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

政治学博士论文研究：贿赂、裙带关系和庇护的实验研究

• 批准号: 0921884
• 负责人: Catherine Eckel
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Dallas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-06-01 至 2011-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0921884&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

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.

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，降低社会福利，增加收入不平等，并减少对政治机构的信任。即使有反腐败政策，腐败的阴影也很大。反腐败政策的关键挑战是创造可持续的变革。 除了政策本身的变化之外，还必须使公民相信政策干预的有效性。这意味着改变公民？对政府和官僚机构内部腐败程度的看法。以前的研究表明，反腐败政策的成功高度依赖于潜在的文化;同样的政策可以在一种文化环境中成功，但在另一种文化环境中失败。如果反腐败政策措施失败，腐败就可能被视为无法解决的问题。这使得各国在反腐败政策上反复试验的方法风险很大，同时也凸显了反腐败斗争中的一个重要问题：在各国冒险实施反腐败政策之前，政策需要有很高的有效性，但却没有地方可以对其进行测试。在这项提议中，研究人员使用实验室实验来“测试”替代反腐败政策。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盛行的社会中的个人行为。拟议的实验调查三种不同类型的腐败（贿赂，裙带关系和赞助）和三种不同的政策干预（制裁，提高公民意识和提高透明度），在两种不同的文化（美国，腐败非常低，巴基斯坦，它是普遍的）的主题。拟议的实验使我们能够调查腐败政策在每种文化中的影响，而不存在与社会规模上的实施相关的风险。研究的目的是证明这些政策如何（以及何时）可能在廉价和低后果的环境中有效。 调查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。