Can Corruption Be Measured? Comparing Global Versus Local Perceptions of Corruption in East and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Since Transparency International first released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 1995, the CPI has quickly become the best known corruption indicator worldwide. The CPI has been widely credited with making comparative and large-N studies of corruption possible, as well as putting the issue of corruption squarely in the international policy agenda. Despite its enormous influence on both academic and policy fronts, the CPI is not without critics. One often noted critique is that the CPI relies solely on surveys of foreign business people and the expert assessments of cross-national analysts; as such, the CPI mainly reflects international experts’ perceptions, not the perceptions of each country's citizens. This study examines the above critique in closer detail. Data from the Asian Barometer Survey is employed to analyze whether international experts’ corruption perceptions were similar to those of domestic citizens. The Asian Barometer Survey is a public opinion survey on issues related to political values, democracy, and public reform in 13 different areas around East and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam). Data analysis indicates that global and local perspectives are only moderately aligned in the 13 areas studied. International experts and domestic citizens differ, to varying degrees, in their evaluation of the extent of public sector corruption in several areas, suggesting the presence of a corruption perception gap. Four implications about the existence of this gap can be drawn for future corruption measurement.     

Risk Misallocation in Public–Private Partnership Projects in China

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to compare the preferred and actual risk allocation and then to evaluate the impact of risk misallocation (if any) on project performance. The results show a significantly negative relationship between project performance and risk misallocation. The smaller the degree of risk misallocation was, the more successful the project would be. One group of three risks (including “Corruption,” “Government's intervention,” and “Government's reliability”) and the other group of three risks (including “Approval and permit,” “Immature juristic system,” and “Land acquisition”) were found to contribute considerably to the prediction of project performance. This article provides information on the impact of risk misallocation on project performance in China's public–private partnership (PPP) projects. To enter and perform well in China's PPP market, private firms should pay particular attention to the identified risks.     

Same Bed,Different Dreams? Structural Factors and Leadership Characteristics of Central Government Agency Reform in China

ABSTRACT

The reorganization of government agencies can be studied as a pre-reform process in terms of the structural changes made, or as a post-reform process in terms of the effects of the reorganization. In this study of two mergers of agencies in China’s central administration, we focus on structural features and the post-merger process, paying special attention to structural and cultural integration. Our qualitative analyses reveal that the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) is considered to have been more successful in merging agencies and integrating functions than the State Administration for Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT). We found that using physical arrangements and leadership features as explanatory variables generated helpful theoretical and policy implications for organizational architecture and public sector reforms.     

Corruption,Connections and Transparency: Does a Better Screen Imply a Better Scene?

A higher level of transparency in decision making increases the probability that corruption or wrongdoing is detected. It may also improve outsiders' information about the identities of key decision makers, thereby enhance incentives to establish “connections” for corruption. The connections effect may dominate the detection effect for local improvement in transparency and generate an increase in corruption, a prediction sharply in contrast with standard theories of transparency.     

Do Partners in PPPs view Public and Private Management Differently?

Differences between public and private management have been studied extensively by comparing sectors, but not within cross‐sectoral collaborative arrangements. As participants in such arrangements have actually experienced both management styles, examining their perceptions of how these styles differ may contribute innovatively to existing literature. This paper compares such perceptions between public and private sector project members (N = 63) involved in four PPPs in the Netherlands. We assess (1) to what extent and under which conditions these project members view public and private management differently and (2) how they evaluate these differences. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative interview data, we examine Boyne's classical hypotheses and find that more than two‐thirds of the statements making reference to these hypotheses offer support for them; more so, the vast majority of such statements evaluate sectoral differences negatively. Intriguingly, type of PPP is a stronger determinant of perceived differences than the manager's sector of origin.     

