Of Virtuous Circles: Modeling Control of Corruption Beyond Modernization
33 Pages Posted: 30 Jul 2014
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
When discussing control of corruption, we know what makes successful countries differ from the rest. But how did they get there? This paper presents seven contemporary "achievers" from across the globe: electoral democracies that have reached control of corruption primarily within the last 20 years, countries in the upper third of the World Bank Control of Corruption scale or otherwise regional achievers doing significantly better than their region/continent or their modernity goodness of fit. In comparing these achievers with the rest of their continent, the elements enabling them to outperform other countries are analyzed in a three-step methodology: first, how well do these countries fit the modernization model and the model of regional (continental) corruption, comparing the country’s performance against the continent as a whole; second, what were the dynamics of the change process (the political economy of change) in each country, analysis allowing for better understanding of the context, underlying agency, and drivers of change in the control of corruption; and third, which formal institutional frameworks in general and anticorruption interventions in particular took place in order to measure the significance of special anticorruption interventions. In conclusion, the paper compares all contemporary achievers across five categories. This research was conducted with support from the EU-funded ANTICORRP research project.
Keywords: ANTICORRP, anticorruption, Botswana, Chile, control of corruption, equilibrium model, Estonia, Georgia, governance, modernization, South Korea, Taiwan, Uruguay
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