No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Patria de Lancer Julnes & Manuel Villoria (2014) Understanding and addressing citizens’ perceptions of corruption: the case of Spain, International Review of Public Administration, 19:1, 23-43, DOI: 10.1080/12294659.2014.887295
Abstract
Current theories and approaches to study and combat corruption have questionable applicability in countries with low systemic corruption and high perceptions of cor- ruption. Further, the circular nature of corruption requires a more nuanced under- standing of the complexities involved. We argue that understanding the determinants of perceptions of corruption, defined in more refined ways, holds promise in sug- gesting solutions for reducing corruption. To that end, we developed a model that seeks to answer two important questions: (1) what factors influence citizen percep- tions of corruption, and how do they differ in relation to two different sets of gov- ernment actors? And (2) in what ways might factors affecting perceptions of corruption interact to yield moderated relationships? Using the responses to a survey from 2500 citizens in Spain in 2009, we tested the model and found that personal characteristics, attitudes and media exposure have predicted differences in account- ing for perceptions of corruption for different government actors. Beyond these direct findings, analysis of interactions of these explanatory factors revealed moder- ated relationships that have additional implications for public administrators and scholars interested in curbing corruption.
... While researchers often refer to left-right placement when studying ideology (for example, Wroe et al., 2013), other ideological dispositions such as individualism and authoritarianism also play roles in shaping corruption perceptions (Vande Walle, 2008). Given the findings of Redlawsk and McCann (2005), left-wing self-placement results in stronger corruption perception, although its impact appears to be weak, with several reporting no significant effect (Arnold, 2012;De Lancer Julnes and Villoria, 2014;Wroe et al., 2013). For both individualism and authoritarian attitudes, Vande Walle (2008) reports positive relationships with corruption perception. ...
... Support for the incumbent indicates alignment with the current political leadership, which could inspire more lenient assessments (Barros et al., 2020;Blais et al., 2017;Chang and Chu, 2006) and, consequently, lower perceived corruption (Blais et al., 2017;Canache and Allison, 2005;Fungáčová et al., 2016;Tverdova, 2011). Nevertheless, some studies do not find a significant effect of partisanship (Arnold, 2012;De Lancer Julnes and Villoria, 2014;Wroe et al., 2013). ...
Regardless of its utility as a measure of actual corruption, perceived corruption is related to many political attitudes and other variables which makes it an important phenomenon to understand. This paper explores demographic variables, ideological orientations, socioeconomic status, interpersonal trust, political attitudes and feelings of resentment as explanations for corruption perception with response styles controlled within a structural equation modelling framework using survey data collected in Guyana where corruption is salient and thought to be pervasive. It finds that the categories of variables jointly explain 31.5% of the variance in corruption perception and that there is explanatory utility for each category of variables evaluated except socioeconomic status with demographics and ideological orientations accounting for the largest changes in explained variance. It also finds that political cynicism attenuates an initial effect of interpersonal trust and concludes that ethnicity appears to function as partisan orientation in its relationship with corruption perception.
... In addition, they might not have sufficient and competent staff and may be unable to control the behaviour of local representatives (Benito et al., 2015). More significant opportunities for frequent personal interactions with public administrators and politicians may also lead to reduced disclosure (Anderson & Tverdova, 2003;De Lancer Julnes & Villoria, 2014). ...
The never-ending fight against corruption has driven local governments (LGs) to prepare and disclose their strategies to prevent and/or reduce corruption. This paper aims to identify possible determinants that can affect disclosure provided through anticorruption plans, specifically the factors that can affect accountability behaviour. To this end, anticorruption plans published by a sample of Italian LGs are analysed. Findings reveal that governance, economic and socio-political features considerably affect anticorruption disclosure. The key lessons from the findings reveal that anticorruption regulations require further surveillance and that key mechanisms must be implemented for more effective action.
