Why Women Mayors Reduce Corruption: Network or Political Agenda?

• In Event: Gender in Local and Rural Political Contexts

Abstract

The growing evidence on the strong link between women in office and lower levels of corruption has resonated with policy making and influenced both international and national declarations. Currently, an increased women representation is not only promoted as an issue of political representation, meritocratic recruitment, and equal opportunities, but also as a cure against corruption and venality and ultimately a pathway to cleaner government and more efficient public service provision. However, we know less about when and why women in office reduce corruption levels.
This study suggests that women mayors reduce corruption levels, but that the extent to which the corruption reducing effects of women mayors remains across election cycles is highly contingent on their political background and issue area specialization. The literature on the link between greater female representation and lower corruption levels across diverse polities suggests several theoretical frameworks that may contribute towards explaining why women in office would reduce corruption levels. These include research that suggests that women would be more risk averse, and therefore less likely to engage in criminal and risky acts such as corruption (Esarey and Chirillo 2013; Esarey and Schwindt-Bayer 2018), or that women are marginalized and excluded from corrupt and oftentimes male dominated networks, and therefore simply have fewer opportunities to engage in corruption (Bjarnegård 2103; Goetz 2007; Barnes and Beulieu 2019). Alternatively, women may be more invested in well-functioning and low corrupt public service delivery because of their traditional care taking responsibilities (Alexander 2021; Bauhr et al 2019; Watson and Moreland 2014). Most explanations to date, however, focus on why women would be excluded from (or refrain from participating in) corrupt transactions, rather than on the political skills and connections needed to combat corrupt and powerful elite networks while still remaining in office.
Building on theoretical frameworks suggesting that women reduce corruption levels because of their exclusion from elite and oftentimes male dominated corrupt networks, i.e., their limited embeddedness in opportunity networks, we investigate if and how the political background of women mayors have implications for their opportunity to reduce corruption over time. Our research design uses newly collected and unique municipal level data on women mayors across three countries- Italy, Spain and France- and data on corruption risks in close to all municipal contracts awarded between 2001 and 2020 to investigate when and why women mayors reduce corruption risks. Our preliminary regression discontinuity and difference in difference analysis suggest that women mayors reduce corruption levels, but that only women that are embedded in elite networks also continue to do so over time. This in turn suggests that embeddedness in elite networks can be a prerequisite to attain the political skills that are necessary to effectively challenge powerful corrupt networks, while still maintaining enough political support to manage to also stay in office.



Alexander, Amy C. 2021.”Gender , Gender Equality and Corruption: A Review of Theory and Evidence” in Bagenholm, Bauhr, Grimes and Rothstein (eds.) Handbook of Quality of Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Barnes, T. D., & Beaulieu, E. (2019). Women Politicians, Institutions, and Perceptions of Corruption. Comparative Political Studies, 52(1), 134-167.
Bauhr, M., & Charron, N. (2021). Will women executives reduce corruption? Marginalization and network inclusion. Comparative Political Studies, 54(7), 1292-1322.
Bauhr, M., Charron, N., & Wängnerud, L. (2019) Exclusion or interests? Why females in elected office reduce petty and grand corruption. European Journal of Political Research, 58(4), 1043-1065.
Bjarnegård, E. (2013). Gender, informal institutions and political recruitment: Explaining male dominance in parliamentary representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bolzendahl, C. (2009). Making the implicit explicit. Gender influences on social spending in twelve industrialized democracies, 1980-99. Social Politics 16(1): 40–81.
Esarey, J., & Chirillo, G. (2013). “Fairer sex” or purity myth? Corruption, gender and institutional context. Politics & Gender 94: 361–389.
Esarey, J., & Schwindt-Bayer, L. (2018). Women’s representation, accountability and corruption in democracies. British Journal of Politics, 48(3), 659-690.
Goetz, A. M. (2007). Political cleaners: Women as the new anti-corruption force? Development and Change 38(1): 87–105.

Authors

• Monika Bauhr, University of Gothenburg

• Nicholas Charron, Goteburg University