Lazarev Egor

№ 1, 2011

• CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL STABILITY: INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

  This paper investigates the relationship between political stability and corruption in weakly institutionalized polities – “weak states”. The main hypothesis is that there is a U-shaped relationship between political stability and corruption. The lower is the level of political stability the higher is the level of corruption, due to reduction of time horizon of politicians and bureaucrats. Yet the very high level of stability in “weak states” also leads to an increase in the level of corruption. The idea is that political elites use corruption as a mechanism for loyalty providing by rewarding supporters and controlling potential challengers, therefore corruption and political stability can be mutually reinforcing. The argument is grounded on the theory of inefficient institutions and simple game theoretical model of political process. The idea of non-linear relationship between political stability and corruption confirms with empirical findings from statistical analysis of the data from 122 developing countries.

  DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-60-1-50-68