30 Years of Anti-Corruption Frameworks: A Structural Gap Between Definition, Scale, and Outcomes

This research note examines the evolution of international anti-corruption frameworks over the past three decades and identifies a structural misalignment between legal definitions, empirical scale, and observed outcomes. Since the adoption of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption in 1996, successive frameworks developed by the Council of Europe, the United Nations, and the European Union have established an increasingly sophisticated legal architecture. These instruments define corruption primarily through individual offences, while simultaneously attributing to it broad systemic effects, including market distortions, institutional weakening, and reduced economic performance. At the same time, international estimates place corruption at significant macroeconomic levels, reaching several percentage points of global GDP and a substantial share of public expenditure. In parallel, monitoring mechanisms such as GRECO consistently report persistent shortcomings in implementation, even within advanced institutional systems. More recently, the emergence of annual reporting by the OECD signals a growing recognition of corruption as a relevant phenomenon in advanced economies. Taken together, these elements suggest that corruption may operate as a structural phenomenon that is not fully captured by existing normative and analytical frameworks. The note proposes that addressing this divergence may require reconsidering how corruption is conceptually defined, empirically measured, and institutionally addressed. This paper forms part of the research project Structural Evolution of Power and Money in the Contemporary Era.