The Politics of Corruption in Dictatorships

Vineeta Yadav is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include studying how institutions influence economic development, business-politics, judicial politics and, politics of India, Brazil, and China. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Princeton University, New Jersey. She is the author of Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries (2011) which won the 2013 Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Prize by the APSA Political Organizations and Parties Section, the 2012 Rosenthal Prize by the APSA Legislative Studies Section, and received an Honorable Mention for the 2012 best book award from the APSA Comparative Democratization Section. She is also coauthor of Democracy, Electoral Systems, and Judicial Empowerment in Developing Countries (2014). Bumba Mukherjee is a Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include studying how political institutions affect monetary policy and financial markets, the political economy of financial crises, the impact of democratic politics on trade protection, the design and effect of international institutions, and statistical methodology. He was a Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University, New Jersey and a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He is the author of Globalization, Democracy and Trade Policy in the Developing World (forthcoming) and, coauthor of Democracy, Electoral Institutions, and Judicial Empowerment in Developing Countries (2014).

• 1. Introduction; 2. Geographic concentration and political mobilization by small and medium-sized business firms; 3. SME business association, multiparty legislature, and corruption; 4. Geographic concentration and national SME association in autocracies: the empirical evidence; 5. Empirical analysis of legislative institutions, SME firms, and corruption in autocracies; 6. Jordan: institutional change and corruption; 7. Malaysia: SME mobilization, and corruption; 8. Uganda: the contrarian case; 9. Conclusion and implications.

'Authoritarian regimes have few obvious reasons to check corruption: political opposition can be suppressed, formal accountability is weak, and corruption can be profitable for those at the top. But through data analysis and case studies Yadav and Mukherjee argue that as many as half of all such regimes have apparently reduced corruption to meaningful degrees. The lessons of this fascinating analysis are important for both corruption control and how we understand authoritarian systems: reform need not await democratization, and anti-corruption opportunities can be found in unexpected places.' Michael Johnston, Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Colgate University, New York