Universität zu Köln

Tonhäuser, Valeria Andreevna (2020). Anti-Corruption Regulation of Political Finance and Conflict of Interest. A Conceptual Framework and Analysis of its Development. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

In recent decades self-regulation of politicians and political parties has become less acceptable and public control over the design of such rules and their evolutionary mechanisms gains paramount importance. In line with this statement my cumulative dissertation presents four papers on transparency regulation of political finance and conflict of interest. It not only conceptually defines and embeds these types of regulation into the overall anti-corruption regulatory framework but also provides interested readers with a theoretical framework on why countries change these sensitive rules and hereby often go for various designs. This thesis develops further already classical theoretical approaches of neo-institutionalism used to study party finance reforms by discussing the importance of international factors and existing regulatory traditions. To test the theoretical propositions, I construct original data sets inter alia from the evaluation and compliance reports provided by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) as well as from personally conducted in-depth interviews. Although political finance regimes, at least in Europe, in general tend to converge, we lack empirical evidence that countries adopt similar transparency regulation on political finance and conflict of interest. A detailed discussion of findings concludes that domestic political competition to a large extent determines the launch of reforms, apart from scandals. Also, international organisations, like GRECO, contribute to the reforms´ initiation by drawing public attention to political corruption upon examining loopholes in existing practices, and to some extent empowering civil society in combating corruption. Political parties which favour transparency reforms and control the veto points as well as successful regulatory experience in similar contexts significantly affect the positive outcome of reforms. Overall, the outcome of transparency reforms is a product of domestic competition between political parties, costs of domestic implementation of these reforms as well as reputational benefits and loses for the country in the international arena. Thereby, democratic dissent seems to be the central mechanism for diminishing corruption and establishment of an effective anti-corruption regulatory framework. Suggestions for future research round up each of the chapters.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Tonhäuser, Valeria Andreevna valeria.tonhaeuser@web.de UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-121370
Date:	2020
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Political Science > Cologne Center for Comparative Politics
Subjects:	Political science
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Political Finance English Transparency English Policy Change English Group of States agaist Corruption (GRECO) English Anti-Corruption Regulation English A Mixed Methods Design English
Date of oral exam:	1 September 2020
Referee:	Name Academic Title Kaiser, André Prof. Dr. Rohlfing, Ingo Prof. Dr.
References:	Mein ORCID lautet https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3415-4062 Leider kann ich diese Nummer hier im System nicht direkt speichern.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/12137