Transparency International and Corruption as an Issue of Global Governance

The globalization of economies, politics, and culture has broken down traditional barriers of governance. A growing number of issues that were formerly the exclusive responsibility and pre rogative of national or regional governments are increasingly subject to global governance. For us, the global governance of an issue has two dimensions: high sensitivity to the issue on a global scale and, at least, rudimentary global norms that focus on the issue. Environment, human rights, poverty, population, and international financial flows are just a few examples that come to mind. But how does an issue become a concern of global governance? We hope to shed light on this question by probing the emergence of corruption as a global issue. Our empirical focus is on the role of Transparency International (TI), a transnational nongovernmental or ganization (NGO) devoted to fighting corruption. We hope this study will facilitate understanding of the role played by idea and organiza tional entrepreneurs in setting the global agenda and creating global norms. In the first part of the article we highlight the rise of corruption as an issue of global governance. We go on in the second part to examine some structural changes that have prepared the ground for this devel opment. In the next two parts, we focus on TI as an agent of change and compare TI with other transnational organizations working in the realm of global governance. Finally, we conclude with some words of empirical and theoretical caution.