KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

In this episode of KickBack, host Robert Barrington is joined by Professor Bonnie Palifka, Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Tecnológico de Monterrey, to discuss corruption research, measurement, and the evolving challenges facing anti-corruption efforts. The conversation explores Palifka’s journey into the field of corruption studies, from her early personal experience with br...

In this episode of KickBack, host Robert Barrington is joined by Professor Matthew Stephenson, one of the podcast’s original founders, and Professor Liz David-Barrett, Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, to take a wide-ranging look at trends in corruption and anti-corruption. The conversation explores key thinker...

In this episode of KickBack, host Rebecca Dobson-Phillips is joined by David Jackson, Principal Adviser at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, to explore the changing landscape of anti-corruption and the key themes of the new book Anti-Corruption in a Discordant World. Reflecting on three decades of progress in the anti-corruption field, the conversation examines how contemporary political tur...

In this episode of Kickback, host Tom Shipley sits down with Thom Townsend, the executive director of Open Ownership, and Alanna Markle, the senior manager for policy and research at Open Ownership, to map out the global research agenda for Beneficial Ownership Transparency (BOT). Highlighting cutting-edge research from a recent symposium of 150 global experts, the conversation explores how BOT is...

In this episode of Kickback, host Elizabeth David-Barrett is joined by Marina Nistotskaya, Professor at the Department of Political Science and researcher at the Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg. The conversation explores the role of merit-based recruitment in shaping effective and impartial bureaucracies. Marina discusses how hiring processes influence both competence and...

The UK's anti-money laundering system involves 88 organizations across policy, supervision, and enforcement, but does this complex network actually work? In this episode, host Robert Barrington speaks with Diana Bociga about her research using social network analysis to map how these organizations collaborate. Diana's findings reveal a system operating across two disconnected dimensions, strategic...

Despite significant volumes of illicit finance flowing through the UK, asset recovery from kleptocratic networks remains limited. In this episode, regular KB host Robert Barrington speaks with Maria Nizzero, the Head of Sanctions Policy at UK Finance and Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter University, about her recent research that proposes reconceptualizing kleptocracy as a transnational criminal...

Why do liberation movements that fight for freedom so often succumb to corruption once in power? In this episode, Liz David-Barrett speaks with Lord Peter Hain about his new book Liberation and Corruption: Why Freedom Movements Fail. Drawing on his personal connection to South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle and examining cases from Nicaragua to India, Peter explores how movements that come to po...

After a three-year gap, the UK finally has a new anti-corruption strategy. To discuss, Robert Barrington is joined by Rachel Davies from Transparency International UK and Tom Shipley from the Centre for the Study of Corruption. They assess what the December 2025 strategy gets right, where it falls short, and whether it will actually make a difference. The discussion examines the strategy's strengt...

For our first episode of 2026, regular host Liz David-Barrett is joined by Anna Persson, associate professor and senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. Anna draws on extensive field research to challenge simplistic understandings of political will, and explore systemic corruption as a complex collective action problem. Anna examines how moral hazard and a...

Liz David-Barrett speaks with human rights and international law expert Naomi Roht-Arriaza, about the intersection of grand corruption and human rights. Naomi shares how her decades of work on transitional justice led her to confront the blocking of post-conflict progress by state capture, often involving alliances between organized crime, political elites, and economic interests. The discussion e...

Why do voters sometimes support corrupt politicians? And can putting forward women candidates help parties recover from corruption scandals? In this episode, regular host Liz David-Barrett speaks with Emily Elia about her experimental research on voter behaviour and corruption in Latin American democracies. The conversation delves into the "feminization strategy", examining the level to which depl...

Hungary, once seen as a democratic success story is now widely recognized as one of the EU's most corrupt member states. Regular KB host Liz David-Barrett sits down with József Péter Martin and Áron Hajnal to examine how Viktor Orbán built a system of state capture, and why the EU struggled to respond. They discuss their research evaluating the effectiveness of EU conditionality measures, the chal...

