Political Science 549 Fall 2017
M 4:00 – 6:20 p.m. 404 David Kinley Hall
Prof. Matthew S. Winters [email protected] Office: 315 David Kinley Hall Office Hours: Wednesday 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Topics in Comparative Politics (and International Relations): Corruption Course Description
This seminar explores the diverse literature on corruption found in political science and economics. The core questions found in this literature include (1) What is corruption? (2) How do we measure
corruption? (3) What are the economic consequences of corruption? (4) In what types of countries is corruption more or less likely? (5) What types of institutions enable or hinder corruption? (6) How do voters react to information about corruption? and (7) What types of anti-corruption policies are most effective?
Course Goals
The course aims, first, to expose students to the academic literature on the causes and effects of corruption. Through engagement with this literature, students are expected to improve a diverse set of social scientific skills related to (1) concept creation and definition; (2) measurement; (3) theory
building; (4) reading and understanding formal theory; (5) empirical research design; (6) data collection; (7) data analysis; and (8) interpreting results for the purposes of prescribing policy.
These skills will be useful for you both as consumers of research and as producers of research.
In addition, one of the assignments for the course aims explicitly at improving your ability to translate social scientific research findings for the general public.
Course Requirements
Our first set of goals as a class is to better understand the ways in which the assigned authors have conducted their research, to critically interrogate the decisions that they have made, and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their particular approaches.
To this end, all students are expected to come to class having done the set of assigned readings and developed some critical thoughts and questions about them. Students are expected to contribute to all of our understandings of the readings by sharing those thoughts and questions with the class during the seminar.
One component of the final class grade will be class participation.
The second goal of the class is to improve your ability to do independent, social-scientific research.
The paper may be either theoretical or empirical in nature, and it may be based on replicating an existing paper, but it must include original analysis (i.e., a review article is not an acceptable paper). Students should meet with the instructor early in the semester to discuss their intended topic.
In order to receive feedback on their ideas, students will present in-class presentations on their research during the final two scheduled class meetings. The specific length of these presentations will be conditional on the number of students enrolled. The content of the presentations will broadly mirror the expected content of the paper (which will be submitted after having received feedback on the presentation).
A third goal of this class is to force you to think about the connections between social scientific research and real-world events.
Students will draft a 1,000 – 1,250 word blog post that uses course readings to help the public understand a current corruption scandal.
For assistance in thinking about how to undertake this task, students may wish to consult the “Contributor’s Guide” for the Monkey Cage blog
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvsf3q1dhvqgsbz/Monkey%20Cage%20Guest%20Post%20Guidelines. pdf?dl=0)
The distribution of grading based on these assignments will be as follows:
Class Participation 15 percent
In-Class Research Presentation 20 percent
Final Research Paper 40 percent
Corruption-Related Blog Post 25 percent
Schedule of Readings
Readings listed under “Additional Readings” are suggested for your reference. All other readings are required. The instructor reserves the right to make changes to the reading list over the course of the semester. Students are encouraged to bring particular readings of interest to the instructor’s attention or make suggestions about modifications to the schedule of readings.
28 August – Introduction
4 September – LABOR DAY – NO CLASS
11 September – Definitions and General Perspectives on Corruption
Diego Gambetta. 2002. “Corruption: An Analytical Map,” in Political Corruption in Transition: A Skeptic’s Handbook. Stephen Kotkin and Andras Sajo, eds. Budapest/New York: CEU Press, pp. 33-56.
Pranab Bardhan. 1997. “Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues,” Journal of Economic Literature 35: 1320-46.
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1978. Corruption: A Study in Political Economy. 258 pp. [Available as an eBook through the University Library.]
Additional Reading:
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, ch. 6 (“Bribes, Patronage, and Gift Giving”).
Michael Johnston. 2001. “The Definitions Debate: Old Conflicts in New Guises,” in The Political Economy of Corruption. Arvind K. Jain, ed. New York: Routledge, pp. 11-32.
Oskar Kurer. 2005. “Corruption: An Alternative Approach to its Definition and Measurement,” Political Studies 53: 222-39.
Roberto Burguet, Juan-José Ganuza, and Jose G. Montalvo. 2016. “The Microeconomics of Corruption: A Review of Thirty Years of Research,” Barcelona GSE Working Paper Series No. 908.
18 September – Economic Effects of Corruption
Nathaniel Leff. 1964. “Economic Development through Bureaucratic Corruption,” American Behavioral Scientist 8: 8-14.