... For example, corruption as contradiction to ethical universalism (everyone treated equally and fairly), including taking into account the outcome of governance, such as terms of social justice (Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, 2016); or (systemic) corruption, including the exclusion from decision-making of those most affected (Anechiarico, 2017); or, withGraycar (2015), putting more focus on the behavior of governance actors, including violations as misuse of information and abuse of discretion, or the more traditional interpretations in terms of private gain from public power. In addition, it is relevant that the integrity violations that are often missing, as, for example, discrimination and intimidation, are seldom also considered irrelevant for the trust of citizens in the government and governance system (de Lancer Julnes & Villoria, 2014;Salminen, 2010). Whatever the semantics, the research presented aims to contribute to the debate, with a focus on what public servants actually interpret and experience as integrity violations. ...
How often integrity violations occur in Western governance, and the precise nature of these violations, is as yet not very clear. Data on this subject—drawn from experience in the Netherlands—are presented here. The main research question is: What is the scale of integrity violations within Dutch public governance and what is the nature of these violations? The article provides the results of research on the perceptions of 7,315 Dutch civil servants who were surveyed on integrity violations in their work surroundings. All told, 2,035 respondents (nearly 28%) reported suspicion(s) of integrity violations in their direct working environment in the preceding two years. A substantial proportion of respondents said that they had experienced inappropriate and ill-mannered behavior and relatively “small” violations, such as profiting at the expense of the organization (fraud, abuse of resources) through noncompliance with working-hour regulations or by abuse of the organization’s resources. Integrity of governance in a Western context concerns corruption (and fraud), but there are indeed many other types of integrity violations that are prominent in the eyes of public sector employees. The moral quality of governance is thus also related to other values and norms than incorruptibility and impartiality. It seems important to incorporate this perspective into the fierce theoretical and practical debate on the corruption and integrity of governance.
... Because so much corruption is secret in nature many of the measures of corruption are not therefore measures of corrupt behaviour, but instead measures of people's perception of corruption -perceptions of its incidence and perceptions of its nature ( de Lancer Julnes & Villoria, 2014;Graycar & Prenzler, 2013, p. 35). They are, in effect, proxy measurements. ...
Corruption demoralises government and weakens the whole endeavour of policy formulation and its implementation. It diminishes services and causes fiscal stress, but most of all it undermines trust and corrodes legitimate community expectations. Corruption takes many forms and is found in many contexts. This paper develops a framework for the analysis of corruption which identifies types, activities, sectors and places (TASP). With the TASP framework identified or suspected corruption in any setting can be analysed as a precursor to the controls and processes that are most appropriate for the control and modification of corrupt behaviour, which ideally can enhance public sector performance. The TASP framework assists in pinpointing the nature, location and context of public sector corruption, and illustrates more precisely where the risks of corrupt activity might arise. This paper demonstrates, with empirical work from New York City and the State of Victoria in Australia (Australia's second most populous state), that more precise classification and characterisation of the nature and types of corrupt activity is an essential precondition to the development and design of targeted anti-corruption measures.
Risk Management (RM) themes have a central role in private and public administration, improving its performance and resilience, as affirmed by many authors in recent years. The involvement of citizens in public processes derives from the New Public Governance influences, and the evolved consideration from citizen, to partner and customer. However, few authors have investigated whether and how citizen participation is involved in the RM process. This paper aims to cover the gap on the citizens’ role in the RM process of public administration organizations, with a focus on corruption risk. In particular, the analysis focused on Italian municipalities and was conducted on a sample of 110 provincial capitals. Though the analysis of the Italian legislation, we discuss whether access requests (ARs) are a useful tool for citizens through which to exercise their control activity, thus participating in the RM process of the municipality.
The article analyzes the factors that impact corruption perception at individual levels. Based on a survey of 12,010 Kazakhstanis, the study investigates people’s assessment of corruption in Kazakhstan and their attitudes toward government anticorruption policy. The result reveals that, on average, the population perceives that a high rate of corruption exists in Kazakhstan. Simultaneously, the regression analysis shows that there are three main determinants that affect people’s perception of corruption. First, and most saliently, regional and cultural backgrounds do have an impact on people’s perception of corruption levels. In addition, the study results reveal that among the participants’ demographic and social qualifiers, the education level has considerable influence in driving perceptions. Finally, the findings point out that actual experience with corruption play a significant role in forming views regarding the overall level of corruption in the country.
