Anticorruption and Transitional Justice: A Distinction Without a Difference

Abstract

Abstract Anticorruption efforts in the framework of transitional justice seemingly insert the missing ‘economic’ link and are thus considered to modify its mainstream paradigm and diversify its politics. This article counter argues that, instead, anticorruption efforts reinforce the problematic points and invisibilities of transitional justice and further embed a liberal conceptualization of it. Using the case study of Tunisia, the article contends that anticorruption efforts stepped onto the footprints of the paradigmatic transitional toolbox by decontextualizing and depoliticizing their object of intervention, effectively foreclosing any meaningful engagement with the past, and validating liberal economic agendas in the process.