The Chinese Paradox of High Growth and Low Quality of Government: The Cadre Organization Meets Max Weber

Much research has argued for the importance of state's administrative capacity for development. Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China—the cadre organization. Instead of rule following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development.     

Transparency and corruption: Measuring real transparency by a new index

Despite the salience of transparency in policy and democracy debates a global measurement of transparency has always been missing. In its absence, measuring the impact of transparency on accountability and corruption for a large number of countries has been difficult, with scholars using more or less adequate proxies. This paper introduces a new measurement of real transparency—the T-index—using 14 de facto components, based on direct observations of official websites in 129 countries and five de jure components, based on the transparency laws and conventions adopted. The resulting index is a measurement with very good internal and external validity and moderate precision. The paper argues that de facto transparency must be considered alongside de jure (legal) transparency if we are to judge the impact (or lack of) transparency against accountability and corruption, as a large implementation gap exists, in particular in poor countries, between legal commitments and real transparency. The T-index has significant impact on both perception and objective indicators of corruption, including perceived change in corruption over time as measured by the Global Corruption Barometer. An analysis of outliers shows that high transparency alone is not sufficient to achieve control of corruption, especially in countries with low human development and poor rule of law, although transparency is a robust predictor of corruption with GDP controls. The data with all sources is available for download as T-index 2022 dataset: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.7225627 and an interactive webpage developed for updates is available at www.corruptionrisk.org/transparency .     

Corruption and citizen participation in local government: Evidence from Latin America

Prior research indicates that corruption hampers economic growth and imposes high social costs. From the perspective of democratic theory, corruption does not just violate the fiduciary obligations with which the public entrusts government officials; it has detrimental effects on the legitimacy of the democratic process as a whole. If citizens view their government as corrupt and dishonest, they become cynical about political life, and as a result, they are less likely to participate in democratic governance. This article examines the effect of corruption—measured through both perception and experience—on citizen participation in local government. Using data from the AmericasBarometer survey on the new democracies in Latin America, we test whether the withdrawal effects registered in terms of participation in elections hold for the participation in city administration. The results show that citizens' willingness to participate in local governance relates positively with their experience of corruption, but not with their perception of corruption.     

Social and Political Consequences of Administrative Corruption: A Study of Public Perceptions in Spain

Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption—much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country's urban development boom—that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, the authors examine the association between perceived corruption and the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, including satisfaction with government and democracy, social and institutional trust, and rule‐breaking behaviors. The findings suggest that perceptions of administrative as well as political corruption are associated with less satisfaction, lower levels of social and institutional trust, and a greater willingness to break rules. Although these survey results cannot prove causation, they are consistent with the notion that administrative and political corruption damages the legitimacy of government in the eyes of citizens and weakens the social fabric of democratic society.     

The Effectiveness of Administrative Reform in New Democracies

Practitioners and scholars of postcommunist politics disagree on the accomplishments of administrative reforms in new Eastern European democracies. The transformation of the public sector after 1989 has aimed to consolidate the democratic process and enhance economic development. Skeptics, however, argue that administrative reforms face serious challenges in the context of economic liberalization, insufficient capacity for modernization, and cultural legacies of the past. The authors judge reform effectiveness by testing the impact of civil service reform on government transparency and foreign direct investment. The results of the empirical analysis confirm that once reform is adopted, administrations become more effective at reducing corruption and attracting investment. Despite the delays and difficulties of implementation, the adoption of reform is important in and of itself, and countries can expect positive results sooner than skeptics predict.     

The economy,corruption, and the vote: Evidence from experiments in Sweden and Moldova

How does corruption affect voting behavior when economic conditions are poor? Using a novel experimental design and two original survey experiments, we offer four important conclusions. First, in a low corruption country (Sweden), voters react negatively to corruption regardless of the state of the economy. Second, in a high corruption country (Moldova), voters react negatively to corruption only when the state of the economy is also poor; when economic conditions are good, corruption is less important. Third, respondents in Sweden react more strongly to corruption stimuli than respondents in Moldova. Finally, in the low corruption country, sociotropic corruption voting (or voting based on corruption among political leaders) is relatively more important, whereas in our high corruption country, pocketbook corruption voting (or voting based on one's own personal experience with corruption, i.e., being asked to pay bribes) is equally prevalent. Our findings are consistent with multiple stable corruption equilibria, as well as with a world where voters are more responsive to corruption signals more common in their environment.     

Good government and sustainable anti-corruption strategies: A role for independent anti-corruption agencies?

Aid donors are increasingly seeking to link assistance to sustainable reform, including the provision of a responsible and responsive political and legal framework, the improvement of recipient countries' social, health and educational prospects, and the promotion of economic development and liberalization. Much attention is given to the first of these because of the size and cost to the state and the perceived constraints it exercises on the longer-term changes to the economy and society; in general terms, good government is an essential precondition for good governance and economic development. Increasingly donors have focused on corruption, both as a core obstacle to the encouragement of good government, and on the steps taken to dealing with it as evidence of commitment and the will of recipient countries to their introduction. While the types of activity associated with corruption are readily identifiable, as are the means to attempt to deal with it, it is usually much more difficult to determine effective implementation, particularly with limited resources at a time when longer-term political and economic reforms are also being promoted. It is therefore especially important that, in relation to corruption and good government, a practicable, effective and sustainable means is available to deal with corruption from preventative, investigative and reform perspectives.     