The most prominent and well-known global index of corruption is the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), released annually by Transparency International (TI). The model we propose is the first approach to explore the quantile relationship between CPI rankings in consecutive years. This study utilizes the quantile causality approach to investigate whether corruption levels impact the following years over the 2012–2019 period. We show that CPI itself has a significant impact on the forthcoming years. It is not easy to change the scores of corruption in the most corrupt countries and the least corrupt countries. However, in countries with moderate corruption, the evaluation of corruption may be significantly improved (or worsened). To our best knowledge, the phenomenon is rarely discussed in the literature and is also an important contribution.
Members of a minority population are expected to evaluate political authorities through a different spectrum than majority members. Still, only a few studies have explored the role of local conditions as determinants for political attitudes among a linguistic minority population. This study focuses on the role of linguistic homogeneity, local economic conditions and community size as determinants for corruption perceptions and political trust at the individual level among members of a linguistic minority population, the Swedish-speaking Finns. Moreover, this study differs empirically between evaluations of the local-and national authorities. Combining data from a panel survey collected by Barometern (2019-2021) with varying contextual-level factors in a multilevel model, we show that evaluations of local authorities are related to local contextual factors, in particular municipal unemployment rates and median incomes, while national evaluations are largely unrelated to local conditions. In contrast to theoretical expectations for an in-group bias among minority members, however, we find no effect for linguistic homogeneity on corruption perceptions and political trust after controlling for economic conditions. The results make an important contribution to our understanding about the role of local conditions for political attitudes among a well-assimilated minority population.
Os estudos sobre corrupção são marcados por desafios metodológicos relevantes, isto por se tratar de um fenômeno de difícil observação. Não obstante, e a despeito dessa
dificuldade, pesquisadores de várias áreas tem enfrentado esse desafio, impulsionados,
sobretudo, pela relevância do tema. Este trabalho se detém em expor a produção acadêmica brasileira sobre corrupção, no campo da Ciência Política, identificando o volume de produção, os objetos de pesquisa, os enfoques teóricos utilizados, bem como as estratégias metodológicas empregadas. Ou seja, buscar-se-á verificar qual o estado da arte dos estudos sobre corrupção pública nesse campo de conhecimento no Brasil. A produção analisada se refere a dissertações de mestrado acadêmico e teses de doutorado selecionados no Catálogo de Teses e Dissertações da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) defendidas entre 1999 e 2014 e os periódicos nacionais publicados entre a 1999 e a maio de 2018, coletado junto a Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO).
The purpose of this study is to contribute toward building an empirical foundation for enhanced female participation in the public sector. Specifically, this article provides empirical evidence on how female participation affects corruption level in the public sector with ordinary least square (OLS) and generalized least squares (GLS) analyses of 120 countries using panel data (from 2000 to 2010), with increased statistical validity. The results of the analyses show that female participation lowers the level of corruption in the public sector. This implies that public personnel administration, especially human resource planning, needs to be strategically designed to increase female participation from a corruption control perspective.
This article investigates the characteristics of the disclosures of anticorruption measures that Italian local governments (LGs) publish to increase transparency, public accountability, and citizens’ trust in public administration. The analysis of the anticorruption plans of a sample of Italian LGs shows that this type of disclosure might be a way of repairing organizational legitimacy after an occurrence of corruption. More external directors in the governing body also increase the pressure on LG managers to publish information about anticorruption measures. Finally, larger LGs demonstrate a greater propensity to provide information on the actions implemented to mitigate corruption risks.
