Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BIT-ACT (Bottom-up initiatives and anti-corruption technologies: how citizens use ICTs to fight corruption)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-07-01 do 2023-12-31
Corruption is a global challenge that affects the lives of millions of citizens. In the past decade, digital media and other forms of information and communication technologies have become indispensable tools in the fight to reduce corruption. Primarily when employed from the bottom-up by civil society organizations. Nevertheless, while pioneering initiatives in this direction have flourished, to date, we only have unsystematic and descriptive evidence regarding how they work and the associated consequences.
Thanks to the support of an ERC Starting Grant (2019-2024) the research team involved in BIT-ACT opened a new line of inquiry by investigating anti-corruption technologies (ACTs) defined as socio-technical assemblages that include an array of digital platforms, services, and devices. BIT-ACT investigates anti-corruption technologies to reach three main objectives:
- assess how civil society organizations engage with ACTs to counter corruption
- appraise how ACTs enable intersections between bottom-up and top-down efforts against corruption
- evaluate how ACTs blend with the transnational dimension in the struggle against corruption.
Based on an interdisciplinary framework that combines corruption studies, science and technology studies, and social movement studies, BIT-ACT employs in-depth interviews, participant observation, and documents to investigate ACTs in nine countries located in Europe, Latin America, the MENA region and South-Asia, according to the constructivist grounded theory method.
Thanks to the support of an ERC Starting Grant (2019-2024) the research team involved in BIT-ACT opened a new line of inquiry by investigating anti-corruption technologies (ACTs) defined as socio-technical assemblages that include an array of digital platforms, services, and devices. BIT-ACT investigates anti-corruption technologies to reach three main objectives:
- assess how civil society organizations engage with ACTs to counter corruption
- appraise how ACTs enable intersections between bottom-up and top-down efforts against corruption
- evaluate how ACTs blend with the transnational dimension in the struggle against corruption.
Based on an interdisciplinary framework that combines corruption studies, science and technology studies, and social movement studies, BIT-ACT employs in-depth interviews, participant observation, and documents to investigate ACTs in nine countries located in Europe, Latin America, the MENA region and South-Asia, according to the constructivist grounded theory method.
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 December 2023, 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 finally, beginning 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; three organised academic workshops; and a summer school at the host institution.
The initial 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.
From the start of the project until December 2023, 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 finally, beginning 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; three organised academic workshops; and a summer school at the host institution.
The initial 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.
BIT-ACT takes civil society organizations' engagements with digital media to counter corruption as an emblematic case of citizens' appropriation of digital media in the realm of political participation. Thus, it advances knowledge on the digital media's potential to empower citizens and increase their agency about governmental organizations and institutional politics.
BIT-ACT goes beyond the state of the art in three interconnected ways.
First, theoretically, it advanced the debate on corruption and anti-corruption. The research project team opened an innovative line of inquiry on the underexplored phenomena of anti-corruption technologies, hence elaborating grounded concepts and models that explain digital media's opportunities, challenges, and consequences in the struggle against corruption. Second, empirically, it produces spatially situated knowledge on how civil society organizations employ anti-corruption technologies to empower citizens, contributing to advance knowledge on how digital media are changing the relationship between citizens and democratic institutions. Third, methodologically, it experiments with innovative use of constructivist grounded theory in the framework of a comparative research design, establishing a new standard of comparative constructivist grounded theory for the cross-national study of political participation.
The expected results of BIT-ACT are the following. First, the research project assesses how national civil society and social movement organizations engage with digital media to address different types of corruption, developing a series of explanatory assertions on the mechanisms that lead to the creation, usages, and meanings of anti-corruption technologies. Second, it investigates how digital media enable the intersections between bottom-up organizations and top-down institutions. The research project explains how digital media render civil society organizations more (or less) dependent on top-down institutions and how the latter respond to the demands of civil society organizations. Third, it evaluates different entanglements between digital media and the grassroots struggles against corruption at the transnational level, also considering how the digital media supporting anti-corruption initiatives spread from one country to the other and with what outcomes.
BIT-ACT goes beyond the state of the art in three interconnected ways.
First, theoretically, it advanced the debate on corruption and anti-corruption. The research project team opened an innovative line of inquiry on the underexplored phenomena of anti-corruption technologies, hence elaborating grounded concepts and models that explain digital media's opportunities, challenges, and consequences in the struggle against corruption. Second, empirically, it produces spatially situated knowledge on how civil society organizations employ anti-corruption technologies to empower citizens, contributing to advance knowledge on how digital media are changing the relationship between citizens and democratic institutions. Third, methodologically, it experiments with innovative use of constructivist grounded theory in the framework of a comparative research design, establishing a new standard of comparative constructivist grounded theory for the cross-national study of political participation.
The expected results of BIT-ACT are the following. First, the research project assesses how national civil society and social movement organizations engage with digital media to address different types of corruption, developing a series of explanatory assertions on the mechanisms that lead to the creation, usages, and meanings of anti-corruption technologies. Second, it investigates how digital media enable the intersections between bottom-up organizations and top-down institutions. The research project explains how digital media render civil society organizations more (or less) dependent on top-down institutions and how the latter respond to the demands of civil society organizations. Third, it evaluates different entanglements between digital media and the grassroots struggles against corruption at the transnational level, also considering how the digital media supporting anti-corruption initiatives spread from one country to the other and with what outcomes.