Da-Hsiang Donald Lien. 1990. “Corruption and Allocation Efficiency,” Journal of Development Economics 33.1 (July): 153-64.
Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. 1993. “Corruption,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108.3 (August): 599-617.
Paolo Mauro. 1995. “Corruption and Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110.3: 681-712.
J. Edgardo Campos, Donald Lien and Sanjay Pradhan. 1999. “The Impact of Corruption on Investment: Predictability Matters,” World Development 27.6: 1059-67.
Edmund J. Malesky and Krislert Samphantharak. 2008. “Predictable Corruption and Firm Investment: Evidence from a Natural Experiment and Survey of Cambodian Entrepreneurs,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 3: 227-67.
Additional Reading:
Joseph Nye. 1967. “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-benefit Analysis,” American Political Science Review 61.2: 417-27.
Paolo Mauro. 1998. “Corruption and the Composition of Government Expenditure,” Journal of Public Economics 69.2 (June): 263-79.
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, chs. 1 (“Introduction: The Costs of Corruption”), 2 (“The Economic Impact of Corruption”) and 3 (“Corruption of High-Level Officials”).
Sanjeev Gupta, Hamid Davoodi and Rosa Alonso-Terme. 2002. “Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?” Economics of Governance 3.1: 23-45.
Pierre-Guillaume Méon and Laurent Weill. 2010. “Is Corruption an Efficient Grease?” World Development 38.3: 244-59.
25 September – Origins of Corruption
Anne O. Krueger. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society,” American Economic Review 64.3 (June): 291-303.
Daniel Treisman. 2000. “The Causes of Corruption: A Cross-National Study,” Journal of Public Economics 76: 399-457.
Gabriella R. Montinola and Robert W. Jackman. 2002. “Sources of Corruption: A Cross-Country Study,” British Journal of Political Science 32.1: 147-70.
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. 2007. “Corruption, Norms and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets,” Journal of Political Economy 115.6: 1020-48.
Eric M. Uslaner and Bo Rothstein. 2016. “The Historical Roots of Corruption: State Building, Economic Inequality, and Mass Education,” Comparative Politics (January): 227-48.
Additional Readings:
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, chs. 7 (“Corruption and Politics”), 8 (“Democracy and Corruption: Incentives and Reform”) and 9 (“Controlling Political Power”).
Raymond Fisman and Robert Gatti. 2002. “Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence Across Countries,” Journal of Public Economics 83.2: 325-45.
Naci Mocan. 2008. “What Determines Corruption? International Evidence from Microdata,” Economic Inquiry 46.4: 493-510.
Sherrilyn M. Billger and Rajeev K. Goel. 2009. “Do Existing Corruption Levels Matter in Controlling Corruption? Cross-Country Quantile Regression Estimates,” Journal of Development Economics 90: 299-305.
Carl Dahlström, Victor Lapuente, and Jan Teorell. 2012. “The Merit of Meritocratization: Politics,
Ana Corbacho, Daniel W. Gingerich, Virginia Oliveros, and Mauricio Ruiz-Vega. 2016. “Corruption as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Costa Rica.” American Journal of Political Science 60(14): 1077-1092.
2 October – Political Institutions and Corruption
Eric C.C. Chang and Miriam A. Golden. 2007. “Electoral Systems, District Magnitude and Corruption,” British Journal of Political Science 37: 115-37.
Margit Tavits. 2007. “Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption,” American Journal of Political Science 51.1: 218-29.
Eric C.C. Chang and Miriam A. Golden. 2010. “Sources of Corruption in Authoritarian Regimes,” Social Science Quarterly 91.1 (March): 1-20.
Ferraz, Claudio, and Frederico Finan. 2011. “Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments.” American Economic Review 101(4): 1274–1311.
Jordan Gans-Morse. 2017. “Demand for Law and the Security of Property Rights: The Case of Post-Soviet Russia,” American Political Science Review 111.2: 338-59.
Additional Readings:
Roger B. Myerson. 1993. “Effectiveness of Electoral Systems for Reducing Government Corruption: A Game-Theoretic Analysis,” Games and Economic Behavior 5.1: 118-32.
Miriam A. Golden and Eric C.C. Chang. 2001. “Competitive Corruption: Factional Conflict and Political Malfeasance in Postwar Italian Christian Democracy,” World Politics 53.4: 588-622.
Torsten Persson, Guido Tabellini and Francesco Trebbi. 2003. “Electoral Rules and Corruption,” Journal of the European Economic Association 1.4: 958-89.
John Gerring and Strom C. Thacker. 2004. “Political Institutions and Corruption: The Role of Unitarism and Parliamentarism,” British Journal of Political Science 34.2: 295-330.
