Establishing and maintaining the technical anti-corruption assemblage: the Solomon Islands experience

Abstract

Scholars have sought to explain how and why developing countries establish anti-corruption agencies by examining the strength of national and international institutions, particularly political institutions and actors, international donors and civil society. This article argues that these explanations are inadequate and that explaining the nature of anti-corruption reform in developing countries requires accounting for the transnational technical anti-corruption assemblage. This assemblage comprises individuals, ideas and things that reinforce technical solutions to corruption. This article examines the case of anti-corruption reforms in Solomon Islands during and after the international Regional Assistant Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) intervention (2003–2017). It shows that parliamentarians passed anti-corruption reforms despite declining pressure from donors, relatively weak civil society and wavering political commitment. The article suggests a transnational coalition of national and international actors and objects helped establish and maintain a technical anti-corruption assemblage. Through exclusionary practices, this assemblage helped maintain the technical and apolitical nature of anti-corruption reform. Findings provide insights into the effectiveness of anti-corruption ‘policy transfer’ in Solomon Islands and other developing countries.

Keywords:

• corruption
• anti-corruption
• policy transfer
• assemblage
• Solomon Islands

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the many policymakers and experts in Solomon Islands and Australia who took the time to answer my questions. I am grateful to Phillip Matthews for his help with locating relevant literature. Thanks to the Australian National University’s Asia-Pacific Innovation Program for providing funding for this research. The author has no conflicts of interest, and all mistakes are his own fault.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Though Sargiacomo et al. (2015) draw on assemblage theory to examine responses to Italy’s ‘clean hands’ corruption scandal, including a new ACA.

2 The term wantok is derived from Solomons Pijin (the country’s lingua franca) and means ‘one talk’, or from the same language.

3 Author’s calculations.

4 The term ‘elite’ is used here to describe MPs, bureaucrats and other senior figures; note that many Solomon Islands ‘elites’ remain tightly tied to their communities (see Corbett and Wood 2013).

5 Custom is a defence only if the ‘gift’ is given through traditional exchange and for the benefit of a community or group, rather than an individual.

Additional information

Funding

This study is funded by the Australian National University’s Asia-Pacific Innovation Program.

Notes on contributors

Grant William Walton

Grant W Walton is a Fellow at the Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, and Chair of the Transnational Research Institute on Corruption. He is on the editorial board for the journal Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies. He researches issues related to corruption, education policy, international development and civil society. His book Anti-Corruption and Its Discontents: Local, National and International Perspectives on Corruption in Papua New Guinea was published by Routledge in 2018.