Policy Implications
This chapter offers a short summary of policy implications raised by the book’s historical research. It comments on the speed and nature of change; the importance of context and state formation; the vital role of public deliberation as well as official compliance; the politics of anti-corruption; and the socio-cultural dimensions that frame what constitutes corruption in office. It is argued that policies should be bottom-up and deliberative as well as top-down and formal; that anti-corruption is a protracted, political and contested process which involves personal, institutional and systemic issues as well as extensive public discussion of ethical questions; that rule-change is easier to achieve than culture-change but reform requires both; that the art of governance is a balance between trust and distrust of office-holders, and between formal and informal modes of accountability; and that history is useful in offering data about the process of anti-corruption and influence of the past.