The Limits of Administration: A Response to Christopher Hood

The development of states coincides with the continuous (re)definition of administrative limits, according to Kutsal Yesilkagit, in this response to Christopher Hood. Hood’s thought‐provoking essay suggests putting the concept of administrative limits to greater use as an analytical concept and explores the idea of administrative limits from three basic ways of thinking: cybernetics, economics and cultural theory. This author critically analyzes one of Hood’s main conclusions—that different types of administrative limits may exist, and that “what kinds of limits we find where is likely to remain a central and contested issue in administrative analysis.”     

The Effect of Administrative Burden on Bureaucratic Perception of Policies: Evidence from Election Administration

This article argues that administrative burden—that is, an individual's experience of policy implementation as onerous—is an important consideration for administrators and influences their views on policy and governance options. The authors test this proposition in the policy area of election administration using a mixed‐method assessment of local election officials. They find that the perceived administrative burden of policies is associated with a preference to shift responsibilities to others, perceptions of greater flaws and lesser merit in policies that have created the burden (to the point that such judgments are demonstrably wrong), and opposition to related policy innovations.     

Problems of co-ordination in upazila administration in Bangladesh

The present government of Bangladesh has extensively reformed the administrative system and upgraded the previous thana to upazila (sub-district) to serve as the focal point of development administration. A new tier of local government called Upazila Parishad (UZP) has been created and a large number of functions have been devolved to this institution along with the placement of central government employees at its disposal. The reformers argue that the present system will remove the inadequacies of the previous administrative system and will bring about an improvement in the co-ordination of field services at the upazila level. However, the actual situation represents a totally different picture. The desired integration— both vertical and horizontal—and co-ordination in local level planning is non-existent due to the absence of any clear direction from the central government. Proper co-ordination among the field services in the upazila administration does not exist due to the anomalous relation between the upazila and the national government, including excessive central control; the involvement of multiple agencies of the central government in guiding and supervising; ambiguity in government thinking; the absence of clarification from the ministries concerned and agencies on the timing of different development programmes; and conflict over the allocation of resources. There is also conflict between the different tiers of local government in respect of authority and resources. Relations between public representatives and officials at the upazila level are strained because a clear allocation of authority to political executives is lacking; areas for co-operation among different agencies have not been clarified; and public representatives and government officials lack mutual respect.     

Job accessibility and welfare usage: Evidence from Los Angeles

Previous scholars have explored the effects of local labor market conditions on welfare usage. However, none of these studies use direct measures of geographic access to nearby jobs. Responding to this limitation, our research combines data from the 1990 census with three administrative data sets to examine the effect of geographic job access—defined as the relative supply of low-wage jobs located within a three-mile radius of a census tract—on welfare usage rates among the Los Angeles population with a high school degree or less. After controlling for other characteristics likely to affect welfare behavior, we find that welfare usage declines as geographic job access increases. This relationship holds not only among African-Americans, the subject of much of the scholarship on job access and economic opportunity, but also among whites, Asians, and Hispanics.     

G.W.F. Hegel on Self‐Determination and Democratic Theory

This article claims that the major alternative models of contemporary democratic theory—the aggregative, deliberative, and agonistic models—are grounded on a norm of self‐determination, but each conceptualizes this self‐determination in a different, and one‐sidedly narrow, way. G.W.F. Hegel provides a conceptual scheme in which to understand the development and synthesize the insights of these three articulations of self‐determination. He also argues that the political embodiment of a complete self‐determination must be founded on economic self‐interest, though a self‐interest expanded to a concern for the common good through the experience of self‐government in one's economic and political associations. Thus, rather than separating economic and political spheres, as contemporary democratic theorists do, Hegel makes a case that modern self‐determination requires a structural harmony between these spheres.     

Fighting corruption in developing countries: Some aspects of policy from lessons from the field

Corruption persists in developing countries despite the proliferation of legal, institutional, and other measures that have been put in place to fight said corruption. The cancer of corruption has therefore spread exponentially in most developing countries with devastating socioeconomic and governance consequences. This practitioner perspective draws on the author's field experience and backed up by the research literature. It identifies, outlines, and discusses some aspects of policy in 3 areas—institution strengthening, the development and implementation of national anticorruption plans/strategies, and political will and leadership—and the conclusions that can be drawn from them for policy development and implementation in the ongoing quest to fight corruption in developing countries.     