Corruption in rich countries is different to corruption in poor countries. There are many analyses and models of corruption in poor countries, and interventions are structured with these in mind. When analyzing corruption in rich countries, borrowing from the experiences in poorer countries does not fit well with public administration practices. Ironically, citizens in rich countries have high levels of perceived corruption, yet they reported very little personal experience with corruption in any form. This article uses data to outline some corruption risks and proposes that any analysis focuses on classifying specific types of corruption in rich countries.
The presence of widespread corruption in the political and administrative system became a major political issue in Italy during the 1990s, but a few years after the beginning of the mani pulite ("clean hands") inquiries the question faded from the agenda of Italian politics. Using statistical and survey data, judicial and newspapers sources, the article shows that presumably political corruption is still systemic in Italy, and that its spread in the last decade can be explained by several institutional and cultural factors, including the failure of anti-corruption policies, the approval of some potentially corruption-enhancing measures, and the persistence of internal 'governance structures' of corrupt transactions. The legacy of mani pulite, therefore, has not been an improvement of public ethics, but an escalation of tensions been political powers and the judiciary, exacerbated by the involvement of the Prime Minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi in several inquiries for corruption crimes.
According to the influence of presumed media influence hypothesis, people estimate the potential effects of media on other people and change their attitudes or behaviors as a consequence. In recent years, many studies offered some support for this idea. However, a central limitation of these studies is that all of them utilized correlational methodology and thus do not offer a valid way to infer causality. The current research examined the causal direction in the influence of presumed media influence using experimental methodology. In Study 1, the authors manipulated the perceived influence of watching pornography and measured the effects of this manipulation on support for censorship. In Study 2, perceptions regarding the influence of a news story about an expected shortage in sugar were manipulated indirectly, by manipulating the perceived exposure to the news story, and behavioral intentions resulting from the story were consequently measured. In both studies, results supported the causal direction postulated by the “presumed influence” hypothesis.
In this paper we analyse the causes of the Spanish property model and its territorial, social, and political consequences. Particular attention is paid to sociopolitical contexts. These consequences include excessive dependence on economic activity and employment in the housing construction sector, the irreversible disappearance of landmarks in the country’s collective history and culture, and examples of ‘policy capture’, especially at local and regional levels. This lengthy process has led to corruption in town planning and an increase in poor policy decisions, greatly harming Spain’s reputation. Keywords: urban sprawl, speculative property bubble, unbalanced growth, recession, corruption, informal institutions, cultural and sociopolitical context
The growing empirical literature on political corruption shows trust (interpersonal and political) to be both cause and consequence of corruption: a conclusion that largely builds on studies using cross-national measures of corruption based on perceptions of corruption rather than actual experience, raising questions of endogeneity. The lack of trust fed by corruption is considered critical in that it undermines government efforts to mobilize society to help fight corruption and leads the public to routinely dismiss government promises to fight corruption. After disaggregating the major concepts, this article empirically explores the relationship linking corruption and trust in Mexico based on data from the 2004 Americas Barometer survey. The authors discover a powerful mutual causality between perceptions of corruption and trust in political institutions that suggests that rooting out perceptions of corruption or shoring up trust in public institutions will be an extremely difficult project for anyone who takes on the task.
The main question addressed in this paper is how the great variation in the level of social trust in different countries can be explained. Most empirical research on this question has been based on survey data which has limitations when it comes to capturing the causal mechanisms. Building on theories that point to the importance of trustworthy governmental institutions for creating social trust, two parallel experiments were conducted in two countries where the levels of corruption and social trust are very different. One group of 64 Swedish and one group of 82 Romanian undergraduate students responded to a number of scenarios which describe situations at a police station or a doctor's surgery in a foreign country. The results supported the hypothesis that trust in authorities influences the perceptions of the trustworthiness of others in general. Even though some of the effects were stronger for one sample than for the other, the influence of vertical trust on social trust was true for both the high- and the low-trusting sample.
