Political corruption poses significant threats to the quality of democracy, but current research has overlooked key areas crucial for understanding and addressing this issue. The RESPOND project is dedicated to filling four critical gaps in the study of political corruption, focusing on how undue influences affect democratic processes and how emerging digital technologies can either perpetuate corruption or foster pro-integrity initiatives. Over five years (2024-2029), RESPOND will engage in interdisciplinary research and collaboration with various stakeholders to offer practical solutions.
Key Research Gaps
- GAP 1: Lack of research on how legitimate political influence transitions into corrupt, undue influences, affecting decision-making processes and reducing the quality of democracy.
- GAP 2: Limited assessment of how digitalization impacts corruption, including how older and newer digital media intertwine with political corruption patterns and pro-integrity efforts in different societal arenas.
- GAP 3: Insufficient understanding of how undue influences affect different actors, particularly in shaping citizens’ perceptions of democracy and political participation, also beyond elections, to pursue accountability.
- GAP 4: A critical need for knowledge on effective anti-corruption solutions that are practical, acceptable, and targeted at curbing undue political influences.
RESPOND seeks to address these four critical gaps by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and employing a mixed-method and comparative research approach. RESPOND aims to achieve the following targeted Research Objectives:
Research Objectives
- Understanding Political Corruption Today: Generate new data and insights on political corruption, focusing on 5 forms of political influence—political finance, lobbying, personal ties, revolving doors, and media capture—that, while not always illegal, can still support corrupt practices.
- Digital Technologies and Corruption: Explore the dual role of digital technologies in both sustaining and combating political corruption.
- Impact on Democratic Participation: Examine how and to what extent political corruption and related undue influences citizens’ views on democracy and their participation in political processes.
- Co-creating Anti-corruption Tools: Co-design, test and update with stakeholders a set of tools and practices to increase integrity and, hence, curb political corruption at the national, cross-border and EU-level.
To achieve its four research objectives, RESPOND builds on insights from previous and ongoing EU-funded research on corruption and anti-corruption. However, it goes further by pursuing key ambitions aimed at fostering innovation and exploring new approaches.
These ambitions include challenging conventional understandings of political corruption in both research and policymaking, integrating digital technologies and media into corruption research and anti-corruption practices, developing an adaptable interdisciplinary framework to capture the evolving nature of political corruption, and promoting collaboration with law enforcers, activists, journalists, companies, and other stakeholders to strengthen anti-corruption efforts and protect democracy.