ABSTRACT
This chapter concludes this book by presenting its main findings and identifying future research directions for and discussions on this topic. This study shows the overall situation of local efforts in making anti-corruption innovations. Based on the historical overview and literature review, I summarize the patterns of innovations and how they could achieve success. Future studies could further explore the effectiveness of innovations, the current experiment on the reform of Anti-corruption Agencies (ACAs), and the future of local innovations in a given political setting.
Specifically, this study has three major findings. First, in recent years, anti-corruption innovations have become increasingly common at local levels, while insufficient scholarly attention has been paid to this issue. The second finding, namely, that local anti-corruption innovations are not easy to make and to sustain. They require both external and internal support, as summarized in the following formula based on my case analyses in Chapters 5, 6, and 7: Successful anti-corruption innovation = political approval + organizational endorsement + social support. The third point is that the three elements of institutional support do not necessarily carry equal weight. Political support is the one with veto power in local anti-corruption innovations.