How do multinational consulting firms enable state capture? In this episode, regular KB host Liz David-Barrett chats with Devi Pillay about her research on the role of McKinsey & Co.'s involvement in the capture of South Africa under President Zuma. Drawing on evidence from the Zondo Commission, Devi describes how consulting firms worked with politically connected local partners to extract billion...

Join regular KB host Liz David-Barrett in conversation with Nicola Bonucci, a veteran public international lawyer who has been involved in the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention since its creation. This episode traces the convention's journey from its 1993 origins to current challenges, exploring how peer review mechanisms have transformed international business practices and examining the implications...

This Kickback episode features Mo Ibrahim, who joins Liz David-Barrett to share his transition from entrepreneurship to philanthropy, by establishing the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to promote good governance and leadership in Africa. Mo shares the primary mechanisms to achieving the Foundations goals, including the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, and the Africa leadership prize, which aims to high...

For this episode, regular host Robert Barrington is joined by two anticorruption experts from Australia. Nicole Rose is the Deputy Commissioner at The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), and AJ Brown is a Professor of Public Policy and Law at Griffith University and the Chair of Transparency International’s (TI) Australian chapter. Some of the main themes discussed in the episode include:...

This episode features Oz Dincer and Michael Johnston, who join regular Kickback host Robert Barrington to discuss their new book 'Corruption in America', which explores corruption in various policy areas across all fifty states. Dincer O, Johnston M. Corruption in America: A Fifty-Ring Circus. Cambridge University Press; 2025.

Is Anti-Corruption work an inclusive movement deeply connected to its grassroots origins, or a self-serving, hierarchical entity that partially manufactures the problems for which it offers solutions? To critically examine this dichotomy, and the UK’s anticorruption ecosystem more broadly, Kickback host Robert Barrington is joined by Rebecca Dobson-Phillips, assistant Professor in Politics at the...

This episode features Nishan de Mel, the Executive Director of Verite Research, to discuss their development of Sri Lanka’s innovative governance-linked bond, which seeks to break the country’s vicious cycle of poor governance and financial instability. Learn more about: Verite Research - https://www.veriteresearch.org The Civil Society Governance Diagnostic Report, mentioned by Nishan - https://w...

This episode of Kickback features Dr. Mario Hidalgo, from the Transparency and Anti-Corruption Laboratory at UTE university in Ecuador, to shed light on Ecuador's transition from the "Island of Peace" to a country facing widespread organised crime and violence, highlighting the significantly enabling role of corruption. The conversation also touches upon Ecuador's institutional unpreparedness, pol...

For this episode, regular host Liz David-Barrett is joined by Dr Daniel Paget, an assistant professor in politics at the University of Sussex, to unpack the nuances of electoral authoritarianism in Tanzania, the aspirations of a key opposition movement, and the power of alternative theoretical frameworks for understanding the fight against domination and for democracy. Find Daniel's paper 'The Ant...

For this episode Dr Marianne Camerer, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, and Devi Pillay, a research fellow with the GI-ACE programme, join regular KB host Liz David-Barrett to discuss the experience of state capture in South Africa, under the presidency of Jacob Zuma. Check out the following resources to learn more about the issues discu...

This episode features a discussion between regular KB host Liz David-Barrett, and Kevin E. Davis, the Beller Family Professor of Business Law at NYU School of Law. Their conversation centres on the international regulation of bribery and corruption, specifically focusing on the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), following President Trump's recent suspension of its enforcement. The episode...

For this episode of KickBack, we are joined by Gary Kalman, who is the Executive Director of Transparency International United States and Blair Glencorse, the Founder and co-CEO of Accountability Lab. They join Liz Dávid-Barrett to dissect the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to US aid and its implications for anti-corruption efforts worldwide. https://us.transparency.org/ https://accountabilit...