Party Systems and Corruption in Democracies around the World

Welcome to “Party Systems and Corruption in Democracies around the World”, a comparative research project that examines how party system features affect governmental corruption in democracies around the world. The project was launched on March 15, 2010 and runs until November 14, 2011. It is funded by the British Academy (Grant Reference Number SG090658).

The project aims to investigate the often complex relationship between aspects of party system variation - including their institutionalization, competitiveness, and programmatic structuration - and corruption. It takes a novel theoretical approach, combining the insights of positive democratic theory with empirical work on corruption, and applies quantitative methods to the analysis of governmental corruption in a global sample of democracies.

Investigators

Principal Investigator: Dr Petra Schleiter

Contact: petra.schleiter@politics.ox.ac.uk

Research Assistant: Alisa Voznaya

Project Summary

This project is based on the observation that democracies around the world can bring corrupt politicians to power even though the average voter considers corruption to be morally wrong, and finds her material welfare reduced by it. Thus electoral competition - often thought to be one of the most potent remedies against political corruption - can fail to have the anticipated effect. Why? This project sees party systems as critical to such failures, and integrates party system features into the comparative analysis of corruption in democracies around the world. The project examines how party system features can enable corruption to spread by giving politicians incentives to offer corrupt politics, creating collective action problems among honest challengers, multiplying the information required by voters to discriminate between corrupt and honest politicians, and reducing the chances of successful challenges to corrupt incumbents. The project thus aims to contribute to better understanding of the conditions that may systematically compromise democratic accountability.

Publications

Petra Schleiter and Alisa M. Voznaya. 2011a. “Party System Competitiveness and Corruption.” DPIR Working Paper 11-01

Petra Schleiter and Alisa M. Voznaya. 2011b. “Party Systems, the Selection and Control of Politicians and Corruption.” DPIR Working Paper 11-02 and Supporting Information

Petra Schleiter and Alisa M. Voznaya. 2011c. “Global Corruption: Party Systems and the Control of Politicians.” The World Today, vol.67 (11): 18-20.

News

March 2010

Dr Schleiter is awarded a British Academy Small Grant for ‘Democratic Accountability, Party Systems and Corruption in Democracies around the World.’ The project will run from 15 March 2010 to 14 November 2011.

April 2011

Dr Schleiter presents paper on “Party Systems and Corruption” at the Midwest Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting, Chicago (USA), March 31-April 3, 2011

5 May 2011

Dr Schleiter presents paper on “Party System Features, Political Accountability and Corruption” in the Corruption Research Seminar Series, Kellogg Centre for the Study of Governance and Transparency, Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

9 June 2011

Dr Schleiter presents paper on “Party Systems, the Selection and Control of Politicians and Corruption” in the Séminaire Général du Centre d'Etudes Européennes at SciencesPo, Paris (France). Discussants: Nicolas Sauger, Simon Persico.

August 2011

Dr Schleiter presents paper on “Party Systems and Governmental Corruption” and organises panel on “Party Systems, Clientelism and Corruption” at Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association 2011 in Seattle (USA). The panel includes papers by:

· Miriam Golden (University of California at Los Angeles) and Brian Min (University of Michigan)

· Eric C.C. Chang and Helen Lee (both Michigan State University)

· Petra Schleiter and Alisa Voznaya (both University of Oxford)

· Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro (Brown University)

Discussant: Phil Keefer, Lead Research Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank