Paper short abstract:

This paper will: Describe corruption in the context of EU procurement. Highlight values and norms in corruption. Present African case study of procurement corruption. Critically analyse how the values and norms relate to objective of anticorruption. Policy suggestions and ideas for further research.

Paper long abstract:

Corruption everything in society and its detrimental effects are now acknowledged at all levels, reflected all the way from the opinion of the single citizen to supra-national policy. There is a disconnect somewhere in between, where global anti-corruption initiatives seem incapable of effectively formulating comprehensive solutions. At least not without the risk of those policies being watered down to a point far beyond being able to translate ambitious rhetoric to reality.

One of the reasons for the inefficacy may be the rather large variations in values and norms across the world. It is not hard to imagine different social axioms in for example Europe and Africa. That, however, does not necessarily make the comparison less relevant as many European organisations and governments operate in African countries.

The procurement process has been identified by the EU as a particularly susceptible to be influenced by acts of corruption. Therefore, it will serve as the backdrop for this discussion. Using the recently developed framework by Fazekas, Cingolani & Tóth (2016), a typological discussion around what the central values and norms are can be made.

To contextualise, the values and norms themselves as well as, where and how these come into friction with one another, the analysis is based upon a case study of an EU public procurement process in Somalia. The idea is not to argue for a single case to be representative of anything more than it is, but to exemplify that which is discussed in a highly tangible and understandable manner.