Gender Differences in Mobilization Against Greed Corruption

• In Event: Gender in Comparative Politics

Abstract

Monika Bauhr and Lena Wängnerud
Quality of Government Institute
University of Gothenburg

A growing body of research suggests that women are less likely to be involved in corruption than men and that a higher share of women elected tends to be inversely related to the level of corruption. Female representation may thereby be of central important for the quality of government and public service provision and thereby ultimately the legitimacy of the entire political system in the eyes of the electorate. However, the most influential studies on the link between gender and corruption focus on the scale of the corruption problem, i.e. how much corruption there is, rather than its different forms. This paper suggests that the link between gender and corruption can be better explained if we distinguish between different forms of corruption. Building on a distinction developed by Bauhr (2012; 2016) between need corruption (corruption to gain access to “fair” treatment) and greed corruption (corruption to gain access to special illicit advantages), we suggest that women are more likely than men to perceive greed corruption as prevalent in society and to mobilize against greed corruption once they attain public office. Women condemn greed corruption in part because women are typically excluded from participation in this particular form of corruption, since opaque and collusive networks, rather than open transactions and extortion drive greed corruption. Women are therefore more likely to be excluded from the short-term individual level benefits of greed corruption, and more likely to experience its long-term detrimental effects on public service delivery. Increased female representation can therefore be expected to enable the control of greed corruption.

Our paper thereby investigates how both formal and informal institutions constrain or enable women participation in corrupt transactions, but contend that these institutions operate very differently depending on the form of corruption. Thus, while it is important to theorize on mechanisms connected to the different positions and roles women and men holds in society, one shortcoming in the literature is the almost exclusive reliance on measurements capturing the scale of corruption, i.e. how much corruption there is, rather than its different forms. This is partly driven by the convenience of using broad and aggregate indicators such as the Transparency International Corruption perception index or the World Bank Governance Indicators in comparative research, but also from a disconnect between the rich theoretical literature suggesting that corruption does indeed come in many different varieties, and empirical research on gender and corruption. We suggest that better distinguishing between the different forms of corruption add important insights to the gender and corruption literature, and contribute towards better explaining gender differences in the mobilization against corruption. Our argument is supported by an empirical analysis using new regional level data across European countries

The paper is structured as follows: In the first section we discuss recent developments in research on the link between gender and corruption. We proceed to discuss why the distinction between need and greed corruption is relevant to this research area, and develop the reasoning on the important features characterizing these two forms of corruption. The section on design and data present the survey of 85,000 individuals in 24 European countries (Charron et al. 2015) that serves as the basis for the empirical analysis as well as data on the share of locally elected women in Europe (Sundström and Stockemer 2015). The empirical part of the paper report differences between male and female citizens in relation to perceptions of different forms of corruption and then move on to discuss the effect of women in locally elected assemblies on citizen’s perceptions of greed corruption. The final section concludes and point out avenues for future research. It is our contention that research on the link between gender and corruption need to more carefully conceptualize the type of corruption included in the analysis, in order to better understand the core mechanisms at work.

Author

• Lena Wangnerud, University of Gothenburg