“Sources of Corruption in Authoritarian Regimes.” With Miriam Golden. Under revision (October 2006)

 

Abstract

We study the determinants of corruption in a sample of 40-some authoritarian polities at the turn of the 21st century. Recent studies have proposed several parallel mechanisms potentially relevant for variations in the extent of corruption in authoritarian regimes. This paper seeks to put these various perspectives into a unified empirical model in order to investigate the wide range of corruption observed in non-democratic political systems. Drawing on relevant theory currently available, we investigate the importance to variations in corruption in authoritarian countries as of around 2000 of the identity of the ruling group, the availability of natural resources and foreign aid, various indicators of rulers’ perceived time horizon, and the level of economic development. Controlling for average national income, results indicate that personalistic regimes are more prone to corruption and also that the availability of natural resources is associated with greater corruption.