Is Leadership in the Eye of the Beholder? A Study of Intended and Perceived Leadership Practices and Organizational Performance

Leadership is a matter of both intentions and perceptions, which do not necessarily always match. Because employees’ motivation and commitment are only affected by leadership if they notice it, employee‐perceived leadership is expected to have a stronger correlation with organizational performance than leader‐intended leadership. This expectation is tested for transformational and transactional leadership, as both types of practices are expected to increase performance. Using a sample of 1,621 teachers and 79 Danish high school principals, the authors find that leader‐intended and employee‐perceived transformational and transactional leadership are only weakly correlated and that only employee‐perceived leadership practices (both transformational and transactional) are significantly related to objectively measured school performance. The results show that it is important to distinguish between intended and perceived leadership and that leaders should be aware of how their practices are perceived.     

If Money Talks,What Does it Say? Corruption and Business Financing of Political Parties

Do parties with different ideological origins adjust their policies in response to the binding commitments that derive from the European integration process? This paper examines whether party platforms have adapted to the ideological content of EU treaty provisions – based on ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘regulated capitalism’ – across a range of policy areas The analysis builds on existing research which has examined how party families respond to the challenges and opportunities of the integration process. This is the first study that focuses on long-term party policy adjustment across different policy areas by examining whether there has been a shift away from core ideological goals towards the direction of EU policy. The main finding is that there has generally been a shift towards the direction of EU policy across all party families in both member and non-member states. The findings have implications for the quality of representation and functioning of democracy in the member states since the deepening of the European integration process reduces ideologically distinct policy alternatives across party families and can hinder policy innovation     

Does Ethical Leadership Matter in Government? Effects on Organizational Commitment,Absenteeism, and Willingness to Report Ethical Problems

Recent ethical scandals involving managers in government organizations have highlighted the need for more research on ethical leadership in public sector organizations. To assess the consequences of ethical leadership, 161 managers in a large state government agency and 415 of their direct reports were surveyed, and personnel records were obtained to measure absenteeism. Results indicate that after controlling for the effects of employee characteristics, perceptions of procedural fairness, and supportive leader behavior, ethical leadership reduced absenteeism and had a positive influence on organizational commitment and willingness to report ethical problems. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are presented.     

Do Politics in Europe Benefit from Politicising Corruption?

In this article, two unexplored trends in European electoral politics are highlighted. Using newly collected data the article tracks the politicisation of corruption in electoral campaigns from 1981 to 2011, an electoral strategy that has been increasing over time in most European countries. It then empirically tests two aspects of this campaign strategy. First, what are the factors that are systematically associated with a party’s decision to politicise corruption? Second, what are the electoral effects in terms of relative vote share for parties that politicise corruption? Using an original data-set that employs multi-level data (parties nested in countries) the results demonstrate first that politicisation of corruption occurs systematically more often among established parties from the main opposition, new parties and parties on the political right, and occurs as a function of country-level corruption, district magnitude and public party financing. Second, it is found that the main opposition and new parties that use such a campaign strategy make significant electoral gains relative to the previous election compared to parties that do not politicise corruption. Yet gains are offset in low-corruption countries. The findings demonstrate salient implications for research on party systems, corruption studies and democratic legitimacy, among other areas of investigation.     

The Future of Leadership in Public Universities: Is Shared Leadership the Answer?

Leadership of public universities has come under fire—from scandals, from funding, from students, from every direction. Top‐down leadership of institutions of higher education has been described as a “disease.” Shared governance—a mechanism of faculty representation in the leadership and decision‐making processes—a seeming alternative, has been described as “a recipe for paralysis.” In this article, the authors proffer shared leadership as a potential elixir for leading public institutions of higher learning, unleashing creative potential, focusing on pressing strategic imperatives, and enabling sustainable systems that leverage true talent to maximum effect. It is time to move beyond the moribund myth of top‐down heroic leadership and beyond the bureaucratic, political quagmire of the current state of affairs in shared governance. Is shared leadership the answer?      

Corrupted Estimates? Response Bias in Citizen Surveys on Corruption

Political Behavior - Measuring corruption has become a global industry. An important and commonly used data source are several large-scale multi-country projects that survey citizens directly about...     

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.     

The Curse of Knowledge? Education,Corruption, and Politics

Political Behavior - Education has consistently been found to be positively related to political participation, electoral turnout, civic engagement, political knowledge, and democratic attitudes...     

