Legitimacy and Cooperative Intentions in Corruption Prevention

• In Event: Understanding and Advancing Legitimacy Theory

Abstract

Corruption is a global problem, with well-documented evidence of its effects on human rights, the rule of law, and economic development. Researchers and policy makers seek to understand the conditions under which people will support anti-corruption efforts. Recent studies in other contexts have shown that people’s cooperative intentions depend on the perceived legitimacy of legal institutions. However, they have not examined the effects of people’s social knowledge of how to cooperate, or their beliefs about the cooperative intentions of other people. They also have not developed a theory that links deterrence to cooperation with legal authorities. Consequently, it is unknown how social knowledge and deterrence explain cooperative intentions. Using survey data from 530 prospective elites in Ghana, this paper examines how these conditions combine or work independently to aid our understanding of cooperative intentions.

Author

• Justice Tankebe, University of Cambridge