In this paper we criticise the use of general perceptions of corruption as indicators for actual corruption. We show that citizens' perceptions of corruption are embedded in general attitudes towards government, and that, therefore, these subjective indicators may be merely measuring the administration's image, and not its actual functioning. Many of the frequently used corruption indicators are of a subjective nature. They often do not rely on an experiential basis, and leave considerable freedom to respondents whether to take certain aspects into account. This creates problems of comparability, and invites respondents to broaden their frame of reference to whatever factor they wish when giving an opinion on corruption. We use data collected in Belgium (Flanders) in 2003. The "Working on Government III" mail survey (n=3168) was organised by the Public Management Institute, and commissioned by the ministry of the Flemish Community. It focused on citizens' perceptions of public services, civil servants and government.
An abundant empirical literature on corruption relying on survey research has emerged since the mid-1990s. The predominant line of inquiry concerns perceptions of corruption with respect to institutions and processes. Another, separate line of inquiry that has enjoyed less attention concerns reports about individuals’ participation in corruption. These two dimensions of corruption, however, are typically conflated, leading to error and confusion. This article explores the relationship between the two and seeks to differentiate the two. Using data at the country and individual levels, analysis shows how the two may be only weakly related to one another – though causality remains unclear – and respond to distinct sets of determinants and generate distinct outcomes. The analysis underlines the need to specify the findings in the literature: that the causes and consequences of corruption relate more to ‘perceived’ corruption rather than actual corruption.
This wide-ranging review of some of the major issues in development economics focuses on the role of economic and political institutions. Drawing on the latest findings in institutional economics and political economy, Pranab Bardhan, a leader in the field of development economics, offers a relatively nontechnical discussion of current thinking on these issues from the viewpoint of poor countries, synthesizing recent research and reflecting on where we stand today. The institutional framework of an economy defines and constrains the opportunities of individuals, determines the business climate, and shapes the incentives and organizations for collective action on the part of communities; Pranab Bardhan finds the institutional framework to be relatively weak in many poor countries. Institutional failures, weak accountability mechanisms, and missed opportunities for cooperative problem-solving become the themes of the book, with the role of distributive conflicts in the persistence of dysfunctional institutions a common thread. Special issues taken up include the institutions for securing property rights and resolving coordination failures; the structural basis of power; commitment devices and political accountability; the complex relationship between democracy and poverty (with examples from India, where both have been durable); decentralization and devolution of power; persistence of corruption; ethnic conflicts; and impediments to collective action. Formal models are largely avoided, except in two chapters where Bardhan briefly introduces new models to elucidate currently under-researched areas. Other chapters review existing models, emphasizing the essential ideas rather than the formal details. Thus the book will be valuable not only for economists but also for social scientists and policymakers.
This article investigates front-line conditions within two sectors charged with the delivery of social welfare programs public bureaucracies and private contractors. I examine two traditions of public management that operate in these organizations and focus on how each tries to direct front-line action. Drawing upon ethnographic data, I discover a disjuncture between these management frameworks and day-to-day front-line operations. A body of social theory that posits that individuals both create and are constrained by social structures is used to understand these findings. The application of this theory both suggests that there is an ongoing social process not capitalized upon by existing management approaches and offers a new explanation for the persistence of certain management challenges in these sectors. The article concludes with a discussion of research propositions and management techniques that emerge from this inductive analysis.
Corruption implies a serious violation of the standards and expectations associated with a public role. This article will explain how empirical researchers have defined these standards and expectations in ways that are clear, measurable, and least likely to provoke a charge of normative bias. The resulting reliance on the law and/or public opinion to define corrupt activity allows for relatively precise measurement; it also helps account for why so few empirical studies of corruption speak to public administration's most basic normative commitments and concerns and why empirical research is so often regarded as irrelevant or even hostile to normative inquiry. The article examines the prospects for defining corruption in a way that restores the normative richness of the corruption concept and helps close the gap between empirical and normative research. © 1993 by The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc.
Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don’t have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily–or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality and low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed) and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption–and, in turn, it leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time in my cross-national aggregate analyses. Uslaner argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality—an inequality trap and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries. Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland–College Park, where he has taught since 1975. He has written seven books including The Moral Foundations of Trust (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and The Decline of Comity in Congress (University of Michigan Press, 1993). In 1981-82 he was Fulbright Professor of American Studies and Political Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel and in 2005, he was a Fulbright Senior Specialist Lecturer at Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. In 2006 he was appointed the first Senior Research Fellow at the Center for American Law and Political Science at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China.
With an increased awareness of the detrimental effects of corruption on development, strategies to fight it are now a top priority in policy circles. Yet, in countries ridden with systemic corruption, few successes have resulted from the investment. On the basis of an interview study conducted in Kenya and Uganda—two arguably typically thoroughly corrupt countries—we argue that part of an explanation to why anticorruption reforms in countries plagued by widespread corruption fail is that they are based on a theoretical mischaracterization of the problem of systemic corruption. More specifically, the analysis reveals that while contemporary anticorruption reforms are based on a conceptualization of corruption as a principal–agent problem, in thoroughly corrupt settings, corruption rather resembles a collective action problem. This, in turn, leads to a breakdown of any anticorruption reform that builds on the principal–agent framework, taking the existence of noncorruptible so-called principals for granted.
Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption—much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country's urban development boom—that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine the association between perceived corruption and the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, including satisfaction with government and democracy, social and institutional trust, and rule-breaking behaviors. The findings suggest that perceptions of administrative as well as political corruption are associated with less satisfaction, lower levels of social and institutional trust, and a greater willingness to break rules. Although these survey results cannot prove causation, they are consistent with the notion that administrative and political corruption damages the legitimacy of government in the eyes of citizens and weakens the social fabric of democratic society.
Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption—
much of it related to the involvement of regional
and local administrators and politicians in the country’s
urban development boom—that angered the public and
sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a
2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine
the association between perceived corruption and the
attitudes and behaviors of citizens, including satisfaction
with government and democracy, social and institutional
trust, and rule-breaking behaviors.
Th e fi ndings suggest that perceptions
of administrative as well
as political corruption are associated
with less satisfaction, lower
levels of social and institutional
trust, and a greater willingness to
break rules. Although these survey
results cannot prove causation,
they are consistent with the notion
that administrative and political corruption damages
the legitimacy of government in the eyes of citizens and
weakens the social fabric of democratic society.
We analyse the effects of local corruption on electoral outcomes with Spanish data. Based upon press reports published between 1996 and 2009, we are able to construct a novel database on corruption scandals and news related to bribe-taking in exchange for amendments to land use plans. Our data show that local corruption scandals first emerged during the 1999-2003 term, but that they peaked just before the 2007 elections. We estimate an equation for the incumbent�s vote share at this electoral contest and find the average vote loss after a corruption scandal to be around 4%, and the effect to be greater for cases receiving wide newspaper coverage (up to 9%). The effects found for the 2003 elections are much lower.
When we consider cases in which the incumbent has been charged with corruption and press coverage has been extensive the vote loss can rise to 12%. However, press reports have a negative impact on the vote even when no judicial charges have been brought.
A two-factor theory of political alienation was tested in a sample of 264 undergraduates, suggesting that critical perceptions of sociopolitical reality engender feelings of psychological reactance, which in combination with perceptions of systemic functioning foster feeling of political alienation. Canonical correlation and path analytic results provided relatively strong support for the model. In addition, the findings indicate an especially strong connection between perceived discrepancies involving democratic ideals and practices, perceptions of imminent personal threat from the sociopolitical system, and feelings of political hopelessness.
