Anti-Corruption Reforms and Democratic Change: Nigeria and Indonesia in comparative perspective

After returning to democracy in 1998 and 1999, Nigeria and Indonesia began instituting a series of anticorruption measures designed to eliminate corruption and promote rapid economic development. Yet, apart from galvanizing public opinion behind the struggle against corruption, these reforms have failed to yield tangible results. In the case of Indonesia, there is credible evidence of increased corruption due to decentralization, increased political instability and competition, and ineffective complementary anticorruption institutions (notably the police, judiciary and the office of the public prosecutor). The lesson here is simply that social behaviour like corruption is not culturally-determined. Things change when the political and institutional rules and frameworks change.