The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending

This article demonstrates the impact of public officials’ corruption on the size and allocation of U.S. state spending. Extending two theories of “excessive” government expansion, the authors argue that public officials’ corruption should cause state spending to be artificially elevated. Corruption increased state spending over the period 1997–2008. During that time, the 10 most corrupt states could have reduced their total annual expenditure by an average of $1,308 per capita—5.2 percent of the mean per capita state expenditure—if corruption had been at the average level of the states. Moreover, at the expense of social sectors, corruption is likely to distort states’ public resource allocations in favor of higher‐potential “bribe‐generating” spending and items directly beneficial to public officials, such as capital, construction, highways, borrowing, and total salaries and wages. The authors use an objective, concrete, and consistent measurement of corruption, the number of convictions.     

Can We? Administrative Limits Revisited

The idea of administrative limits—in the sense of constraints or bounds on what can be achieved by the activity of administration in general and public administration in particular—is important for a proper understanding of twenty‐first‐century public administration. What are the effective limits of taxable capacity in the modern state, as debt‐ridden governments seek to reduce debt levels and budget deficits after the financial crashes and economic recession of the late 2000s? What are the limits of safety and security that can be realistically achieved by administrative structures and procedures in a so‐called risk society? What are the limits to the achievement of ambitious social engineering to improve the human lot by conventional organizations and bureaucracies? Such issues are not new. Questions of this kind have long been asked by scholars in the intersecting fields of public administration, policy studies, and political science. Nonetheless, the author argues, they address issues that are of continuing, central importance to government and society in today’s world.     

When Decentralization Leads to Recentralization: Subnational State Transformation in Uganda

Abstract

Among other shortcomings of decentralization reforms undertaken by developing countries since the 1980s, recent research finds that the reforms' primary aim—devolution of authority to localities—has often not been achieved in practice. This article builds on that insight, examining an understudied pathway through which states that have undertaken decentralization can ultimately recentralize power: administrative unit proliferation. Rapid creation of numerous new subnational administrative units is an increasingly common occurrence in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This phenomenon, I argue, allows for recentralization by reducing the intergovernmental bargaining power and administrative capacity of each subnational unit, as well as by substantially expanding both the reach of the national executive's patronage network and its ability to monitor emergent security threats on its periphery. The article illustrates these mechanisms with evidence from Uganda.     

Do Corruption and Social Trust Affect Economic Growth? A Review

Abstract

Two separate literatures suggest that corruption and social trust, respectively, are related to economic growth, although the strengths of the relationships, and the direction of causality, are still debated. This paper reviews these literatures and evaluates the evidence for causal effects of corruption and trust on economic growth, and discusses how corruption and trust are interrelated. The reviews show that absence of corruption and high levels of social trust foster economic growth. The literatures also indicate that corruption has a causal effect on social trust, while the opposite effect is more uncertain. The conclusion offers the suggestion that fighting corruption may yield a “double dividend”, as reduced corruption is likely to have both direct and indirect effects on growth.     

Weak civil society in a hard state: Lessons from Africa

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of civil society in Botswana within the broader context of the state–civil society dynamic in Africa. It is argued that, like other countries in Africa, civil society in Botswana is rather weak. Conversely, unlike other countries in Africa, a weak civil society is accompanied by a hard state. Thanks to wise leadership, Botswana has experienced remarkable economic growth rates and significant improvements in human development over a period of about four decades. Botswana is also considered a ‘shining liberal democracy’, with elections held every five years, an independent judiciary system, and low levels of corruption. Yet it has been a democratic system with a weak civil society. Four main reasons are provided: first, the political culture makes it difficult to question authority; second, it is arduous to mobilize citizens because of the culture of dependency created by the clientelistic state; third, the Government has for a long time denied—and still does—the role of civil society as a legitimate player in the development process; fourth, civil society is not a cohesive group and lacks funds, especially the advocacy groups.     

From Pax Americana to Pax Mosaica? Bargaining over a New Economic Order

While the economic rise of new powers, frequently identified as the ‘BRICs’ (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), has been dramatic, the implications of this emerging multipolarity for global economic governance are not clear. In this paper, we address the question: can the diffusion of power among a greater diversity of countries result in the creation of a new global economic order—a Pax Mosaica—to succeed the Pax Americana of the previous century? Our argument proceeds in four steps. First, we provide a brief overview of the achievements and limitations of the system that was established at the end of World War II, and lasted for over half a century in the form of Pax Americana. In the second section, we investigate the emergence of multipolarity, and highlight the opportunities and costs that this generates. In the third section, we explore the routes whereby the changing balance of power might be harnessed towards the creation of a Pax Mosaica. We do so by posing four sets of questions, which must be answered if the mosaic distribution of power is to lead to greater economic stability, growth, and peace. The fourth section concludes the paper with ideas for reform with reference to the World Trade Organization, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the G20.     

创新体制从源头上预防和治理腐败

“一把手”腐败、用人腐败、司法腐败、公贿和行政腐败等政治领域腐败现象日益突出。制度反腐败的重点应当从经济领域转向政治领域,通过继续推动政治体制改革与创新从源头上预防和治理腐败。其中,党政领导体制改革、干部人事制度改革、司法体制改革、政府间管理体制改革和行政管理体制改革在遏止政治和行政腐败方面具有特别重要的意义。