This study traces the effects of a purposefully chosen news agenda on the perceived and actual issue opinions of members of the mass public. Using a year-long, quasi-experimental design, we analyzed a newspaper's attempt to move community opinion and bring about policy change. We examined the success of these efforts from the perspective of their intended effects on public opinion and from the perspective of their unintended effects on perceptions of the broader political environment. Overall, our findings suggest that this strategy is extremely limited in its ability to bring about changes in the opinions of individual members of the mass public or even changes in the salience they attach to an issue at a personal level. Nonetheless, we find that this practice may have important effects on citizens' perceptions of the salience the community as a whole attaches to an issue and on their perceptions of the dominant opinion climate within their communities. Although these effects may not be identical to the goals of the news organization, the ability to alter the perceptual environment in which policy changes transpire implies that news organizations may be able to facilitate indirectly the very changes they seek.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
Interest in the links between corruption and politics has increased significantly since the early 1990s. Although the public widely sees corruption as a phenomenon that particularly afflicts the developing world—as reflected in the growing emphasis placed on anti-corruption initiatives by such international agencies as the World Bank, IMF, OECD, and Transparency International—the issue is also attracting significant attention in established democracies. Politicians, civil society activists, and media commentators have expressed concerns about a host of high-profile scandals contributing to a decline of trust in the political class, whilst a perceived “culture of corruption” in several of the post-communist countries of east-central Europe is seen as an obstacle to their full integration into the European Union. Indeed, corruption has started to become a powerful policy narrative in many countries, blamed for a host of shortcomings in democracies and non-democracies alike (Heywood and Krastev 2006).
Based on the Asia Barometer Survey of 2003, 2004, and 2006, government performance, citizen empowerment, and citizen satisfaction with self-expression values are associated with public trust in government in Japan and South Korea. This study finds, first, that government performance on the economy, controlling political corruption, the quality of public services, crime, and attention to citizen input are significantly associated with broad public trust in government in both Japan and South Korea. Likewise, citizens’ satisfaction with their right to gather and demonstrate and to criticize the government is closely connected to trust in central and local governments in Japan. In South Korea, citizens’ satisfaction with their right to gather and demonstrate is intimately linked to trust in local government. Implications for government leadership to enhance performance, transparency, citizen participation, and public trust in government are analyzed and elaborated upon in this insightful study.
Using surveys conducted in sixteen mature and newly established democracies around the globe, this study examines the effect of corruption on people's attitudes toward government. The analysis demonstrates that citizens in countries with higher levels of corruption express more negative evaluations of the performance of the political system and exhibit lower levels of trust in civil servants. However, the results also show that the negative effect of corruption on evaluations of the political system is significantly attenuated among supporters of the incumbent political authorities. These findings provide strong and systematic evidence that informal political practices, especially those that compromise important democratic principles, should be considered important indicators of political system performance. Moreover, they imply that, while corruption is a powerful determinant of political support across widely varying political, cultural, and economic contexts, it does not uniformly diminish support for political institutions across all segments of the electorate.
The recent growth in research on “good governance” and the quality of government institutions has been propelled by empirical findings that show that such institutions may hold the key to understanding economic growth and social welfare in developing and transition countries. We argue, however, that a key issue has not been addressed, namely, what quality of government (QoG) actually means at the conceptual level. Based on analyses of political theory, we propose a more coherent and specific definition of QoG: the impartiality of institutions that exercise government authority. We relate the idea of impartiality to a series of criticisms stemming from the fields of public administration, public choice, multiculturalism, and feminism. To place the theory of impartiality in a larger context, we then contrast its scope and meaning with that of a threefold set of competing concepts of quality of government: democracy, the rule of law, and efficiency/effectiveness.
Extensive empirical evidence and theoretical developments in multiple disciplines stimulate a need to expand the range of rational choice models to be used as a foundation for the study of social dilemmas and collective action. After an introduction to the problem of overcoming social dilemmas through collective action, the remainder of this article is divided into six sections. The first briefly reviews the theoretical predictions of currently accepted rational choice theory related to social dilemmas. The second section summarizes the challenges to the sole reliance on a complete model of rationality presented by extensive experimental research. In the third section, I discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are "better than rational" by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest. The fourth section raises the possibility of developing second-generation models of rationality, the fifth section develops an initial theoretical scenario, and the final section concludes by examining the implications of placing reciprocity, reputation, and trust at the core of an empirically tested, behavioral theory of collective action.
