This, to me, is the principal lesson of the last 10 years from US governance. The story and data in this paper are based in Singapore, but the lessons are universal. Social norms are critical, but if you grow reliant on them absent any formal enforcement, corruption will eventually take root. There are just too many people who figure out that the concept of “being in trouble” isn’t real. If transgressions do not receive instrumental punishments beyond social shaming and reputational damage, then individuals will simply find institutional and social pockets to inhabit where that shame doesn’t reach and a negative reputation might even be viewed as an asset by other would-be corrupt agents.

Read this paper (I mean, at least skim it) and internalize its core observations. This is important.