Bottom-up initiative and anti-corruption technologies: how citizens use ICTs to fight corruption

Principal Investigator: Alice Mattoni

The BIT-ACT project takes civil society organizations' engagements with digital media to counter corruption as an emblematic case of citizens' appropriation of digital media in the realm of political participation. It advances knowledge of the digital media's potential to empower citizens and increase their agency about governmental organizations and institutional politics. First, the research project assesses how national civil society and social movement organizations engage with digital media to address different types of corruption, developing a series of explanatory assertions on the mechanisms that lead to the creation, usages, and meanings of anti-corruption technologies. Second, it investigates how digital media enables the intersections between bottom-up organizations and top-down institutions. The research project explains how digital media render civil society organizations more (or less) dependent on top-down institutions and how the latter respond to the demands of civil society organizations. Third, it evaluates different entanglements between digital media and the grassroots struggles against corruption at the transnational level, also considering how the digital media supporting anti-corruption initiatives spread from one country to the other and with what outcomes.

Website: https://site.unibo.it/bit-act/en/about

Members of the Department

Anwesha Chakraborty

Fernanda Odilla

Alice Fubini

Ester Sigillò

Alessandra Lo Piccolo

Oksana Huss

Valentina Tomadin

Publications 

• Odilla, Fernanda. The Digitalisation of Anti-Corruption in Brazil: Scandals, Reforms and Innovation.
• Odilla, Fernandaand Tsimonis Konstantinos (Eds.). Corruption and Anti-Corruption Upside Down: New Perspectives from the Global South. 
• Odilla, Fernandaand Germán Bidegain. (2024). "Innovative but feeble: civil society and political financing accountability in Uruguay". Journal of Civil Society,  1–21.
• Mattoni, Alice, (2024). “Anti-corruption Initiatives and Civil Society In: List, R.A., Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9587-1
• Alice Mattoni (2024) (ed), Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption: Contexts, Platforms and Data of Anti-Corruption Technologies Worldwide, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, pp. 296 .
• Chakraborty, Anwesha. Potentialities and affordances of grassroots civic tech platforms as effective anti-corruption tools: Decoding the story of I Paid A Bribe, India. In Mattoni, Alice. Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Fubini, Alice. 2024. Data practices and informative activism in the grassroots struggles against corruption. In Mattoni, Alice. Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Mattoni, Alice, (2024). Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption: Contexts, Platforms and Data of Anti-Corruption Technologies Worldwide.
• Mattoni, Alice, (2024). Digital media and technologies in grassroots struggles against corruption, In Mattoni, Alice. Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Mattoni, Alice, (2024). The challenges of anti-corruption technologies from the grassroots. In Mattoni, Alice. Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Odilla, Fernanda, 2024. From concerned citizens to civic bots: The bottom-up fight against corruption in Brazil from a longitudinal perspective. In Mattoni, Alice. Digital Media and Grassroots Anti-Corruption. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Mattoni, Aliceand Roxana Bratu. 2024. Digital Technologies and Anti-Corruption: Reflections on Public Discourses, Actors’ Interactions, and the Measurement of Corruption. American Behavioral Scientist, 0(0).
• Fubini, Aliceand Alessandra Lo Piccolo.  Anti-Corruption Initiatives and the Digital Challenge: The Role of Civil Society Organizations and Whistleblowing Infrastructures in the Italian Context. American Behavioral Scientist, 0(0).
• Odilla, Fernanda and Clarissa Veloso. 2024. "Citizens and their bots that sniff corruption: Using digital media to expose politicians who misuse public money". American Behavioral Scientist, 0(0), 1-23.
• Chakraborty, Anweshaand Inna Kubbe. 2024. "Improving Transparency in Service Delivery to Fight Corruption? Mapping Multi-Stakeholder Voices on Digitization in the Indian Public Healthcare Sector". American Behavioral Scientist, 0(0).
• Lo Piccolo, Alessandra. 2024. "Between Cooptation and Surveillance: Varieties of Civic Monitoring in Spain'. SocietàMutamentoPolitica 15(29): 63-74.
• Odilla, Fernanda. 2024. "Unfairness in AI anti-corruption tools: main drivers and consequences". Minds and Machines, 34, 28 (2024).
• Chakraborty, Anwesha. "Curbing electoral corruption: two South Asian civil society efforts to build robust democracies". In Exploring Hope: Innovation and Change in the Global South, edited by Marcelo Sili et al. Springer Publishing.
• Mattoni, Aliceand Diego Ceccobelli.  Activists in the Data Stream: The Practices of Daily Grassroots Politics in Southern Europe. Bristol University Press and Policy Press.