As we continue our study of policy implementation we are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of exploring the frameworks through which public administrators view the world. Visions of social justice may be an important part of those frameworks. This article explores the principles of justice held by two groups of street-level bureaucrats and the overt relationship between those principles and their actions. Street-level bureaucrats are the final implementors of public policy. Their jobs are inherently discretionary and the actions they take (or fail to take) affect people in significant ways. As such this is an important group on which to focus. Do street-level bureaucrats exercise their discretion in order to produce what they believe to be just outcomes? Are there differences from one organizational arena to the next? This article explores these questions through an analysis of stories of justice and injustice told by two groups of street-level bureaucrats, schoolteachers and employees of the California Employment Development Department. These two groups work in very different organizational contexts with different cultural attitudes toward the use of discretion. My claim is that an organization's culture of discretion either enhances or inhibits the ability of street-level bureaucrats to orchestrate outcomes that are compatible with their visions of justice, thereby determining the significance of exploring street-level bureaucrats' justice judgments as we study the implementation process.
Building trust in government in the twenty-first century: Review of literature and emerging issues
- P K Blind
Blind, P.K. (2007). Building trust in government in the twenty-first century: Review of literature
and emerging issues [online]. 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government Building Trust
in Government. Vienna, Austria. Retrieved from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/
documents/un/unpan025062.pdf
Bureaucratic discretion
- G C Bryner
Bryner, G.C. (1987). Bureaucratic discretion. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press.
Public management and governance: The seventh winelands conference
- R Cox
Cox, R. (2000). Administrative discretion: the conundrum wrapped in an enigma. In J.
Van Baallen, E. Schwella, & A. Burger (Eds.), Public management and governance: The
seventh winelands conference (pp. 249-263). Stellenbosch, SA: University of Stellenbosch.
Accountability and responsibility in organizations: The ethics of discretion. Paper presented at the Ethics and integrity in governance conference
- R Cox
Cox, R. (2005, June). Accountability and responsibility in organizations: The ethics of discretion.
Paper presented at the Ethics and integrity in governance conference, Leuven, Belgium.
Special Survey (325): Attitude of Europeans towards corruption
- Eurobarometer
Eurobarometer (2009). Special Survey (325): Attitude of Europeans towards corruption [online].
Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_325_en.pdf
Special Eurobarometer (374), "Corruption
- Eurobarometer
Eurobarometer (2012). Special Eurobarometer (374), "Corruption". European Union. Brussels.
Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_374_en.pdf
Aproximación a una geografía de la corrupción urbanística en España
- L Jerez
- V Martín
- R Pérez
Jerez, L., Martín, V., & Pérez, R. (2012). Aproximación a una geografía de la corrupción
urbanística en España. Ería, 87, 5-18.
The effect of public perceptions of corruption on system support: The case of Sweden
- J Linde
- G Ó Erlingsson
Linde, J., & Erlingsson, G.Ó. (2011). The effect of public perceptions of corruption on system
support: The case of Sweden (Work Paper Series 2011:03) [online]. Retrieved from http://
www.qog.pol.gu.se/working_papers/2011_3_Linde_Erlingsson.pdf
Street-level bureaucracy
- M Lipsky
Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy. New YorkNY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Public funding of political competition and the future of democracy
- J Mendilow
Mendilow, J. (Ed.). (2012). Public funding of political competition and the future of democracy.
Blue Ridge Summit: Lexington Books.
The new public management. A perspective from mainland Europe
- K Schedler
- I Proeller
Schedler, K., & Proeller, I. (2002). The new public management. A perspective from mainland
Europe. In K. Mclaughlin, S.P. Osborne, & E. Ferlie (Eds.), New public management: Current trends and future prospects (pp. 163-180). London and New York: Routledge.
Global corruption barometer
Transparency International. (2010). Global corruption barometer [online].
- Villoria M.