Sais work against corruption in Scandinavian, South-European and African countries: An institutional analysis

Abstract

International pressures on Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) to fight corruption are increasing. Nevertheless, SAIs lack a clear mandate and may appear ineffective in their anticorruption work. Using an institutional approach, this paper compares the cases of seven SAIs from Scandinavian, South-European and African countries to better understand how these institutions perceive their role in fighting corruption. Our article demonstrates that the way SAIs organize their work cannot simply be explained by the countries' level of corruption. Rather, efforts to fight corruption reflect the ways in which coercive, mimetic and normative pressures interact with institutional logics to guide the SAIs' work. We conclude that the influence of INTOSAI still appears to be limited, and it needs increased institutional recognition if it is to be effective in harmonizing SAIs' work worldwide to fight corruption.