Advancing Human Security
On behalf of the Corruption, Justice and Legitimacy (CJL) team at The Fletcher School, we wish all of our subscribers a wonderful 2020. Part of the fun of the New Year is looking back on what has transpired in the past 12 months, so that is exactly what our team has done with the Corruption in Fragile States blog.
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By Diana Chigas and Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church. We were asked to identify the top challenges and “good practices” for developing countries in preventing and combating corruption for the June 2019 edition of Multiples, a Just Governance Group publication. As developing countries, and especially fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) face many challenges to preventing and reducing corruption, we felt a somewhat longer version of our original response was a worthy endeavor.
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By Diana Chigas and Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church. Those of us who work to stop abuse of power – in the form of corruption, criminal activity, violence, state capture, etc. – are increasingly recognizing that social norms are key to achieving sustainable behavior change. We assert that in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) social norms — the mutual expectations about what is typical and appropriate for members of a group — are even more important. Given their critical role in driving behavioral choices, programming that ignores social norms can have serious negative consequences.
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Social norms exist within a group. They represent mutual expectations, not just common beliefs, within the group about what is the right way to behave in a particular situation. And it is the approval, disapproval or other social sanction from the members of the group that helps ensure compliance with the norm. Therefore, understanding the group — who is in and who is out — matters for programming.
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