Corruption and Institutions in the (Post-)Communist World

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

The papers on this panel examine various facets of corruption and of the anti-corruption reform efforts in democratic, hybrid regime, and authoritarian settings. Marc Berenson distinguishes between social and institutional trust in his analysis of pathways for reducing corruption in public services, tax collection, law enforcement and the judiciary in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, drawing on the experience of Estonia, Poland, and Romania. Sergiu Gherghina and Inga Saikkonen turn to clientelism as they study the relationship between clientelistic electoral inducements and partisanship in Romania. Using a conjoint experimental design, they examine the extent to which co-partisanship moderates how voters react to clientelistic targeting. Barbara Junisbai builds on the theme of clientelism and family rule as she explains the divergent fates of strongman presidents who violated the norms of patronage that kept them in power in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Edward Ngai and Katharin Tai turn to the political uses of public policies that reveal corruption in dictatorships. Using the example of China, they argue that anti-corruption campaigns represent mobilization strategies that spread regime-sanctioned value frames of the ruling regime. Finally, addressing strategies to reduce corruption in democratic settings, Sergiu Lipcean and Iain McMenamin look at whether more generous state subsidies to political parties reduce corruption.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• Corruption and Trust in Europe’s Borderlands (Between Berlin and Moscow) - Marc P. Berenson, King's College London

• Partisanship And Tolerance For Clientelism: Experimental Evidence From Romania - Sergiu Gherghina, University of Glasgow; Inga A-L Saikkonen, Åbo Akademi University

• The Pitfalls of Family Rule in Eurasia and Beyond - Barbara J. Junisbai, Pitzer College

• Does Public Funding of Parties Reduce Corruption? Evidence from Firm-Level Data - Sergiu Lipcean; Iain McMenamin, Dublin City University

Chair

• Victor C. Shih UCSD

Discussants

• Victor C. Shih UCSD

• Sergiu Lipcean