Special Issue: Anti-Corruption from Below. Social Movements Against Corruption in Late Neoliberalism

In the last decades, growing awareness emerged amid progressive social movements about the relevance of corruption as a hidden factor negatively influencing political and economic decision-making processes, in both liberal-democratic and authoritarian regimes. Against the immoral power of the 1 per cent, anti-austerity protests have for instance stigmatised the specific characteristics of corruption in the evolution – i.e. the expansion and crisis – of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism, as the second ‘great transformation’, has brought about a shift towards free market and away from social protection. Endorsed by international financial organisations such as the IMF or the World Bank, policies in various states have been oriented towards privatisation, liberalisation, and deregulation. Notwithstanding the envisaged separation between market and state, as well as the benefits of greater competition, neoliberal policies have ended up increasing the power of corporations, creating market distortions and forms of state collusion. These factors have ostensibly contributed to a crisis of legitimacy, which can also be interpreted in terms of a crisis of responsibility. Social movements have then denounced cases of rampant corruption, developing specific prognostic and diagnostic frames as well as knowledge and practices for social accountability of political and economic powers. In this special issue, we shall reflect on the characteristics of these collective actors, bringing original empirical evidence, as well as considering the theoretical challenges that they present for social movement theory. The guest editors seek to attract original comparative or case study contributions of any methodological persuasion, focusing on anti-corruption activism in different regions of the world.