Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Corruption and Incumbency Disadvantage in New Democracies

政治学博士论文研究：新民主国家的腐败和在职劣势

• 批准号: 1323034
• 负责人: Joshua Tucker
• 金额: $ 1.58万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-02-01 至 2016-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1323034&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). The project addresses corruption in emerging democracies, an issue critical to political stability in the world. Developing an understanding of political corruption is therefore vital for US national security interests. The project addresses an important puzzle: why does it seem that incumbent politicians are disadvantaged (less likely to win re-election than to be defeated by challengers) in many new democracies, and what role does corruption play in this process? Intellectual Merit: The project develops and tests a theory that proposes that incumbent corruption -- misuse of office for private gain -- is an important source of this disadvantage. Corruption is known to be higher in younger and poorer democracies than in established richer democracies. When voters cannot know exactly who is corrupt, there are many conditions under which voters will generally favor a challenger over any incumbent. This includes if the majority of politicians are corrupt, if potentially corrupt incumbents are rare but particularly rapacious, or if corrupt politicians can learn quickly how to better extract resources (i.e., become "more efficient at being corrupt"). Empirically verifying this hypothesis is challenging because corruption is difficult to observe and measure precisely, and because many factors related to corruption -- such as poverty or inequality -- may instead account for the incumbency disadvantage. To address these challenges, the project relies on extensive data to infer incumbent corruption in a study of Romanian mayoral elections, including: (1) more than 4,000 publicly available declarations of assets to detect abnormal wealth accumulation among incumbents; (2) over 1 million contracts by local public companies to identify suspiciously high prices, uncompetitive bids, or politically-connected awardees; (3) a comparison of budgeted expenditures on infrastructure with data on changes in its actual physical stock to identify leakages in public funds spending; and (4) data from more than 10,000 firms to uncover corrupt privatization of state property inherited from communism. Further, the project takes advantage of a unique institution in Romania: by law, the salary of the mayor increases once a city's population exceeds a certain threshold. Prior research has suggested that better pay decreases the need for illegitimate income and attracts more upstanding candidates for office, resulting in lower corruption. This rule permits a comparison of the incumbency (dis)advantage in cities with populations just above and below these salary thresholds. Cities near these thresholds should be similar in many other important respects except for the mayor's salary (and so, by extension, corruption). This strategy holds constant other potential causes of incumbency disadvantage and isolates the effect of corruption. Broader Impacts: Studying incumbency disadvantage in a young democracy such as Romania is important for several reasons. While incumbency disadvantage may be a desirable response to corruption, it also likely induces high policy instability and discourages high quality candidates from running for political office. Both high policy instability and low quality of political elites can threaten economic and social stability, and ultimately endanger the prospects for enduring democracy and economic growth. Unstable societies pose threats to international security and trade, including the interests of the United States. Learning how to better anticipate such sources of instability can better inform both foreign policy decisions and anti-corruption programs.

该奖项符合B级，标题V，秒。 2013年《合并和持续拨款法》的第543条（P.L. 113-6，于2013年3月26日颁布）。 该项目解决了新兴民主国家的腐败，这是世界上政治稳定至关重要的问题。因此，对政治腐败的理解对于美国国家安全利益至关重要。该项目解决了一个重要的难题：为什么在许多新民主国家中，现任政治家似乎处于不利地位（赢得连任的可能性较小，而不是被挑战者击败）？知识分子的优点：该项目开发并测试了一种理论，该理论提出了现有腐败 - 滥用办公室供私人利益 - 是这种劣势的重要来源。众所周知，在年轻人和贫困的民主国家中，腐败比在既定的富裕民主国家都要高。当选民无法确切地知道谁腐败时，在许多条件下，选民通常会偏爱挑战者而不是任何现任者。这包括大多数政治家腐败，如果可能的腐败的现任者罕见但尤其是粗暴，或者腐败的政客可以快速学习如何更好地提取资源（即变得“更有效地腐败”）。从经验上验证这一假设是具有挑战性的，因为腐败很难确切地观察和衡量，并且由于许多与腐败有关的因素（例如贫困或不平等）可能会解释现任劣势。为了应对这些挑战，该项目依靠广泛的数据来推断罗马尼亚市长选举的研究，包括：（1）：（1）4,000多个公开可获得的资产声明，以检测现有企业的异常财富积累； （2）当地上市公司签订了超过100万份合同，以确定可疑的价格，非竞争性竞标或政治连接的获奖者； （3）对基础设施预算支出的比较与其实际物理库存变化的数据，以识别公共资金支出中的泄漏； （4）来自10,000多家公司的数据，以发现从共产主义继承的国家财产的腐败私有化。此外，该项目利用了罗马尼亚的一个独特的机构：根据法律，一旦城市人口超过一定的门槛，市长的薪水就会增加。先前的研究表明，更好的薪水减少了对非法收入的需求，并吸引了更多的就职候选人，从而导致腐败降低。该规则允许比较在这些工资阈值之上和低于人口的城市中的现任优势（DIS）优势。这些阈值附近的城市在许多其他重要方面应该相似，除了市长的薪水（因此，延伸，腐败）。该策略持续存在其他潜在的可能性劣势原因，并隔离了腐败的影响。更广泛的影响：在罗马尼亚等年轻民主中研究现任劣势，这是有几个原因的重要性。尽管现任劣势可能是对腐败的理想回应，但它也可能引起高政策不稳定，并阻止高质量的候选人竞选政治职务。高政策不稳定和低品质的政治精英都会威胁到经济和社会稳定，并最终危及持续民主和经济增长的前景。不稳定的社会对包括美国利益在内的国际安全和贸易构成威胁。学习如何更好地预期这种不稳定来源可以更好地为外交政策决策和反腐败计划提供信息。