Jana Kunicova and Susan Rose-Ackerman. 2005. “Electoral Rules and Constitutional Structures as Constraints on Corruption,” British Journal of Political Science 35: 573-606.
Eric C.C. Chang. 2005. “Electoral Incentives for Political Corruption under Open-List Proportional Representation,” Journal of Politics 67.3 (August): 716-30.
9 October – Where Do These Numbers Come From? Cross-Country Measurement of Corruption Transparency International. 2016. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2016: Technical Methodology Note,” 3 pp.
Transparency International. 2016. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2016: Full Source Description,” 14 pp. http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2056/13236/file/CPI_2016_SourceDescriptionDocume nt_EN.pdf
Michael Saisana and Andrea Saltelli. 2012. “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012: Statistical Assessment,” European Commission Joint Research Center Scientific and Policy Report.
Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi. 2010. “The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodological and Analytical Issues,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5430.
Fredrik Galtung. 2005. “Measuring the Immeasurable: Boundaries and Functions of (Macro) Corruption Indices,” in Measuring Corruption. Fredrik Galtung and Charles Sampford, eds. London: Ashgate.
Robert Neumann and Peter Graeff. 2010. “A Multitrait-Multimethod Approach to Pinpoint the Validity of Aggregated Governance Indicators,” Quality & Quantity 44 (5): 849-64.
Mireille Razafindrakoto and Francois Roubaud. 2010. “Are International Databases on Corruption Reliable? A Comparison of Expert Opinion Surveys and Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa,” World Development 38.8: 1057-69.
Aart Kraay and Peter Murrell. 2016. “Misunderestimating Corruption,” Review of Economics and Statistics 98.3 (July): 455-66.
Additional Readings:
Michael Johnston. 2001. “Measuring Corruption: Numbers versus Knowledge versus Understanding,” in The Political Economy of Corruption. Arvind K. Jain, ed. New York: Routledge, pp. 180-213.
Donato De Rosa, Nishaal Gooroochurn and Holger Görg. 2010. “Corruption and Productivity: Firm-level Evidence from the BEEPS Survey,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5348, Washington, D.C.
Piero Stanig and Mark Kayser. 2013. “Governance Indicators: Some Proposals,” in Helmut K. Anheier and Regina A. List, eds. Governance Challenges and Innovations: Financial and Fiscal Governance. New York: Oxford University Press.
16 October – Can We Do Better? Micro-Level and Indirect Measures of Corruption
Miriam A. Golden and Lucio Picci. 2005. “Proposal for a New Measure of Corruption, Illustrated with Italian Data,” Economics & Politics 17.1 (March): 37-75.
Marianne Bertrand, Simeon Djankov, Rema Hanna and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2007. “Obtaining a Driver’s License in India: An Experimental Approach to Studying Corruption,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 122.4 (November): 1639-76.
Brian Fried, Paul Lagunes and Atheendar Venkataramani. 2010. “Corruption and Inequality at the Crossroad: A Multi-Method Study of Bribery and Discrimination in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 45.1: 76-97.
Joseph Spanjers and Matthew Salomon. 2017. Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005-2014. Global Financial Integrity, 68 pp.
http://www.gfintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GFI-IFF-Report-2017_final.pdf
Volker Nitsch. 2016. “Trillion Dollar Estimate: Elicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries,” Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics No. 227.
Additional Readings:
William L. Miller, Tatanya Koshechkina and Ase Grodeland. 1997. “How Citizens Cope with Post-communist Officials: Evidence from Focus Group Discussions in Ukraine and the Czech Republic,” Political Studies 15: 597-625.
Jakob Svensson. 2003. “Who Must Pay Bribes and How Much? Evidence from a Cross Section of Firms,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118.1: 207-30.
Jean Ensminger. 2007. “Getting to the Bottom of Corruption: An African Case Study in Community Driven Development,” Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
Oriana Bandiera, Andrea Prat and Tomasso Valletti. 2009. “Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment,” American Economic Review 99.4: 1278-1308.
23 October – Voters and Corruption: Observational Data
Tim Fackler and Tse-min Lin. 1995. “Political Corruption and Presidential Elections, 1929-1992,” Journal of Politics 57.4: 971-93.
Susan Welch and John R. Hibbing. 1997. “The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections, 1982-1990,” Journal of Politics 59.1: 226-39.
