Today’s world faces complex global challenges and is very interdependent. Therefore the solution of global public policy issues (e.g. climate change, terrorism, corruption) by common actors like national states, international governmental organizations (IGOs), international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and business (Truex & Søreide, 2011, 1) became more complicated. New forms of governance at the intersection of the public, private and not-for-profit sectors are needed.

Corruption is a global problem that costs trillions of dollars every year (Tanzi, 1998), debases democracy and undermines the rule of law. Many instruments have been developed to encounter corruption. But still the problem cannot be accurately handled. Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International is convinced that corruption can only be repressed in a coalition of the civil society and the main actors involved in corruption: the public and private sector (Eigen, 2006, 85). As corruption is a problem no one can solve on their own we call it a “wicked issue”. Wicked issues are issues that involve many stakeholders with different values and priorities. This kind of issues cannot be solved or even be dominated by one institution or sector alone (Camillus, 2008). The need of new forms of governance for this kind of issues makes it reasonable to fight corruption through multisectoral stakeholder networks. Realizing this, international organizations and donors have started to promote collaboration among stakeholders. These networks co-exist and co-evolve with other modes of governance: state-centered unilateralism, purely intergovernmental multilateralism and private self-regulation. But how do these networks evolve, what challenges do they face, why do they differ in their results? These reflections lead to the main research question of my thesis:

How do structural and functional factors prevent and promote the implementation of a multisectoral stakeholder network against corruption?

Multisectoral stakeholder networks have to be interdisciplinary and empirically more investigated, because research on the characteristics of multisectoral stakeholder networks is in its early stage, basically similar to the state of the phenomenon itself (Fransen & Kolk, 2007, 669). In my thesis I will combine the network governance approach of the international relations discipline and the issue based stakeholder approach from strategic management. The dissertation will explore the risks and benefits of a multisectoral stakeholder network in fighting corruption and will contribute new findings to the anti-corruption research. This thesis can yield important insights into the changing role of states, IGOs, multinational companies and transnational civil society organizations.