KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

We welcome back Gary Kalman, director of Transparency International’s United States Office, for the third time. Find out more about the coalition at us.transparency.org (00:40) - Progress the U.S. is making on the fight against global corruption, and the role of U.S. entities in facilitating corruption (05:19) - The White House Anti Corruption strategy document (“United States Strategy on Counteri...

In this special episode, we welcome Anastasia Kirilenko to the podcast. She is an investigative journalist and the co-author of the documentary "Putin and the Mafia" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttM-O-j1AVs&t=462s). (02:55) - Kirilenko's background (06:59) - Documentary "Putin and the Mafia" (10:55) - Media restrictions in Russia (15:50) - The role of the civil society in Russia (20:32) - The...

In this special episode, Oksana Huss, who has been working on anticorruption in Ukraine for the last 10 years, talks with Svitlana Musiiaka, who is a lawyer based in Ukraine and Head of Research and Policy at NAKO. Musiiaka was previously Head of Corruption Detection in the Ministry of Health, and worked with the Prosecutors Office in Ukraine. (01:32) - Musiiaka’s career (06:37) - What is NAKO, an...

We welcome Oksana Nesterenko as part of our series on Ukraine. She is an Associate Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the Anti-corruption Research and Education Centre at National University of Kiev-Mohyla Academy. (01:06) - Nesterenko’s interest in anti-corruption and her work as an academic researcher and advocate (02:39) - The war for values (11:00) - The cultural and political thre...

As a continuation on our series about Ukraine, we welcome Igor logvinenko, an associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College. (01:14) - Igor’s background and his book, “Global Finance, Local Control: Corruption and Wealth in Contemporary Russia” (06:51) - Russia’s historical corruption and current financial integration into world business. (15:20) - The mark of change in...

We welcome Inna Melnykovska from the Political Science Department at Central European University. She is an expert on state business relations and crony capitalism in Eastern Europe. (01:50) - The direction of Inna’s research (06:00) - Political pluralism and the competition of big business in Ukrainian politics (08:50) - Putin and Ukraine’s competitive oligarchy (10:14) - The similarities and nua...

We are joined by Oksana Huss, postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, and Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez, Associate Professor and specialist in anti-corruption studies at Osaka University, where we discuss the unfolding events in Ukraine through the lenses of corruption. We continue to think about the Ukrainian people, their suffering and the tragic loss of life during these recent even...

00:00: Introduction and the beginnings of Caryn’s interest in corruption in Africa 04:24: Caryn discusses the principle agent problem from her paper “Corruption and collective action” with Heather Marquette (https://www.cmi.no/publications/5544-corruption-and-collective-action) 12:00: Caryn recognises three lenses of viewing corruption and fits them together: principle agent theory, collective act...

We welcome Dr. Torplus ‘Nick’ Yomnak, whose anti-corruption work in Thailand has received international recognition, including the United States State Department’s 2021 Anti-Corruption Champion’s Award. He is the Founder and Chief Advisor of HAND Social Enterprise and Assistant Professor at Chulalongkorn University. 01:33: What led Nick to focus on corruption in research and activism 06:00: How an...

00:00: Introduction and what sparked Liz’s interest in corruption 02:20: What is state capture (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capture) 05:16: Liz discusses how state capture has been politically-driven in more recent developments 08:30: Can we compare state capture to an extreme form of lobbyism? Liz goes deeper into the definition of state capture and hones in on the intentionality aspect...

We welcome Casey Michelle, journalist and author of American Kleptocracy: How the US Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History. 00:56: Casey’s background and what let his interest in illicit finance, money laundering and kleptocracy 01:30: Casey discusses living in Kazakhstan as a school teacher and the country’s ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s corrupt government that spa...

Dan Hough is Professor of Politics (Politics), Head of Department of Politics (Politics) at the University of Sussex, founding director of the Center for the Study of Corruption and a football (soccer) aficionado. Find out how Dan’s 14th birthday played a pivotal role in him getting interested in corruption research. Spoiler alert, it includes Ben Johnson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Johnson...