• Lo Piccolo, Alessandra. 2024. "Strategies for Whistleblowing: How Civil Society Organizations Intervene in the Process of Blowing the Whistle". Partecipazione e Conflitto, 17(1), 191-209, doi: 10.1285/i20356609v17i1p191
• Odilla, Fernandaand Alice Mattoni.  "Unveiling the layers of data activism: the organising of civic innovation to fight corruption in Brazil". Big Data & Society 10(2), 1-17.
• Chakraborty, Anweshaand Alice Mattoni. 2023. "Addressing corruption through visual tools in India: the case of three civil society initiatives and their Facebook pages", Visual Studies, 0, 1 – 18.
• Mattoni, Alice and Anwesha Chakraborty. 2023. “Visual Memory in Grassroots Mobilizations: The Case of the Anti-Corruption Movement of 2011 in India”, in The Visual Memory of Protest, edited by Ann Rigney and Thomas Smits. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 159 – 180.
• Lo Piccolo, Alessandra. 2023. "Anticorruption frames: Bridging accountability". Journal of Civil Society, 19(3), 251–270.  
• Chakraborty, Anwesha andAlice Mattoni. 2023. "Social Media Outrage against Fake COVID Tests: Decoding an Instance of Flash Activism in Bangladesh", Sociologica, 17(1), 77–89. 
• Fubini, Alice. 2023. “More than just shifting boundaries. Informative activism from a comparative perspective”, Problemi dell'informazione,1, 37-62, doi: 10.1445/106769 
• Odilla, Fernanda. "Bots against corruption: Exploring the benefits and limitations of AI-based anti-corruption technology". Crime Law Soc Change 80, 353–396 (2023).
• Mattoni, Alice and Ester Sigillò. Digital media, diasporic groups, and the transnational dimension of anti-regime movements: the case of Hirak in Algeria. Review of Communication, 22(3), 175–192.
• Praça, Sergio, Fernanda Odillaand João V. Guedes-Neto.  "Patronage Appointments in Brazil, 2011 - 2019". In The Politics of Patronage in Latin America: Trust and Roles in Public Administration, edited by Francisco E. Panizza, B. Guy Peters and Conrado Ramos. Pittsburgh, USA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
• Mattoni, Alice andFernanda Odilla.  Digital Media, Activism, and Social Movements’ Outcomes in the Policy Arena. The Case of Two Anti-Corruption Mobilizations in Brazil. PARTECIPAZIONE E CONFLITTO, 14(3), 1127–1150.
• Mattoni, Alice.  "Digital Media in Grassroots Anti-Corruption Mobilizations". In Oxford Handbook of Digital Media, edited by Deana Rohlinger and Sarah Sobjerai. Oxford ; Malden, Mass.: Oxford University Press.
• della Porta, Donatella andAlice Mattoni.  “Civil Society Against Corruption.” In Oxford Handbook of Quality of Government, edited by Andreas Bågenholm, Monika Bauhr, Marcia Grimes, and Bo Rothstein. Oxford ; Malden, Mass.: Oxford University Press.
• Odilla, Fernandaand Denisse Rodriguez-Olivari. (2021). "Corruption control under fire: a brief history of Brazil’s Office of the Comptroller General" in The Politics of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Latin America , edited by Joseph Pozsgai-Alvarez. London: Routledge.
• Huss, Oksana,and Oleksandra Keudel. 2021. Open Budget: Learning from the Open School Platform in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Case Study for the IIEP-UNESCO Research Project ‘Open Government in Education: Learning from Experience’. Bologna, Italy: Bononia University Press, 2021. 
• Lagunes, Paul, Fernanda Odilla,and Jan Svejnar (editors). 2021. Corrupção e o escândalo da Lava Jato na América Latina [Corruption and the Car Wash Scandal in Latin America]. São Paulo: FGV Editora. 
• Sam, Jillet S., Anwesha Chakraborty and Srinivasan Janaki. 2021. Cashlessness in India: Vision, policy and practices, Telecommunications Policy, 2021, 45, pp. 1- 6.
• Khambekova, Kristina, Alina Los, and Oksana Huss. 2021. "Corruption Framing and Formation of Action Strategies: Case of Regional Civil Society Organizations in Ukraine". Crime, Law and Social Change, 28 April 2021.
• Mattoni, Alice "The grounded theory method to study data-enabled activism against corruption: Between global communicative infrastructures and local activists’ experiences of big data". European Journal of Communication, 35(3), 265–277. 
• Huss, Oksana, Max Bader, Andriy Meleshevych, and Oksana Nesterenko. 2020. “Explaining Variation in the Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Activism in Ukraine’s Regions: The Role of Local Context, Political Will, Institutional Factors, and Structural Factors.” Demokratizatsiya; Washington28, no. 2 (Spring 2020): 201–27.
• Huss, Oksana. 2020. How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes: Strategies of Political Domination under Ukraine’s Presidents in 1994-2014. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society. Stuttgart: Ibidem, New York: Columbia University Press.
• Odilla, Fernanda. 2020. "Oversee and Punish: Understanding the Fight Against Corruption Involving Government Workers in Brazil". In Politics and Governance. Thematic issue: Volume 8, Issue 2 - Fighting Corruption in the Developed World: Dimensions, Patterns, Remedies.
• Piccio, Daniela and Alice Mattoni. "Ethics in political science research: Regulatory practices and practical suggestions." In Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity, edited by Ron Iphofen. Springer.

Conferences, lectures and talks

Recent and past events organized by the research project can be found in the BIT-ACT website.