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What Makes Anti-Corruption Enforcement Work? New BridgeGap Research Explores the Role of Deterrence
A new publication from the BridgeGap consortium examines one of the oldest assumptions in anti-corruption policy: do tougher penalties actually deter corruption, or does effective enforcement depend on something else? Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have published a new article in the Regulation & Governance special issue “Efforts to Map and Control Corruption”,…
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Map Your Anticorruption Equipment with EUCAL: The EU Compass on Anti-Corruption Law
We’re excited to announce the launch of EUCAL — the EU Compass on Anti-Corruption Law — a new data platform developed thanks to the unprecedented cooperation between the Department of Law and the Department of Political Science at LUISS Guido Carli and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pisa, within the BridgeGap…
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Who Gets Prosecuted? Mapping Europe’s Fight Against Domestic and Cross-Border Corruption
The comparative report on the assessment and explanation of enforcement capabilities and performance of contrast of domestic and cross-border corruption in the EU is a first, design-oriented version of Deliverable which as the purpose to build the conceptual, methodological and data foundations for analysing how European criminal justice systems prevent, investigate, prosecute and sanction corruption,…
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Digital Transformation and Corruption: BridgeGap Maps Where AI Helps, Where the Gaps Remain
The research report by Aleksej Heinze, Alfredo Jimenez, Julien Hanoteau and Virginie Vial (KEDGE Business School), with contributions from Joras Ferwerda (Utrecht University) sets out a clear picture of how digital transformation, and especially artificial intelligence, is being discussed in anti-corruption research. It shows an area showing a real dynamic, which still depends on stronger…
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New Deliverable: Why Cross-Border Corruption is Built Into the System
Credits: GTR The “Historical Background Report on Cross-Border Corruption” (Deliverable 1.3) for the BRIDGEGAP project starts with a clear-cut statement: Cross-Border Corruption (CBC) is a systemic feature of the global economy. Authored by Michael Johnston and Ina Kubbe, this document sits inside ordinary financial, legal, and regulatory infrastructure, rather than appearing as an occasional governance…
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Working Paper: Digital Solutions Against Corruption? Leveraging Technology in (EU) Humanitarian Aid Operations in the MENA-region
Credits: European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations The BridgeGap Working Paper Series showcases cutting-edge research that bridges critical gaps in our understanding of corruption, its regulation, and the real-world impact of anti-corruption policies. Our latest publication, Working Paper 25-02, “Digital Solutions Against Corruption? Leveraging Technology in (EU) Humanitarian Aid Operations in the MENA-region” by…
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Working Paper 25-01: Report Maps Public Procurement Data Across Europe
The BridgeGap Working Paper Series presents the first edition by BridgeGap members Andrea Longobucco and Joras Ferwerda of the University of Utrecht, part of the Work Package 6 on Artificial Intelligence on “Fighting Corruption with Artificial Intelligence: Searching for Suitable Public Procurement Data in the EU”. This report provides a groundbreaking comparative analysis of the…
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New Publication: Making Bribery Profitable Again? The Market Effects of Halting Extraterritorial Accountability for Overseas Bribery
A groundbreaking study by Lorenzo Crippa (University of Strathclyde), Edmund J. Malesky (Duke University), and Lucio Picci (University of Bologna) examines the market reaction to President Trump’s 2025 executive order suspending the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) enforcement. On February 10th, 2025, US President Trump signed an executive order ceasing the initiation of any new…
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How Corruption Convictions Help Leaders Gain Support
by Manoel Gehrke & Feng Yang, The Loop July 9, 2025 We often attribute populism’s rise to structural factors — economic insecurity, digital technology, and cultural backlash. But Manoel Gehrke and Feng Yang reveal a more immediate trigger: former leaders’ conviction for corruption. In less democratic contexts, these rulings open the door for governments to…
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Corruption and Social Norms: How Behavior Shapes Institutions
Corruption isn’t just about shady backroom deals or greedy officials, it’s often a reflection of the social norms that govern a society. The paper “Corruption and Social Norms: A New Arrow in the Quiver” (Kubbe et al., 2024) explores how corruption becomes embedded in daily life through shared expectations, and how shifting those expectations is…
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New Deliverable: Report on Causes and Trends of Corruption Risk in Europe-41
The latest report by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Iva Parvanova from the Work Package 9 – Regulatory and Enforcement Gaps in Preventive Anticorruption Policies provides an evidence-based assessment of corruption trends across EU Member States (EUMS), accession candidates (EUCC), and neighboring countries (EUN), identifying key risks and proposing targeted policy interventions. KEY FINDINGS Defining corruption as…
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Do social media increase polarization in the debate about corruption? – New Publication
While legacy media have received increasing attention in the literature on media and corruption in recent years, the role of digital media, and in particular social media, is still an open question in corruption and anti-corruption studies. In their paper “Bias and Polarization in the Qatargate Scandal: A Social Media Perspective” (Marchetti et al., 2024),…
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Upholding Integrity: The causes and trends of corruption risk in Europe-41.
A varied landscape in corruption risk The report assessed the public integrity framework and corruption risk for 41 European countries, European Union (EU), candidate countries (CCEU) and non-aligned countries (EUN- Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, UK). It finds that the ability of EU Member States in the North-West to control corruption differs widely from that of the…
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“Lo spettacolo della corruzione” (The Spectacle of Corruption)
This Thursday, February 13th, BridgeGap members Rita Marchetti, Paolo Mancini and Marco Mazzoni, from our partner the University of Perugia present their latest publication, “Lo spettacolo della corruzione” (The Spectacle of Corruption), hosted at the Senate of the Republic in Rome. The event, organized by Senator Walter Verini, will cover the complex interplay between media…
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Managing experts’ conflicts of interest in the EU Joint Clinical Assessment
Ariana Gentilini and Iva Parnanova, Research Associate at LUISS and member of BridgeGap BMJ Open (2024) https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-091777 The article evaluates the EU’s 2024 Implementing Regulation (IR) on managing conflicts of interest (COIs) in health technology assessment (HTA). It introduces EU-wide COI management for experts, requiring annual declarations of financial and non-financial interests. Based on French…