Thomas Duke Labik Amanquandor

• Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke (2024). Limitations of the international approach to anti-corruption: a systematic review of South Africa’s compelling case of failing anti-corruption. Crime, law and social change. ISSN 0925-4994. doi: 10.1007/s10611-024-10152-y.

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• Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke (2023). Limitations of the international approach to anti-corruption: a systematic review of South Africa’s compelling case of failing anti-corruption.
• Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke (2023). Corruption is not always the problem. GhanaWeb.
• Svensson, Måns; Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke & Mattsson, Andreas (2022). Multi-Level Perspectives on Anti-Corruption: A Systematic Literature Review. Swedish International Center for Local Democracy. ISSN 978-91-86725-48-8. Show summary

  This systematic literature review investigates the extent to which recent anti-corruption literature goes beyond the established paradigms (i.e., principal-agent perspective, macro-level, structural, and legal centralistic approaches) to focus on society’s informal norms, everyday micro-level power relations and non-monetary currencies (e.g. respect, prestige, social status and trust). By reconceptualising the various meanings and morality of informal, non-legal practices and transactions in the frame of the ’multi-level orders of corruption’ perspective, the paper also assesses the extent to which the current canon focuses on the complex articulation and interdependencies between (1) global, transnational anti-corruption laws, initiatives, discourses, and institutions, (2) national/central level initiatives, policies, and laws, and (3) local, micro-level social norms and practices. Based on one-hundred and three systematically gathered peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2015 and 2020, we found that most studies conducted within this period focus on anti-corruption at the national level and mostly employ analytical and quantitative methods. However, the local level received scant attention, and qualitative methods were employed in a few studies. Also, even though a significant number of studies focus on anti-corruption at multiple levels, these are mostly either the global-national level or national-local level. None of the articles gathered for this review studies anti-corruption in a complete multi-level approach that explores the global-national-local level. Lastly, we found that most of the studies across the levels are shaped by the principal-agent perspective and indicate a predominance of the perspective within anti-corruption policy and practice across the world. Consequently, irrespective of the entity of focus (i.e., country or institution), method (quantitative, qualitative, analytical or experimental) or level of analysis (i.e., global, national, or local or multi-level), most of the studies attribute the ineffectiveness of anti-corruption interventions to the inability of ”principals” to be principled, and hence call for increased sanctioning, supervision, monitoring and political commitment towards combatting corruption. Thus, there is the need for more qualitative anti-corruption studies at the local level and alternative theoretical perspectives that go beyond the aforementioned established paradigms.

• Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke; Svensson, Måns & Mattsson, Andreas (2022). The Role of Social Norms in Reducing Corruption in Education: A Case Study of Schools in Hanoi-Vietnam. Swedish International Center for Local Democracy. ISSN 978-91-86725-53-2. Show summary

  This research report presents empirical findings from an ethnographic study of the role of informal social norms in reducing corruption in public and private schools in Hanoi. The study begins by building a theoretical framework that inculcates the significance of local informal social norms in analysing/understanding corruption and designing counteraction strategies, especially at the sub-national or local level. After a two-month ethnographic study in Hanoi, a rich stock of ethnographic data was collected through observations and informal interviews. The informal social norm and practices found in various public and private schools in Hanoi included parents’ payment of teachers for extra classes to ensure better school results for their children, showing gratitude and respect to teachers by providing them with gifts on 5-6 occasions per school year, and parents’ contribution of money towards the provision of equipment in school classrooms. Our findings suggest that within the context of the school system, these informal norms persist as pragmatic responses to the weaknesses in the country’s educational system. Consequently, they are not in themselves dysfunctional or corrupt, and are widely accepted as the "normal things to do". Notwithstanding, some of the parents and teachers also admitted that these informal norms and practices sometimes result in unequal and discriminatory treatment of students whose parents cannot afford to conform to them. Consequently, they sometimes become dysfunctional and/or corrupt practices that hinder the quality of education. Hence, from a collective action perspective, we argue that efforts to reduce the levels of corruption resulting from the dysfunctional aspects of these informal norms and practices must acknowledge them as institutionalised social practices that are part and parcel of everyday life. Therefore, anti-corruption interventions must not focus on eradicating/suppressing these informal social norms entirely, as this might threaten social fabrics. Instead, anti-corruption interventions should actively engage teachers, parents and school administrators in reforming the dysfunctional aspects into functional norms and practices in line with educational quality.

• Labik Amanquandor, Thomas Duke (2020). Amammerɛ ne Amanneɛ: Towards the indigenisation of the sociology of law concept of norms. Lund University Open Access. Show summary

  The global coverage of sociology of law (SoL) has remained limited to the Western world, due to the difficult and problematic application of its current theories and concepts in non-Western societies. Thus, the sociology of law norm concept was studied in relation to the culture of Ashanti people of Ghana. This was done to identify and valorise culturally specific issues of their society that are relevant when employing the socio-legal concept. After a 5-week ethnographic study, the Ashanti conceptualisation of norms was explored and contrasted with the sociology of law norm concept, to unearth relevant culturally specific issues. The study found that, a direct lexical translation of the word (norm) from English into the Ashanti-Twi does not exist. However, the Ashanti concepts of Amammerɛ (tradition) and Amanneɛ (custom) showed to be closest to the sociology of law concept. However, contrasting them to the essences of norms developed by Hydén and Svensson, unearthed “the role and expectations of ancestors and gods” as an accidental attribute of these Ashanti concepts, making them specific types of norm, rather than norm itself. Consequently, the new Ashanti-Twi word “saayɔ” was coined to evanesce the accidental attributes of the Ashanti concepts and represent a more accurate translation of Hydén and Svensson’s SoL norm concept. This accidental attribute highlights an important culturally specific issue crucial to the application of this SoL norm concept in Ghana, and also points to the Eurocentrism in Hydén and Svensson’s norm concept. It shows that, what makes Hydén and Svensson’s (2008) conceptualisation Eurocentric, is the fact that, to a large extent, it was developed within the perceptive framework of a utilitarian thinking society where individuals possess scientific mentality and are free from culture, religion, and ideology. That is, the First and “natural” world. In fact, the accidental attributes of the Ashanti amammerɛ and amanneɛ type of norms, was found to exert relatively high levels of fear among people, making them more likely to conform to them, and more difficult for people to accept new contradictory norms. Therefore, it is very important for socio-legal researchers who employ this SoL norm concept in the Ashanti-Akan society, to be wary of this culturally specific attribute which characterizes the Ashanti specific type of norms. It is only when the user of the SoL norm concept disregards this, that the application of the concept will be problematic.

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