Contestability and Changes in Tolerance towards Corruption : The Formation of an Elite-Citizen Coalition in Mexico

Lach, Samantha

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: corruption;    citizen engagement;    elite bargains;    politics;   

RP-ID  :  112915

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper uses some of the mainelements of the World Development Report 2017 framework toanalyze how the initiative came to be. First, it looks toinvestigate the origin of the constitutional changes thatgave birth to the figure of citizen’s bill in the firstplace, illustrating how a change in rules, a “form”,eventually led to an increased space of contestability. Italso looks to document how the coalition between civilsociety organizations, academia, the private sector andcitizens came together around this rallying point, and howthe bill grew from online platform to a full-on legislativeproposal. Afterwards, it provides a brief analysis of theelements of the bill that were ultimately incorporated intothe legislation of the national anticorruption system. Inparallel, it looks to shed light on questions, such as, didpolitical parties attempt to block a constitutional changewith the potential to affect their interests? What role didelite organizations play in the civil society coalition? Howmuch of the coalition’s bill made it into the nationalanticorruption legislation? What are the mechanisms throughwhich these laws purpose to fight corruption? Themethodological approach followed in the paper consisted ofin-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a detailedreview of publicly available information. The rest of thepaper is structured as follows. Section two, next, discussessome of the elements of WDR 2017, which are used to framethe analysis. It then sets up the context leading up to theinitiative, notably the legislative changes that allowed thefigure of citizen’s bill to come to the fore. Section threelooks at the path of the 3de3 citizen’s bill: its evolutionfrom online platform, through massive crowdsourcing tofull-blown national anticorruption bill. It also exploressome of the most distinctive elements that the bill proposesto fight corruption. Section four provides an analysis ofthe incentives behind how the coalition around the initiatewas built, and the unlikely alliance of actorsinvolved—citizens, business associations, civil societyorganizations, academia, and legislators themselves. Sectionfive concludes with a discussion of the entry points thatled to the development of the bill—and its incorporationinto the national legislation on corruption—in terms ofshifts in incentives, preferences and contestability.