Democracy and Political Corruption: A Cross-National Comparison

Past research on democracy and political corruption produced mixed results because of differences in sampling and analytical methods. Moreover, an important shortcoming has been researchers’ focus on detecting linear effects alone. In the current study, I statistically controlled for potentially confounding economic factors and used hierarchical polynomial regression to evaluate the form of the democracy-corruption relationship. Results showed that a cubic function best fitted the data. Despite eruptions of corruption among intermediate democracies, the consolidation of advanced democratic institutions eventually reduced corruption. Ultimately, the initial political conditions and the final democratic achievements determined the magnitude of political corruption in a country.