Eric C.C. Chang, Miriam A. Golden and Seth J. Hill. 2010. “Legislative Malfeasance and Political Accountability,” World Politics 62.2: 177-220
Ecker, Alejandro, Konstantin Glinitzer, and Thomas M. Meyer. 2016. “Corruption Performance Voting and the Electoral Context.” European Political Science Review 8(3): 333–54.
Fernández-Vázquez, Pablo, Pablo Barberá, and Gonzalo Rivera. 2016. “Rooting Out Corruption or Rooting For Corruption? The Heterogeneous Electoral Consequences of Scandals.” Political Science Research and Methods 4(2): 379–97.
Monika Bauhr and Nicholas Charron. 2017. “Insider or Outsider? Grand Corruption and Electoral Accountability,” Comparative Political Studies.
Additional Readings:
John G. Peters and Susan Welch. 1980. “The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections,” American Political Science Review 74.3: 697-708.
Gary Cox and J. Morgan Kousser. 1981. “Turnout and Rural Corruption: New York as a Test Case,” American Journal of Political Science 25.4: 646-63.
Oskar Kurer. 2001. “Why Do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians?” in The Political Economy of Corruption. Arvind K. Jain, ed. New York: Routledge, pp. 63-86.
Mitchell A. Seligson. 2002. “The Impact of Corruption on Regime Legitimacy: A Comparative Study of Four Latin American Countries,” Journal of Politics 64.2 (May): 408-33.
Christopher J. Anderson and Yuliya V. Tverdova. 2003. “Corruption, Political Allegiances and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies,” American Journal of Political Science 47.1: 91-109
Daniel Gingerich. 2009. “Corruption and Political Decay: Evidence from Bolivia,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4: 1-34.
Abhijit V. Banerjee and Rohini Pande. 2009. “Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Political Corruption,” Department of Economics, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Zechmeister, Elizabeth J., and Daniel Zizumbo-Colunga. 2013. “The Varying Political Toll of Concerns about Corruption in Good versus Bad Economic Times.” Comparative Political Studies 46(10): 1190– 1218.
Carlin, Ryan E., Gregory J. Love, and Cecilia Martínez-Gallardo. 2015. “Cushioning the Fall: Scandals, Economic Conditions, and Executive Approval.” Political Behavior 37(1): 109–30.
Chang, Eric C.C., and Nicholas N. Kerr. 2017. “An Insider-Outsider Theory of Popular Tolerance for Corrupt Politicians.” Governance 30(1): 67–84.
De Vries, Catherine E., and Hector Solaz. 2017. “The Electoral Consequences of Corruption.” Annual Review of Political Science 20(1): 391–408.
30 October – Voters and Corruption: Experimental Data
Barry S. Rundquist, Gerald S. Strom and John G. Peters. 1977. “Corrupt Politicians and Their Electoral Support: Some Experimental Observations,” American Political Science Review 71: 954-63.
Konstantinidis, Iannis, and Georgios Xezonakis. 2013. “Sources of Tolerance towards Corrupted Politicians in Greece: The Role of Trade Offs and Individual Benefits.” Crime, Law and Social Change 60(5): 549–63.
Mark Klašnja and Joshua A. Tucker. 2013. “The Economy, Corruption, and the Vote: Evidence from Experiments in Sweden and Moldova.” Electoral Studies 32(3): 536–43.
Alberto Chong, Ana L. De La O, Dean Karlan, and Leonard Wantchekon. 2015. “Does Corruption Information Inspire the Fight or Quash the Hope? A Field Experiment in Mexico on Voter Turnout, Choice, and Party Identification.” Journal of Politics 77(1): 55–71.
Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro and Matthew S. Winters. 2017. “Can Citizens Discern? Information Credibility, Political Sophistication, and the Punishment of Corruption in Brazil.” Journal of Politics 79(1): 60–74.
Additional Readings:
Matthew S. Winters and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro. 2013. “Lacking Information or Condoning Corruption: When Do Voters Support Corrupt Politicians?” Comparative Politics 45(4): 418–36.
Sandra Botero, Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, Laura Gamboa, Nara Pavão, and David W. Nickerson. 2015. “Says Who? An Experiment on Allegations of Corruption and Credibility of Sources.” Political Research Quarterly 68(3): 493–504.
Jordi Muñoz, Eva Anduiza, and Aina Gallego. 2016. “Why Do Voters Forgive Corrupt Politicians? Implicit Exchange, Credibility of Alternatives, and Cynicism.” Local Government Studies 42(4): 598–615.
6 November - Globalization and Corruption
Wayne Sandholtz and Mark M. Gray. 2003. “International Integration and National Corruption,” International Organization 57: 761-800.
