Chapter 7 widens the lens of analysis to consider anti-corruption efforts in a diverse set of authoritarian regimes: Cuba, Malaysia, Rwanda, Singapore, and Vietnam. These short case studies are analytically useful as “plausibility probes” to assess the applicability of my theory beyond just the main East Asian cases. They also serve as test cases for alternative explanations, such as that quasi-democratic institutions or collective leadership will help authoritarian regimes to curb corruption. Most, though not all, of the anti-corruption efforts in these authoritarian regimes match my theoretical expectations based on whether autocrats had motivation, discretionary power, and state capacity. I also find further evidence against alternative hypotheses. This chapter is primarily based on secondary-source research.

This chapter considers the national reforms that all the European governments have continuously designed and implemented. These reforms have been inspired by the same common template — the Anglo-American university governance model, actively promoted by the European Union — but national strategies have clearly interpreted this template according to their inherited legacies, and national reforms have subsequently been elaborated and implemented by the universities’ internal actors — with their power resources, culture, learning abilities — which have acted as ‘filters’ vis-à-vis the planned reforms. Even more importantly, as shown in this chapter, this has meant that the consequences of national reforms of university governance have largely differed from the expected results.