Fighting Corruption the Soft Way – The Authority of Peer Reviews to Monitor Compliance with Anti-Corruption Standard Setting Instruments.
My research focuses on the authority of peer reviews in the global fight against corruption. Central is the question how variation in the authority of anti-corruption peer reviews can be explained. To answer this question, I adopt a three-step approach making use of mixed methods. First, I suggest a measurement of the authority of peer reviews. Second, I apply this measurement to three anti-corruption peer reviews: the OECD Working Group on Bribery, the GRECO, and the peer review of the UN Convention against Corruption to establish their relative degrees of authority. Third, I explain variation between these peer reviews in terms of their authority by looking at institutional design features, such as transparency and inclusion of non-state actors, and membership composition, amongst others.