordinance which Macedonian municipalities (or the Association of Units of Local Self‐Government of the Republic of Macedonia) could adopt in order to set‐up and run municipal‐level anti‐corruption agencies. The location of such agencies as well as their competencies (to monitor conflicts of interests, oversee asset declarations, and conduct corruption risk‐audits among others) are analysed. The paper also provides legal interpretations of Macedonian legislation and their likely impact on municipal council ordinance design in the area of anti‐corruption – providing the legal basis for positive administrative silence, the splitting of municipal procurement contracts, and (most controversially) qui tam rewards at the municipal level.

A brief regulatory impact analysis of the ordinance shows a gain of €162,900 in social welfare if such a programme were rolled‐out in Macedonia.

The present paper provides some of the legal analysis which previous papers lack.

The effect of corruption in South Africa has seriously constrained development of the national economy and has significantly inhibited good governance in the country. South Africa's complex political design is a contributing factor to the rise of corruption, which has adversely affected stability and trust and which has damaged the ethos of democratic values and principles. Although the South African government has been instrumental in systems to fight the evils of corruption, practical problems have increasingly emerged over the years. The most notable problems are: insufficient coordination of anti‐corruption work within the South African public service and among the various sectors of society; poor information about corruption and the impact of anti‐corruption measures and agencies; and the impact of corruption on good governance. This paper is a part of a broader study undertaken on corruption. It addresses issues related to corruption and good governance in the South African (National) Public Service. To articulate and analyse the challenges confronting the country, issues regarding coordination of anti‐corruption agencies will be explored.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the multiple anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) in Taiwan and their conflict resolution. The birth of the Agency Against Corruption (AAC) in 2011 created the unintended consequence of sibling rivalry with the elder Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB).

A historical background of these agencies is discussed and followed by an analysis of the diversified conflicts among the prosecutor’s office, the AAC and the MJIB. The empirical sources of this study include 17 in-depth interviews with government officials both at ministerial level and field level, scholars and NGO representatives.

The redundancy of ACAs in Taiwan is a fact, which is extremely difficult to change in the foreseeable future in the light of current political and fiscal constraints. This paper concludes that the conflicts among multiple ACAs and their operational weaknesses will not fade away after a mere directive from their superior, the Ministry of Justice, unless genuine cooperation is put into place in various individual cases.

This paper provides a road-map for decision makers to improve collective anti-corruption performance. Taiwan’s AAC serves as the latest example testing the efficacy of the multiple specialized ACAs.

This pioneering study provides insights into Taiwan’s anti-corruption policy and practices. More investigative studies should be conducted on the effectiveness of multiple ACAs in other countries.

This paper aims to answer the following two research questions: Do corruption cases present different features before and since the new administration in China? How are criminal penalties affected by these corruption features?

The investigation is based on the online disclosure of 269 state corruption audits and their consequences, which have been made public by China’s National Audit Office since 2011. By manual coding, these official reports were analyzed, and an appropriate-sized sample of corruption cases was chosen. The authors then adopted Welch’s t-test and regression model methods to test the research hypotheses relevant to the two research questions.

The authors find that larger embezzlement or bribery amounts and more organizational corruption cases have been detected and punished since the anti-corruption campaign was launched by the new administration. They also conclude that significantly tougher criminal penalties were given to corruption cases involving large monetary amounts, that bribery cases were more harshly punished compared to other occupational crimes and that individual perpetrators received tougher criminal penalties than organizational criminals. In addition, the authors observe a trend that criminal penalties for corruption have been increasingly harsher in recent years.

The limitations of this study are quite clear as the Chinese corruption cases in this sample only include state corruption audit cases and does not refer to high-profile corruption cases investigated by the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection. However, this study suggests that state corruption audit results are a good research sample, which can be used to extend empirical tests to archival data acquired from state audit practices and can encourage more studies on public sector auditing and occupational financial crime.

State corruption audits can be an effective approach to successful anti-corruption campaigns, and the conclusions can be useful to policy makers and legislators in China and other developing countries.

This paper bridges some gaps in the existing financial crime literature. First, this study on corruption features is located within the context of a political administrative change; second, the state audit is highlighted as a supervising agency in the anti-corruption campaign; and third, the authors’ contribution adds to the empirical testing of data sets of state corruption audits within the existing financial crime literature.

Since South Korea gained a substantial degree of political and economic development, the South Korean government has tried to eradicate corruption by introducing institutional frameworks in addition to a number of new laws and institutions. As a matter of fact, the Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index score of South Korea is improving over time, but it still far behind other leading countries. The purpose of this chapter is to review the South Korean government's efforts at curbing corruption. This chapter first reviews the development of major anti-corruption infrastructure such as the anti-corruption legislation and the South Korean government's independent agency for anti-corruption, followed by discussion of the development of major anti-corruption measures, the international evaluation on corruption, and the role of civil society in curbing corruption. After that, there is a discussion of policy implications and the conclusion.

This purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between political independence and operational impartiality in regard to the effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies (ACAs). Against this background of western orthodoxy, it asks whether a non-western country with high levels of corruption (Vietnam being an example) can find another pathway in its efforts to effectively combat corruption.

An exercise in qualitative conceptual clarification and theoretical speculation, drawing upon practical examples.

It is argued that it is important to distinguish between de jure and de facto political independence, and that neither can be fully understood unless they are considered in relationship to other key values, particularly operational impartiality, public accountability, and systemic legitimacy, and in the context of bureaucratic politics. There is little coherent theoretical knowledge available about the relationships among these variables. Such values are central to western notions of “good government” but are much less institutionalised in non-western jurisdictions with high levels of corruption. The question is raised: can such countries, Vietnam being one example, develop effective anti-corruption strategies which because of the nature of their own political system, cannot depend on political independence for its ACAs?

Attention is drawn to some conceptual and putatively theoretical issues relating to the effectiveness of ACAs, and which have received little explicit attention in the relevant academic literature.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an adequate account of anti-corruption agency (ACA) ineffectiveness and propose the kind of ACA that would hold the promise of success. The paper draws on legitimacy theory, legal process and the notion of integrity of purpose.

This paper contextualizes the establishment and proliferation of ACAs; explores different ways of conceptualizing them; examines the broad range of factors that have underpinned ACA ineffectiveness and utilizes both legitimacy theory and the notion of the integrity of purpose.

The one-ACA-model-fits-all approach in corruption-control has been an abysmal failure. Disentangling the reasons for ACA ineffectiveness reveals various endogenous and exogenous factors. It also emphasizes the crucial importance of integrating both legitimacy theory and integrity of purpose in a revamped ACA concept that meets the corruption-control challenge.

It is possible to design and implement an effective ACA by avoiding various factors that have been shown to seriously undermine corruption control efforts by also drawing on legitimacy theory, legal process and integrity of purpose.

Corruption in both the public and private sectors cannot be controlled in isolation from other socio-economic problems. An effective ACA is one that fosters integrity and is considered legitimate by its stakeholders.

While there have been some articles the past two decades discussing the effectiveness of ACAs in particular countries, this is the first paper to account for the overall ACA ineffectiveness also using legitimacy theory, legal process and integrity of purpose to revamp the ACA concept.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corruption has changed over time in South Korea and to explore how the corruption control and prevention efforts of the Korean government have been successful and failed.

This paper draws on institutional theory to formulate a qualitative analysis to assess the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies and measures, and to identify the strengths and weaknesses of anti-corruption reform efforts in South Korea.

This paper argues that while the Korean government has been quite successful in building anti-corruption institutions to control low-level petty corruption, it has failed to institutionalize anti-corruption institutions to curb high-level grand corruption.

While many studies have attempted to identify the successful factors of fighting corruption, this paper draws a theoretical distinction between institution-building vs institutionalization to examine the success and failure of corruption control and prevention efforts in South Korea.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the experiences of the six Asian countries covered in this special issue and explain their different levels of effectiveness in combating corruption.

This paper analyses the policy contexts in these countries, their perceived extent and causes of corruption, and evaluates the effectiveness of their anti-corruption agencies (ACAs).

Brunei Darussalam is less corrupt because it is the smallest, least populated and richest country, without being embroiled in conflict compared to the other five larger countries, which are more populous but poorer and adversely affected by conflict. The Sultan’s political will in combating corruption is reflected in the better staffed and funded Anti-Corruption Bureau, which has prosecuted and convicted more corrupt offenders. By contrast, the lack of political will of the governments in the other five countries is manifested in their ineffective ACAs, which are not independent, lack capacity and resources, and are used against political opponents.

This paper will be useful for those scholars, policy-makers and anti-corruption practitioners interested in how effective these six Asian countries are in combating corruption and the reasons for their different levels of effectiveness.

The purpose of this conference paper is to provide a contextual and better understanding of the nexus between corruption and money laundering, in order to enhance the role of anti‐money laundering (AML) in combating corruption.

This paper analyses the key elements of the linkage between AML and anti‐corruption, and provides Australia and China as examples, demonstrating the potential importance of using AML to combat corruption.

It is found that apart from the main financial sectors, designated non‐financial sectors and high‐risk customers involved businesses are also vulnerable for money laundering, such as non‐financial designated business and professions, and politically exposed persons. In the meantime, these factors are regarded as the key points to combat corruption.

This paper highlights the corruption risks hidden in designated non‐financial business and professionals, and the risks of laundering the proceeds of corruption by politically exposed persons and financially exposed persons (FEPs).