Does Fiscal Stress Induce Privatization? Correlates of Private and Intermunicipal Contracting, 1992–2002

Using Census of Governments data, preferences for private and intermunicipal contracting by U.S. counties during the 1992–2002 period are modeled as a function of established economic and political factors. After distinguishing between private and intermunicipal contracting, there is no evidence that fiscal stress induces privatization. High debt levels are associated with fewer publicly delivered services, but counties with high debt are as likely to partner with neighboring municipalities as they are with private firms. Political factors are weak predictors of either form of contracting. The strongest and most reliable predictor of both private and intermunicipal contracting is the creation of new public services. These findings imply the strategic use of contracting for trial, temporary, or contingent services.     

Corruption and Economic Development in West African Economic and Monetary Union （UEMOA）

The theoretical and empirical debate on the effects of corruption on economic development is unclear. Available cross-country evidence suggests that the impact of corruption on economic development may be either positive or negative. It is widely assumed that the struggle against corruption is essential for economic growth. However, corruption is clearly a multidimensional concept, encompassing a variety of discrete components. The author reviews the theory underlying these different causal mechanisms linking corruption to economic growth, and provides an introduction to some outstanding measurement issues. This paper takes a critical look at the effect of corruption on economic development in West African Economic and Monetary Union （UEMOA）. The major results of the investigation indicate that all UEMOA countries are corrupt according to the variables of the Worldwide Governance Indicators （WGI）. UEMOA countries have a deficiency to control corruption, so they need to improve their system of control. As a result, the fight against corruption is still a necessary job for all of UEMOA people.     

Do Female Politicians Face Stronger Backlash for Corruption Allegations? Evidence from Survey-Experiments in Brazil and Mexico

Political Behavior - The recent world-wide trend of female chief executives struggling to maintain public support while facing corruption allegations and scandals poses the question of whether...     

Do Leadership Training and Development Make a Difference in the Public Sector? A Panel Study

Although significant progress has been made in developing leadership theory and understanding the traits, skills, behaviors, and styles that make a good leader, progress in bridging the gap between theory and practice using models of leadership training and development has been slow. This research attempts to answer the question of whether leadership training and development programs in the public sector improve leader and organizational performance. The findings indicate that a combination of coaching, classroom instruction, feedback, and experiential training has a significant impact on leader performance. In addition, organizational effectiveness improves for organizations whose leaders received the intervention. This article enhances our understanding of the impact that training and development can have on leader and organizational outcomes.     

The Rise of Public–Private Partnerships in China: An Effective Financing Approach for Infrastructure Investment?

The rise of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) in China has spurred heated debates about their purpose and effectiveness. This article traces the fluctuation of China's PPPs over several decades and finds that PPPs have played a supplementary role in China's infrastructure investment, as a response to the pressures of fiscal shortfalls and government debts. The resurgence of PPPs in recent years aims to bridge the infrastructure gap and alleviate ballooning local debts. These expectations, however, are hard to realize. China's PPPs mainly involve state‐owned enterprises and place increasing financial burdens on the government. The central government has taken measures to attract private sector investment to mitigate the financial risk, but the prospects for PPPs remain unclear.     

China＇s Political Stability and Comprehensive National Power： A Case Study of the Conflict in Xinjiang

The concept of comprehensive national power （CNP） is proposed and developed by several Chinese scholars and academic institutions. Many material capabilities, for example, economic growth and military might, are incorporated into the concept to measure China＇s national power vis-h-vis other major powers, especially the U.S. This paper, however, contends that understanding China＇s CNP through material capabilities is only part of the story. Yet, China＇s political stability is by no means assured and fully incorporated into the concept. China has undoubtedly faced many threats and challenges to its political stability. Apart from the Two Ts＇ problem （Taiwan and Tibet）, the conflict in Xinjiang not only threatens China＇s political stability since the establishment of the People＇s Republic of China （PRC） in 1949, but also affects its CNP as a whole. This paper concludes that measuring the genuine CNP should be based on the factors from which a country would earn or benefit, and also on those of which it would have to pay a price. Needless to say, the conflict and political instability in Xinjiang are an example of the price which China has to pay.