We welcome one of the most important voices in the academic (anti-)corruption field: Michael Johnston, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Colgate University, who has written numerous books on corruption. (https://www.colgate.edu/about/directory/mjohnston). The interview covers Michael’s journey of becoming a corruption research pioneer, his conceptual framework of syndromes of corruption a...

We welcome Peter Y. Solmssen who serves as the Chairman of the Non-trial Resolutions Subcommittee of the International Bar Association. The interview covers his unique role in serving as the general counsel after the allegations of foreign bribery against Siemens surfaced. Peter shares his views on the Siemens case in general and weighs in on why a successful and large company like Siemens develop...

We welcome Will Fitzgibbon (@WillFitzgibbon) to talk about the largest collaborative journalistic efforts on the Pandora Papers, revealing “inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.” More information on Pandora Papers: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/ Will mentions pre...

This week we welcome Fernanda Odilla (@fe_odilla) and Anwesha Chakraborty (@anwesha8984) to talk about their research on how to use technology to assist bottom-up anti-corruption efforts. You can find more about their and Alice Mattoni’s work via https://site.unibo.it/bit-act/en/team/researchers What we cover in the podcast: Alice Mattoni’s BIT-ACT project, find more about it in our previous podca...

We welcome Kate Bateman, @katebatemandc), senior expert in the Afghanistan program of the United States Institute of Peace (https://www.usip.org/regions/asia/afghanistan), formerly in the Lessons Learned Program at Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (www.sigar.mil) Quarterly report by SIGAR: https://www.sigar.mil/quarterlyreports/index.aspx? SSR=6 Corruption lessons learned r...

We welcome Jodi Vittori, Professor of the Practice and Concentration Co-Chair for Global Politics and Security at Georgetown University and military veteran to the pod to talk about the role of corruption in Afghanistan. Warlord Inc. Report: https://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/HNT_Report.pdf Goldwater-Nichols Act: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater-Nichols_Act 2:45: what got Jodi interested in...

In this special episode of Kickback we air a roundtable discussion that took place at the 5th ICRN Forum (virtual; https://www.icrnetwork.org/what-we-do/conferences/icr-forum-virtual-2021/). For this event we welcome an exciting mix of researchers and practitioners to discuss how the two fields can learn from each other. This event was made possible by the amazing support of Global Integrity (http...

57. Robert Barrington on anti-corruption legislation in the United Kingdom by KickBack

We welcome Alice Mattoni (@AliceEmme) to the podcast. Alice’s project webpage: https://site.unibo.it/bit-act/en AntiCorrp: https://anticorrp.eu/ Alice’s work with Donatella della Porta on social movements: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc010 Fridays for future: https://fridaysforfuture.org/ Black Lives Matter: https://blacklivesmatter.com/ The Tunisian street s...

We welcome Michael Mohallem(@michaelmohallem). Links: Avaaz: https://secure.avaaz.org/page/en/ TI BRazil: https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/brazil New Measures against corruption: https://globalanticorruptionblog.com/tag/new-measures-against-corruption/ Lava Jato investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash Previous Podcast with the lead prosecutor of Operation Lava Jato...

We welcome Nicola Bonucci, who is a Partner in the Global Trade and Investigations & White Collar Defense practices at Paul Hastings and previously served as the Director for Legal Affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The interview takes a deep dive into the history behind the OECD anti-bribery convention covers the reasons for its success but Nicola also hi...

We are excited to welcome Patrick Alley, the co-founder of Global Witness for an interview on his work that combines anti-corruption and pro-environmentalism. Patrick takes us back to the beginnings of Global Witness and outlines how, while working as an environmentalist in Cambodia, corruption became a major obstacle to achieve the primary environmental goals. He uses the famous BSGR scandal (see...

Tommy Thomas was the Attorney General of Malaysia and primarily responsible for the 1Malaysia Development Berhad case and has recently written the book “My Story: Justice in the Wilderness” about his time in office (see link below). He describes his path leading him to become the first practicing barrister to be appointed directly from the Malaysian Bar to be the Attorney General and which challen...