Can messaging help us to fight serious organised crime and corruption in Albania?
May 2022
Research Paper 02
Professor Nic Cheeseman, University of Birmingham
Dr Caryn Peiffer, University of Bristol
SOC ACE Project: Fighting serious organised crime and corruption in Albania: testing messaging approaches
PUBLICATION SUMMARY
Serious and organised crime (SOC) and corruption have particularly significant implications not only for the rule of law but also for development, inequality and poverty. While SOC may sometimes appear to have a stabilising impact—for example, by providing livelihoods opportunities—it may also be coercive, violent or help to build the legitimacy of criminal groups. The same is true of corruption, which may be justified on the basis that paying a bribe is the cost of ‘getting something done’, but which has consistently been found to reduce the access of poorer citizens to key public services, while exacerbating inequality.
It is therefore imperative to develop effective anti-SOC and anti-corruption strategies. Currently, these strategies typically include an awareness-raising element featuring the communication of messages about SOC or corruption. However, a growing body of research suggests that raising awareness of ‘social bads’ like organised crime and corruption may do more harm than good. This research paper tests the effect of different kinds of anti-SOC and anti-corruption messages in Albania, reporting on a nationally representative sample of 3,003 Albanian adults.
The survey had two components. The first was a survey experiment in which we divided the sample into six groups, five of which received the kind of anti-SOC or anti-corruption message that might be used in a government campaign, and one of which acted as the control. The second survey component included general questions about attitudes to SOC and corruption to enable us to better understand how Albanians think about and conceptualise these issues. By assessing whether individuals in each of these groups have attitudes or beliefs that are distinct from those in the control group, we generated a systematic estimate of the impact (or its absence) of anti-SOC and anti-corruption messages.
The results confirm the patchy and often problematic impact of messaging in these areas. Overall, the messages that we tested did not influence participants’ willingness to pay a bribe, beliefs that SOC or corruption are (un)acceptable, the willingness of participants to report corruption and SOC, or their desire to take up activism to resist these ‘social bads’. In other words, for some of the most important outcomes of interest the messages we tested had no effect—and therefore represent questionable value for money. Things look a little different in relation to issues of political accountability. Regarding the belief that officials can be held accountable and that it is worth voting for an anti-corruption candidate, almost all of our messages had a positive effect. This suggests that the messages we tested may be worth communicating, but only if these outcomes alone are deemed to be worth the investment.
The picture becomes even more challenging, however, when we look at a range of other beliefs about SOC and corruption. Here we find that a number of messages—more specifically those that describe the current situation—generate unwanted unintended consequences. Most notably, exposure to these messages increases agreement with the idea that bribery is needed to get things done when dealing with the government—which risks bolstering the belief that the payment of bribes is inevitable and therefore not worth resisting—while increasing agreement that people have lost confidence in the government because of the extent of organised crime. This finding implies that none of the messages worked as had been hoped.
None of the messages we tested both maximised the positive influence of the information being communicated while minimising its negative influence. All of the messages worked inconsistently, and there appears to be a trade-off between effectiveness and minimising unintended consequences. The research paper therefore ends by considering whether the best way forward is to design new kinds of messages, or to move away from messaging campaigns in favour of deeper and more sustained forms of engagement. In either case, the path ahead should involve rigorous testing in order to avoid unintended consequences and ensure that investments are well spent.
