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Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Hanna Bäck

Professor

Black and white photo of Hanna Bäck. Photo.

Cabinets, Prime Ministers and Corruption. A Comparative Analysis of Parliamentary Governments in Post-War Europe

Author

  • Hanna Bäck
  • Jan Teorell
  • Staffan I Lindberg

Summary, in English

Why are some states more corrupt than others? Previous research explaining corruption suggests that multiparty governments are associated with higher levels of corruption since it is difficult for voters to hold parties in such cabinets accountable. Drawing on the literature on coalition governance, we suggest that a lack of government corruption has more to do with the ability of other key political actors to control the agents that have been delegated power in cabinet. We use a new dataset (Varieties of Democracy), giving us more specific measures on governmental corruption across a longer time-period. We show that corruption is significantly lower when the Prime Minister (PM) has strong constitutional powers, suggesting that the PM as a principal reduces agency problems.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2016-05

Language

English

Publication/Series

STANCE Working Paper Series

Volume

2016

Issue

6

Document type

Working paper

Publisher

Department of Political Science, Lund University

Topic

  • Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)

Keywords

  • corruption
  • multiparty government
  • accountability
  • coalition governance
  • Varieties of Democracy
  • V-dem dataset
  • constitutional power
  • prime ministers

Status

Published

Project

  • State-Making and the Origins of Global Order in the Long Nineteenth Century and Beyond