Can norm-based information campaigns reduce corruption?

The forthcoming article “Can norm-based information campaigns reduce corruption?” by Aaron Erlich and Jordan Gans-Morse is summarized by the author(s) below.

Across the world, governments and activists deploy anti-corruption information campaigns. But do they work? Our research provides grounds for cautious optimism.

Through three experimental studies conducted in Ukraine between 2017 and 2021, we examined how different types of anti-corruption messages affect people’s willingness to engage in bribery. We tested two main types of messages: those conveying “descriptive norms” (information about how common corruption is) and those conveying “injunctive norms” (information emphasizing that corruption is wrong and should be resisted). We also examined combinations of these two types of norm-based messaging.

Our findings challenge some conventional wisdom. First, we found that simple slogans like “Keep fighting! Stop corruption!” consistently reduced willingness to pay bribes. These effects, however, were modest and temporary. Second, contrary to recent research warning that information campaigns might backfire by normalizing corruption, none of our tested messages increased bribe intentions.

We also discovered that blending moral appeals (i.e., injunctive norms) with information showing that corruption is on the decline (i.e., descriptive norms) proved highly effective—but only when people believed the messages. In countries where corruption is endemic, this is a key caveat: Only about a quarter of our Ukrainian respondents perceived factually accurate claims about decreasing corruption to be credible.

Our most practical finding may be about age. Across all message types, effects were substantially larger among younger citizens. For participants under 30, several messages reduced willingness to bribe by about 1.5 times more than in the overall sample. Meanwhile, messages had virtually no effect on those over 50.

What does this mean for anti-corruption efforts? We believe messaging can work, but designers of information campaigns must be strategic about content, timing, and audience. Simple moral appeals might be most effective when strategically placed (for example, outside of government offices) to influence immediate decisions about bribery. By contrast, more ambitious campaigns to shift social norms might focus on younger citizens through social media using combinations of injunctive and descriptive-norm messaging.

While we’re clear that information campaigns alone won’t solve systemic corruption, even small reductions in bribery can add up. We estimate that a 20% decline in Ukraine’s bribe rate—the approximate impact of our more effective messages—would result in nearly a million fewer bribes annually, a substantive change for a country with around 30 million adults at the time of our studies.

Overall, our research challenges both excessive optimism and excessive pessimism about anti-corruption messaging. The reality lies somewhere in between: These campaigns aren’t silver bullets, but they can be effective tools when deployed thoughtfully. More broadly, our research sheds light on longstanding debates about how messages that focus on what’s right (injunctive norms) or what others are doing (descriptive norms)—or a mix of both—can help tackle harmful behaviors, whether the goal is fighting corruption, improving public health, or protecting the environment.

About the Author(s): Aaron Erlich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University and Jordan Gans-Morse is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. Their research “Can norm-based information campaigns reduce corruption?” is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science.