 Corruption, democracy and Asia-Pacific countriesNeil Campbell and Shrabani Saha Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 2013, vol. 18, issue 2, 290-303 Abstract: This paper argues that the relationship between democracy and corruption is non-monotonic. When a country shifts from autocratic rule to highly imperfect democracy (an ‘electoral democracy’) it is frequently perceived that the level of corruption increases. Conversely, when the democracy level is already relatively high (approaching ‘mature democracy’) an increase in the level of democracy is typically expected to decrease the level of corruption. To assist with our discussion of these issues, before going on to the empirical part of the paper, we look specifically at the case of South Korea to illustrate how corruption responded to an increasing level of democracy. Using panel data, we find strong empirical support for the non-monotonic relationship. For Asia-Pacific countries, we find that the democracy-corruption relationship becomes negative, at a surprisingly high level of democracy. Moreover we also find that the South Asian region is the most corrupt. Date: 2013 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjapxx:v:18:y:2013:i:2:p:290-303 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2013.778156 Access Statistics for this article Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy is currently edited by Leong Liew More articles in Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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