KickBack - The Global Anticorruption Podcast

In this episode of Kickback, host Elizabeth David-Barrett is joined by Marina Nistotskaya, Professor at the Department of Political Science and researcher at the Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg.

The conversation explores the role of merit-based recruitment in shaping effective and impartial bureaucracies. Marina discusses how hiring processes influence both competence and independence, and why this distinction is critical for resisting political interference and corruption.
The discussion also considers the appropriate balance between political appointments and bureaucratic autonomy, highlighting current debates and trends across different countries. Finally, the episode looks at newer areas of research, including how ambiguity in laws and the outsourcing of state functions can affect decision-making and public service outcomes.

Links to Marina's research:

Futures for the Public Sector. Leuven University Press, 2025. Project MUSE
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/258/oa_edited_volume/chapter/4135540/pdf

Legal Clarity and Impartiality: A Global Experimental Study of Consistency in Bureaucratic Decision Making, Joakim Nilsson and Marina Nistotskaya, 2025:
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/items/fcf9aa18-e71f-4831-abbe-a89e3576bd1a

To the Short-Sighted Victor Belong the Spoils: Politics and Merit Adoption in Comparative Perspective, Victor Lapuente and Marina Nistotskaya, 2009:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2009.01446.x

On mechanisms of meritocratic recruitment: competence and impartiality, Palina Kolvani and Marina Nistotskaya, 2025:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/on-mechanisms-of-meritocratic-recruitment-competence-and-impartiality/B1DA105768AA5083DFF61F79E640AB39

Outsourcing, bureaucratic personnel quality and citizen satisfaction with public services,
Carl Dahlström, Marina Nistotskaya, and Maria Tyrberg, 2018:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/padm.12387

The UK's anti-money laundering system involves 88 organizations across policy, supervision, and enforcement, but does this complex network actually work? In this episode, host Robert Barrington speaks with Diana Bociga about her research using social network analysis to map how these organizations collaborate. Diana's findings reveal a system operating across two disconnected dimensions, strategic policy-making and tactical intelligence-sharing, where engagement in one often doesn't translate to the other. While public sector bodies serve as crucial brokers connecting different parts of the network, some brokerage roles are duplicated while others are missing entirely. The conversation explores whether the solution to improving effectiveness lies in adding more connections or fundamentally rethinking how the network is organized.

Diana Bociga, Elisa Bellotti, Nicholas Lord, The Network Architecture of Anti-money Laundering: Strategic and Tactical (Dis)Connections in the UK’s Policy, Supervision, and Enforcement Landscape, The British Journal of Criminology, 2025.
https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azaf101/8368980

Despite significant volumes of illicit finance flowing through the UK, asset recovery from kleptocratic networks remains limited. In this episode, regular KB host Robert Barrington speaks with Maria Nizzero, the Head of Sanctions Policy at UK Finance and Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter University, about her recent research that proposes reconceptualizing kleptocracy as a transnational criminal enterprise.

Through comparative analysis of anti-racketeering legislation across multiple jurisdictions, the research identifies five distinctive features that enable more effective prosecution and asset recovery. These include targeting organizational structures rather than individuals, establishing liability through patterns of conduct, employing flexible evidentiary standards, and justifying intervention based on societal harm. The conversation examines how these frameworks address persistent challenges in kleptocracy cases, particularly the problem of tracing assets to historical predicate offenses in uncooperative jurisdictions, and explores the implications of situating illicit finance within national security frameworks rather than traditional corruption paradigms.

Links to related papers:
Nizzero, M., Heathershaw, J., and Mayne, T. 2026. The Kleptocratic Enterprise: Lessons from organised crime to target transnational corruption and strengthen asset recovery in the UK. GI ACE Working Paper. Brighton: University of Sussex.
https://giace.org/resources/the-kleptocratic-enterprise/
Heathershaw, J., Prelec, T. and Mayne, T., 2021. Indulging kleptocracy: British service providers, postcommunist elites, and the enabling of corruption. Oxford University Press.
https://academic.oup.com/book/58173
Nizzero, M. (2023). How to Seize a Billion: Exploring Mechanisms to Recover the Proceeds of Kleptocracy. SOC ACE Research Paper No. 16. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham.https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/external-publications/how-seize-billion-exploring-mechanisms-recover-proceeds-kleptocracy

Why do liberation movements that fight for freedom so often succumb to corruption once in power? In this episode, Liz David-Barrett speaks with Lord Peter Hain about his new book Liberation and Corruption: Why Freedom Movements Fail. Drawing on his personal connection to South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle and examining cases from Nicaragua to India, Peter explores how movements that come to power with inspiring values end up replicating the corruption of their predecessors. The conversation examines the role of global finance, professional enablers, and neoliberal pressures in facilitating grand corruption, while also highlighting South Africa's remarkable ability to confront state capture through mechanisms like the Zondo Commission. Peter also reflects on what individuals can do to resist systemic corruption and the personal costs of standing up against it.
Peter Hain- Liberation and Corruption: Why Freedom Movements Fail
https://www.peterhain.uk/p/liberation-and-corruption-why-freedom

After a three-year gap, the UK finally has a new anti-corruption strategy. To discuss, Robert Barrington is joined by Rachel Davies from Transparency International UK and Tom Shipley from the Centre for the Study of Corruption. They assess what the December 2025 strategy gets right, where it falls short, and whether it will actually make a difference. The discussion examines the strategy's strengths, including new commitments on professional enablers and domestic corruption, alongside notable weaknesses in areas like political integrity and defence procurement. With major tests ahead, the conversation explores whether the UK can credibly claim global leadership on anti-corruption while addressing serious domestic vulnerabilities.

The mentioned papers are linked below:

UK Anti-Corruption Strategy: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-anti-corruption-strategy-2025

Tom Shipley's research paper on international approaches to monitoring anti-corruption programmes: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-approaches-to-recording-and-monitoring-corruption

Rachel Davies's blog evaluating the Strategy: https://www.transparency.org.uk/news/strategy-action-what-uks-new-anti-corruption-plan-gets-right-and-where-it-falls-short