Abstract
This chapter examines an archetype of anti-corruption reforms — new technology-based ‘e-transparency’ initiatives in developing countries — analysing them as ‘technology transfers’ in the broadest sense of ideas conceived in one context and implemented in another. A model is presented of how transfers are mediated in practice between the two con-texts, which can be applied more broadly to all types of anti-corruption intervention. The chapter examines how a system of tools, processes, values, and resources designed in one context can carry with it inscribed assumptions — values drawn from designers’ backgrounds; assumptions about the skills, values, and resources of the user context; requirements needed for the proper implementation of the initiative — which may undermine its suitability, or which contain elements that may be appropriated by local users.
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Heeks, R. (2007). Why Anti-Corruption Initiatives Fail: Technology Transfer and Contextual Collision. In: Bracking, S. (eds) Corruption and Development. Palgrave Studies in Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230590625_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230590625_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35769-7
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