John Gerring and Strom C. Thacker. 2005. “Do Neoliberal Policies Deter Political Corruption?” International Organization 59.1: 233-54.
Anna D’Souza. 2012. “The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention: Changing the Currents of Trade,” Journal of Development Economics 97(1): 73-87.
Pablo M. Pinto and Boliang Zhu. 2016. “Fortune or Evil? The Effects of Inward Foreign Direct Investment on Corruption,” International Studies Quarterly 60: 693-705.
Boliang Zhu. 2017. “MNCs, Rents, and Corruption: Evidence from China,” American Journal of Political Science 61(1): 84-99.
Additional Readings:
Justin G. Longenecker, Joseph A. McKinney and Carlos W. Moore. 1988. “The Ethical Issue of
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, ch. 10 (“The Role of the International Community”).
Wei, Shang-Jin. 2000. “How Taxing is Corruption on International Investors?” Review of Economics and Statistics 82.1 (February): 1-11.
Nicholas Charron. 2009. “The Impact of Socio-political Integration and Press Freedom on Corruption,” Journal of Development Studies 45.9: 1472-93.
13 November – Foreign Aid and Corruption
Alberto Alesina and Beatrice Weder. 2002. “Do Corrupt Governments Receive Less Foreign Aid?” American Economic Review 92(4): 1126–37.
Monika Bauhr, Nicholas Charron, and Naghmeh Nasiritousi. 2013. “Does Corruption Cause Aid Fatigue? Public Opinion and the Aid-Corruption Paradox.” International Studies Quarterly 57(3): 568–579.
Nicholas Charron. 2011. “Exploring the Impact of Foreign Aid on Corruption: Has the ‘Anti-Corruption Movement’ Been Effective?” The Developing Economies 49(1): 66-88.
Charles Kenny. 2017. Results Not Receipts: Counting the Right Things in Aid and Corruption. Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development. 140 pp. [Available as an eBook through the University Library.]
Additional Readings:
Heather Marquett. 2004. “The Creeping Politicisation of the World Bank: The Case of Corruption,” Political Studies 52: 413-30.
Mlada Bukovansky. 2006. “The Hollowness of Anti-Corruption Discourse,” Review of International Political Economy 13.2 (May): 181-209.
David de la Croix and Clara Delavallade. 2014. “Why Corrupt Governments May Receive More Foreign Aid.” Oxford Economic Papers 66 (1): 51-66.
Matthew S. Winters and Gina Martinez. 2015. “The Role of Governance in Determining Foreign Aid Flow Composition.” World Development 66: 516–31.
20 November – FALL BREAK – NO CLASS 27 November – Anti-Corruption
Klaus Abbink. 2000. “Staff Rotation as an Anticorruption Policy: An Experimental Study,” European Journal of Political Economy 20.4: 887-906.
Ritva Reinikka and Jakob Svensson. 2005. “Fighting Corruption to Improve Schooling: Evidence from a Newspaper Campaign in Uganda,” Journal of the European Economic Association 3: 259-67.
Benjamin A. Olken. 2007. “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia,” Journal of Political Economy 115.2 (April): 200-49.
Claudio Ferraz and Federico Finan. 2008. “Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil’s Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123.2: 703-45.
Additional Readings:
Susan Rose-Ackerman. 1999. Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences and Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, chs. 4 (“Reducing Incentives and Increasing Costs”), 5 (“Reform of the Civil Service”) and 11 (“Domestic Conditions for Reform”)
Daron Acemoglu and Thierry Verdier. 2000. “The Choice Between Market Failures and Corruption,” American Economics Review 90.1: 194-211.
Rafael Di Tella and Federico Weinschelbaum. 2008. “Choosing Agents and Monitoring Consumption: A Note on Wealth as a Corruption-Controlling Device,” The Economic Journal 118 (October): 1552-71.
Vivi Alatas, Lisa Cameron, Ananish Chaudhuri, Nisvan Erkal and Lata Gangadharan. 2009. “Gender, Culture and Corruption: Insights from an Experimental Analysis,” Southern Economic Journal 75.3 (January): 663-80.
Christian Lessmann and Gunther Markwardt. 2010. “One Size Fits All? Decentralization, Corruption, and the Monitoring of Bureaucrats,” World Development 38.4: 631-46.
Jennifer L. Bussell. 2010. “Why Get Technical? Corruption and the Politics of Public Service Reform in Indian States,” Comparative Political Studies 43.10: 1230-57.
4 December – In-Class Presentations 11 December – In-Class Presentations
