Digital Anti-Corruption Typology for Public Sector

Abstract

Many digital anti-corruption tools have not performed well in practice due to their non-alignment with forms of corruption they are supposed to fight against, the persistence of corruption-enabling conditions, activities, and procedures where it occurs, public sector areas where it occurs, anti-corruption principles and conceptual aspects of corruption. This paper aims to fill this gap with an alternative typology of digital anti-corruption in the public sector that helps to decide what digital measures to apply to fight against specific forms of corruption or address specific corruption-enabling conditions within given areas, activities and procedures in the public sector. The main objective of this paper was to highlight anti-corruption typologies and propose an alternative typology for digital anti-corruption. The proposed typology integrates theoretical constructs from the typology of anti-corruption policies and the TASP framework augmented with digital technologies. It includes six main components: categories of digital technologies, forms of corruption, activities and procedures, public sector areas, anti-corruption principles, and conceptual aspects of corruption. The study developed a typology by adhering to the “good” typology blueprint, which involves limiting the scope, defining concepts, and synthesising findings. By scoping review methods, the study identified various digital anti-corruption technologies relevant to the public sector’s corruption and anti-corruption measures. The paper contributes to existing anti-corruption typologies by proposing a multi-dimensional typology focusing on digital anti-corruption that enhances anti-corruption measures. The typology prescribes effective digital anti-corruption solutions for different corruption scenarios like job appointment and promotion based on connections and inflating public payroll with names of non-existent workers. The typology will provide policymakers, adopters of technical solutions and managers of adopting organisations with information to improve the development, design, adoption, and use of digital anti-corruption in the public sector. The typology is grounded in research and policy literature and validated using real-life examples.