‘Finding God’ or ‘Moral Disengagement’ in the Fight Against Corruption in Developing Countries? Evidence from India and Nigeria

Authors Name(s): Dr Heather Marquette
There are growing calls for religion to be used in the fight against corruption based on theassumption that religious people are more concerned with ethics than the non-religious,despite the fact that many of the most corrupt countries in the world also rank highly in termsof religiosity. This paper looks at the evidence in the current […] Read more

Corruption as an obstacle to women’s political representation: Evidence from local councils in 18 European countries

Authors Name(s): Sundström, Aksel & Lena Wängnerud
This article presents evidence from 18 European countries showing that where levels of corruption are high, the proportion of women elected is low. We hypothesize that corruption indicates the presence of ‘shadowy arrangements’ that benefit the already privileged and pose a direct obstacle to women when male-dominated networks influence political parties’ candidate selection. There is […] Read more

Economy, corruption or floating voters? Explaining the breakthroughs of anti-establishment reform parties in eastern Europe

Authors Name(s): Seán Hanley, Allan Sikk
This paper discusses a new group of parties that we term anti-establishment reform parties (AERPs), which combine moderate social and economic policies with anti-establishment appeals and a desire to change the way politics is conducted. We analyse the electoral breakthroughs of AERPs in central and eastern Europe (CEE), the region where AERPs have so far […] Read more

Bribery in Preindustrial Societies: Understanding the Universalism-Particularism Puzzle

Authors Name(s): Bo Rothstein and Davide Torsello
This paper investigates how ideas and sociocultural preferences with regard to “public” versus “private” spheres can account for bribery and corruption. An improved understanding of corruption in terms of differences among cultures concerning which goods are considered private or public not only can have new and unexpected implications for a general theory on this phenomenon, […] Read more

Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions

Authors Name(s): Nicholas Charron, Lewis Dijkstra, Victor Lapuente
Do aspects of quality of government, broadly defined, such as corruption, impartiality, and quality of public services, vary below the country level? The concept of quality of government (QoG) and various measures to assess it have become more ubiquitous in several social science disciplines. QoG is related with economic and social development, better environmental conditions, […] Read more

Becoming Denmark: Historical Designs of Corruption Control

Authors Name(s): Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Why do some societies manage to control corruption so it manifests itself only occasionally, as an exception, while other societies do not and remain systemically corrupt? And is the superior performance of this first group of countries a result of what they do or of who they are? Most current anticorruption strategies presume the former, which is why institutions from […] Read more

The Legacies of 1989: The Transformative Power of Europe Revisited

Authors Name(s): Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Why has the EU succeeded in promoting democracy in the new member states but failed in promoting good governance?  This essay seeks to answer this question first by distinguishing governance from political regimes, and second by exploring to what extent national governance—which is defined as the set of formal and informal institutions that determine who […] Read more

Controlling Corruption Through Collective Action

Authors Name(s): Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Control of corruption in a society is an equilibrium between resources and costs which either empowers or constraints elites predatory behavior. While most research and practice focuses on legal constraints, this paper investigates normative constraints, deemed to be more important, especially civil society and the press. Fresh evidence—both historical and statistical—is found to support Tocqueville’s […] Read more