The BIT-ACT research project started on 1 July 2019 and could count on the work of one PI, five post-doctoral researchers, one doctoral researcher, one research assistant and seven country experts. In addition, the research project can count on the support of an Advisory Board and an Ethics Board, both of which include renowned experts in the fields of social movement studies, corruption studies, digital media studies, and ethics and security issues.
From the start of the project until its completion, the Principal Investigator and the BIT-ACT research team have undertaken the following research activities.
After further developing the methodological and ethical framework of the research project, the research team mapped past and current examples of anti-corruption technologies in the nine countries under study and at the transnational level, and selected the two most relevant case studies in each country to begin fieldwork. The research team then began and completed fieldwork, collecting 50 expert interviews and 229 in-depth interviews with anti-corruption activists, software developers, journalists and policymakers involved in the 45 anti-corruption initiatives studied, as well as documents and participant observation notes related to these initiatives.
The research team then engaged in systematic data analysis using MAXQDA software to undertake the following rounds of coding according to the constructivist grounded theory approach: open coding, on a selected sample of interviews from 18 case studies under study; focused coding on all case studies under study with subsequent selection of further case studies and collection of additional empirical data according to the logic of theoretical sampling; and work on theoretical coding and theory building involving comparison across the case studies under study.
Finally, the research team engaged in some dissemination activities. In addition to setting up the BIT-ACT website and Twitter account, the research team organised the following events to address the issue of digital media in anti-corruption from the ground up: nine seminars, online and open to the public, with international academic speakers; three roundtables with anti-corruption and pro-transparency practitioners, also online and open to the public; an ECPR Joint Session workshop on digital media and artificial intelligence in corruption and anti-corruption; a summer school at the host institution; four academic workshops; and a final dissemination seminar.
The findings of the research project have been disseminated through several presentations at international academic workshops and conferences, through some presentations at civil society and international organisation events, and through a series of invited lectures at renowned academic institutions. The PI and two post-docs were guests on two episodes of the Kick Back Corruption podcast series. Finally, the research team has published several articles in international peer-reviewed journals and two chapters in two volumes of the Oxford Handbooks.
