Join the authors - Dr Zahid Mumtaz and Dr Caryn Peiffer - for a webinar exploring the complex relationship between corruption and informal security welfare regimes, with Pakistan as a case study. In contexts where formal welfare systems are weak or inaccessible, people often depend on kinship ties, community structures, and patron‑client networks for social protection.
The speakers will examine the dual role of corruption: while it undermines formal welfare provision, it can also function as a survival mechanism for those excluded from official support. Drawing on their recent paper and their SOC ACE project, the panel will outline a nuanced framework for understanding corruption’s place within informal welfare regimes, highlighting its path‑dependent nature.
They will present policy recommendations that encourage and empower reformers to distinguish between corruption that erodes welfare equity and corruption that compensates for systemic failures.
The panel will also consider how collaborative efforts involving state and non‑state actors, including NGOs and religious institutions, can support more inclusive solutions. Ultimately, they will emphasise and examine politically feasible, context‑sensitive reforms that strengthen formal welfare systems without destabilising the informal mechanisms on which many people rely.
Register for the Webinar here
Panelists
Dr Caryn Peiffer
Associate Professor of International Public Policy at the University of Bristol. Her research largely focuses on patterns of grass-roots corruption, the functionality of corruption, and the consequences of anticorruption policies.
Dr Zahid Mumtaz
Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. His research focuses on welfare regimes, formal and informal social protection in the Global South, and computational policy analysis. Zahid's work examines how informal networks shape welfare provision, particularly in countries such as Pakistan.
Professor Heather Marquette
Director of the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme and Professor of Development Politics in the International Development Department, University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on transnational threats, corruption, organised crime, aid and foreign policy, governance, and political analysis.