Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: An Experimental Study of Bribery, Nepotism, and Patronage

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。腐败是阻碍经济发展的最常见因素之一。它阻碍政治和经济增长，减少社会福利，增加收入不平等，减少对政治机构的信任。即使在反腐政策出台的情况下，腐败的阴影仍然很大。反腐政策的关键挑战是创造可持续的变化。除了政策本身的变化外，必须让公民相信政策干预的有效性。这意味着要改变公民吗？对政府和官僚机构内部腐败程度的看法。以前的研究表明，反腐政策的成功高度依赖于潜在的文化；同样的政策可能在一种文化环境中成功，但在另一种文化环境中失败。如果反腐政策措施失败，腐败可能会被视为一个无法解决的问题。这使得反腐政策的试错法对各国来说风险很大，并突显了反腐败中的一个重要问题：政策需要有很高的有效性，国家才会冒险实施，但没有地方可以测试这些政策。在这项建议中，研究人员利用实验室实验对替代的反腐败政策进行“试验”。他们问，与腐败相对较少的社会相比，政策干预如何改变腐败程度较高的社会中的个人行为。拟议中的实验调查了三种不同类型的腐败(贿赂、裙带关系和裙带关系)和三种不同的政策干预(制裁、增强公民意识和提高透明度)，研究对象来自两种不同的文化(腐败非常低的美国和腐败普遍存在的巴基斯坦)。拟议的实验使我们能够调查反腐政策在每种文化中的影响，而不会出现与在社会规模上实施相关的风险。这项研究的目标是展示这些政策如何(以及何时)在一个廉价和低后果的环境中可能有效。研究结果将为发展机构制定针对特定当地人口的政策提供指导。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Corruption is one of most cited factors inhibiting economic development. It impedes political and economic growth, reduces the welfare of societies, increases income inequality, and reduces trust in political institutions. Even in the presence of anticorruption policies, the shadow of corruption looms large. The key challenge in anticorruption policy is to create sustainable change. In addition to the change in policy itself, citizens must be convinced of the effectiveness of the policy intervention. This implies altering citizens? beliefs about the level of corruption within governments and bureaucracies. Previous work has suggested that the success of anticorruption policy is highly dependent on underlying culture; the same policies can succeed in one cultural environment but fail in another. If anticorruption policy measures fail, corruption may then be viewed as a problem that cannot be addressed. This makes the trial and error method of anticorruption policy very risky for countries, and highlights an important problem in fighting corruption: policies need to have a high probability of effectiveness before countries will risk implementation, yet there is no venue where they can be tested.In this proposal, the researchers use laboratory experiments to 'testbed' alternative anticorruption policies. They ask how policy interventions change individual behavior in societies where high levels of corruption are prevalent, as compared with societies where corruption is relatively rare. The proposed experiments investigate three different types of corruption (bribery, nepotism, and patronage) and three different policy interventions (sanctions, enhanced civic awareness, and improved transparency), with subjects in two different cultures (the US, where corruption is very low, and Pakistan, where it is widespread). The proposed experiments allow us to investigate the impact of anticorruption policies in each culture without the risks associated with implementation on a societal scale. The goal of the research is to demonstrate how (and when) these policies are likely to be effective in an inexpensive and low-consequence environment. The results will provide guidance for development agencies in formulating policies targeted towards a particular local population.