Democracy, Economic Policy, and Political Corruption in Comparative Perspective

A vibrant literature on political corruption has emerged in recent years. As reviewed in the prior chapter, much of this work has consisted of cross-national, statistical analysis, while other studies have adopted a qualitative case study and comparative approach. Fewer have employed region-specific quantitative approaches.¹ Among the myriad factors that influence levels of political corruption around the world, recent studies have examined in greater depth the impact of political institutions and public policies on political corruption. This chapter employs a quantitative methodology and a cross-national data set to examine both global patterns and the manner in which Latin America fits