Today 1 Projects - discussion Comments and questions on readings Brief lecture and summary of concepts reviewed Next Week –SPEER, J. Participatory Governance Reform: A Good Strategy for Increasing Government Responsiveness and Improving Public Services? World Development, v. 40, n. 12, p. 2379–2398, dez –BESLEY, T.; BURGESS, R. The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India. Quarterly Journal of Economics, v. 117, n. 4, p. 1415–1451, 2002.

Questions What is so important about state capacity? What is a regressive tax or policy? What are the conditions that led to the enactment and strengthening of the US FOIA? Who were the chief actors? Secrecy became a concern in the US because of what phenomena? Why does Botswana not have a FOI law? And who cares? If, according to the IMF, you don’t ‘fight corruption by fighting corruption’, how do you fight it? If we are to blame the private sector for corruption, what industries are particularly culpable? 2

A Few Indicators Transparency International CPI Worldwide Governance Indicators World Bank Governance Surveys World Bank Governance Data DataGov 3

Reviewing a key concept – Electoral systems Proportional Representation v. Pluralist (majority systems) Or Hybrid e.g. Mixed-member systems e.g. Argentina vs. Brazil vs. the U.S. 4

Key concepts from this week’s readings State capacity goal – effective, long term policy –Policy stability –Capacity to adjust –Enforcement The importance of strong... –Parliaments –Parties: working inside or outside the system –Cooperative frameworks –Progressive taxes –Probabilistic v. Deterministic attitudes 5

Accountability Bidimensional concept (Schedler 1999) –Answerability –Enforceability Horizontal and vertical accountability Prospective and retrospective accountability 6

Consequences of Corruption -Slows down business -Lowers investment  economic growth -Misallocated talent -Reduces effectiveness of aid -Loss of tax revenue -Adverse budget consequences -Quality loss in public services -Social anomie -Contagion effect  leadership as example for adherence to the rule-of-law -Sense of entitlement, particularism and classism 7

What are some ways of Combatting Corruption A) Protection of private property and the rule of law B) Reduce state regulations, eliminate red tape D) Downsize and professionalize the bureaucracy E) Broaden press freedoms and electoral competition F) Encourage greater citizen involvement for reform and alter public tolerance for corruption G) Change culture: Iberian traditions, jetinho, hierarchy

Horizontality and information asymmetries Information flows better on an “even playing field”  information symmetries –Hierarchy promotes secrecy, formal and informal asymmetries –Information key to reducing transaction costs Pros and cons of transparency –Legislative voting –Diplomacy e.g. Wikileaks 9

Veto Points/Players and policy stability “Vetocracy” Fukuyama Improve accountability Frustrate responsiveness Promote policy stability Institutional variables that affect vetoes: –Degree of presidential power –Unicameralism v. bicameralism –Degree of unionization –Minority v. Majority government 10

Corruption as the most important problem 11