The Political Cycle of Fighting Corruption: Peru’s Experience with its First National Anti-Corruption Commission

Abstract

Despite progress made over the past two decades, current international anti-corruption efforts continue to struggle with implementation issues in individual nations. The present study proposes an approach to anti-corruption policy implementation that considers the fight against public malfeasance in terms of its potential costs and benefits for political leadership. The existence of a political cycle for anti-corruption initiatives is proposed and tested through an examination of Peru’s National Anti-Corruption Commission from 2001 to 2005. The empirical analysis supports the theoretical tenets, showing how the government of President Toledo created and later devolved the anti-corruption commission due to private interests and political circumstances.