Political and administrative corruption within state cores constitutes a serious threat to peace, security, and governance at the global level (Andreas and Nadelmann 2006; Donais 2005; Lindberg and Orjuela 2014; Rotberg 2009). Although it is an old and persistent phenomenon (widely studied in terms of its developmental and economic consequences), its effects on other types of instability and violence at the international level have not been addressed clearly (CEIP 2014). The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, addressed the far reaching consequences of this problem in September 2018, when, before the UN Security Council, he stated that corruption does not only generate a net loss of 2.6 trillion dollars (or 5% of the global GDP, according to an estimate from the World Economic Forum), but is also strongly correlated with terrorism, extremism, criminality, and violence (Guterres 2018).
Corruption is considered a serious structural problem of national competence, centered in the action of isolated government administrators who, in the absence of any mechanisms of transparency, supervision, accountability or discernible sanctions, abused their roles in the public sector to enrich themselves or their families. However, corruption is now also seen within the international framework where new issues appear as critical, not only impacting nations but a whole set of other dynamics triggered by globalization and interdependence. This same trend has also sparked its own counterweight in the form of international anticorruption campaigns launched by the World Bank (among many other international bodies) over the last few decades.1
Today, corruption is considered a growing and concerning global threat precisely because it involves both economic and political exchanges between national and transnational groups organized at the highest level (with the potential to infiltrate and capture entire state institutions) (Cockayne 2016; Thachuk 2005; Williams 1994).2
Although as a phenomenon corruption takes many forms, making it difficult to draw conclusions based on analysis of few cases, many analysts have found clear correlations between corruption at the highest levels and the predominance of overall violence and instability at the international level (IFE&P 2018).
Recent investigations demonstrate that corruption enables the emergence of extremist and terrorist groups with transnational links acquiring weapons through bribes and other illicit activities (Cockayne 2016; Cockayne and Lupel 2011; Makarenko 2004; Shelley 2005). Corruption also enables the creation of black markets and similar organized power structures that traffic weapons, persons, diamonds, strategic resources and wild animals (among many other examples) (Dziedzic 2016a, b). It has also been proven that endemic corruption has led to the infiltration and collapse of entire state institutions, facilitating the conditions which many academics refer to as ‘criminal’, ‘failed’, or ‘mafia’ states (CEIP 2014; Green and Ward 2004; Legvold 2009; Naím 2012).
Corruption can be understood as a phenomenon that is so disruptive that even in postwar contexts, under optimistic scenarios, and even directly after the signings of peace treaties, it could actually increase its presence. Corruption usually becomes the way through which structures of criminality fostered during war times acquire more power in order to even obstruct the process of peacekeeping and stabilization (Berdal and Zaum 2013; Boucher et al. 2007; Del Castillo 2008; Galtung and Tisné 2009; O’Donnell 2006; Zaum and Cheng 2012). In these scenarios, peacekeepers are trapped inside unavoidable circumstances of violent conflict and are forced to confront criminal groups which, by their very nature, are incredibly difficult if not impossible to negotiate with. These groups often take advantage of their contracts with government administrators, policemen, and former militaries to gain protection and continue their illicit activities. They are also capable of hoarding resources donated by the international community, enriching themselves through them, and unnecessarily prolong armed conflicts (Le Billon 2003, 2005, 2008).
Corruption thus constitutes one of the most pressing issues in the global security agenda. The capture of state institutions and their emerging convergence with illicit activities damage democratic legitimacy, trigger serious human rights violations, and even favor the commission of inhumane crimes (as was demonstrated in cases documented by the Open Society Foundation of crimes commissioned or even perpetrated by state agents) (OSJI 2018).
An even higher level of complexity can be added to this multifaceted global problem: the fact that instruments that until today had been generated to prevent, diminish, and control corruption have not lived up to their lofty goals or have been little effective (Arellano-Gault 2020; Heeks and Mathisen 2012). The efforts of international organizations and development agencies have been directed towards providing technical advice, designing legal instruments of intergovernmental cooperation, and distributing normative and operational frameworks that contribute to the design and strengthening of national anticorruption systems (among others) (Meagher 2004; OECD 2008). Several bodies stand out, including the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), the Interamerican Convention Against Corruption (IACAC), and OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Anti-bribery).
Despite these efforts, the international community had not intervened directly with international organizations in a country, with power and capacity to investigate or even prosecute corrupt structures. The creation of international organizations with these capacities, organizations that can be called hybrid, appeared just recently.
The creation of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Spanish acronym, CICIG, launched in 2007) and the Support Mission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Spanish acronym, MACCIH, launched in 2016), constitute the first and only cases of international intervention directed towards supporting governments in the identification and dismantling of complex networks of corruption embedded deeply in states and their institutions.3 These organizations possess a hybrid design and were created by other multilateral organizations, including the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS), to promote (with separate but similar dynamics) a new strategic approach to fight corruption. They seek to go beyond programs of technical assistance and efforts of intergovernmental coordination traditionally articulated by international organizations and other support mechanisms (such as conventions, treaties, agendas, regimes, or international supervising bodies). By the same token, they do not ever become complex interventions, with the mandate of temporarily substituting the state with full executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Examples are the transitional administrations of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo or East Timor (Chesterman 2005; Strohmeyer 2001). These international organizations, CICIG and MACCIH, are mandated to act in the country in question and ordered to create capacities to identify networks of corruption and opening up cases for further investigation to reduce the impact of corruption in an effective manner. This is what makes them unique in the international set of instruments to intervene in the global arena.
These hybrid organizations, which we will refer to in this study as Hybrid Anticorruption Agencies (HACAs), constitute a significant organizational innovation with respect to existing national anticorruption agencies (known as ACAs). Just as existing ACAs, HACAs can perform diverse functions: from prevention and education to supervision and sanctioning, including training processes, consulting processes, thematic studies, and legislative recommendations. The backbone of these organizations, however, lies in their capacity to investigate and prosecute cases of corruption. In that sense, the hybrid nature of HACAs is a major particular characteristic, for their inclusion of both international experts and prosecutors performing these functions allow them to act with independence and autonomy, reducing the possibility of interference from powerful corrupt actors who wish to preserve their illicit privileges. As such, HACAs are designed to “actively support” (not substitute) state institutions that are in charge of combating corruption, such as the Ministerio Público (the organization with the greatest powers of investigation and penal enforcement in several Latin American countries). The intervention of external internationally supported organizations seeks to ...