1. Causes of Corruption – George Benson

2. Theories of where corruption comes from
1. Modernization (rapid economic and social development)
Involves changes in basic values of society,
creates new sources of wealth and power,
involves expansion of government authority and regulation
increase in laws

3. Causes of corruption continued
2. Class Against Corruption – Benson and Huntington (but note critics)
3. Overemphasis on Business Values
4. Party Dominance Theory (suggests that party competition will decrease corruption)
Related: electoral competition/high turnout should decrease corruption

4. More causes of corruption…
5. Weakness in the form of government (for example, a non-merit based system of non elected jobs, such as teachers or police officers or other city workers or bureaucrats is said to breed corruption; or weak chief executive system)
6. Money in Elections
7. Organized Crime

5. Still more causes of corruption
8. Low pay for public officials
9. Lack of ethical standards (religion, culture)
Daniel Elazar on different cultures within the U.S.
Moralistic
Individualistic
Traditionalist

6. One way to think of all these theories
Personalistic (blame the individual)
Institutional (consequence of laws and institutions)

7. Comparing corruption among U.S. states
My study (based on perceptions of corruption in each state, 1999)
What factors matter?
Urbanization (more urban, more corruption – urbanization leads to weaker communal bonds, less interpersonal contact, people don’t trust others or treat others as honestly)
Per capita income
Legislative professionalization (more professionalized, more corruption : either due to career politicians becoming out of touch and corrupt, or professional legislatures get more media coverage that is negative and this leads to a higher perception of corruption in government)

8. Corruption in the U.S. states
Size of government – more government/bureaucrats, more corruption)
Culture - Moralistic culture, less corruption (as Elazar suggests)
Initiative process: why?
Campaign finance laws: why?
What did not matter: Education, public sector salaries, Turnout/Party competition

9. Corruption across countries
Why is corruption higher in some countries than others?
Studies have shown that, as in my study of the U.S.,
greater urbanization is associated with greater
corruption across countries
Greater economic development (wealth) – less
corruption (as in my study)

10. More on corruption in cross-national perspective
Across countries, the “longevity” of democracy,
higher voter turnout, and high party
competition are associated with lower
corruption - these factors vary more across
countries than within the U.S. and matter for
levels of corruption cross-nationally

11. Measurement issues
*Use conviction/indictment reports (from Dep’t of Justice)
*Use perceptions (state and cross-national)
Also: difficulty of comparing across nations (what is acceptable in one country may be culturally less so in another country)