Warriors in Chains: Institutional Legacies and Anti-Corruption Programmes in Taiwan and South Korea

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify and compare institutional patterns of political corruption in Taiwan and Korea and to evaluate recent anti-corruption programs before this background. It adopts a historical-institutionalist approach and shows that both paths were similar in that rampant political corruption has been became a source of both public and political concern, but were based on differing institutional frameworks. I will argue that the structural source of corruption in Taiwan lies at the lowest political levels, whereas in Korea it is situated at the apex of political power. As will be shown, the difficulty in implementing anti-corruption pol-icies in Taiwan thus lies in overcoming local-level resistance, whereas in Korea the problem is that central-level leaders have to impose checks on themselves.

Keywords: corruption, historical institutionalism, Taiwan, South Korea