In his piece for this collection, Bello y Villarino makes a bold claim about the theoretical assumptions underlying international treaties designed to prevent and respond to corruption. Drawing on Merkle and Wong’s work (2020, p. 353), he assesses the long-held assumption that having women in politics will summon ‘an anti-corruption force’ that will make public officials more resistant to graft and public actions more transparent. One of the puzzles for anticorruption scholars is that there is a clear empiric link between gender and corruption, but explanations for this link have ranged from essentialist assumptions (women are more virtuous) to more complicated gender theories about social dynamics shaping behaviour (see further Goetz 2007).