Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Does Power Corrupt? An Experimental Approach To Explore the Origins of Corruption in Africa

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Government corruption is widespread in Africa. However, as spectacular as scandalsinvolving corruption in the central government might be, it is the behavior of local officials thatmost citizens directly experience, and it is at this level that government officials may beespecially susceptible given the lack of media presence and bureaucratic oversight. A culture ofcorruption promotes short-term, selfish behavior and punishes behavior that citizens wouldconsider fair and oriented towards the common good, such as egalitarianism and trust. Theconsequences of such behavior can be disastrous.But what causes corruption? Is the widespread corruption in African politics the productof political institutions or of the type of individuals who seek office? Do individuals prone tocorruption self-select into government positions or does holding office condition traits thatunderlie corrupt behavior? Some researchers in political science assert that political institutionsare responsible for corruption in Africa. Others argue that Africa faces widespread corruptionbecause Africans are corrupt, that their culture embeds corruption in tradition and interactions.According to the viewpoint of the former group, that of the institutionalists, corruption arisesafter political officials take office. According to the latter viewpoint, the cultural viewpoint,corruption is ever-present.For my dissertation, I plan to test whether political institutions cause corruption using anovel series of experiments with local-level political leaders in Zambia and Tanzania. SinceZambia and Tanzania have similar national levels of corruption but different corruptionenvironments at the local level, they are compelling comparison cases. Designing research toinvestigate the origins of corruption is difficult, since most of the existing data is based onsurveys of citizens, not based on the behaviors of government officials. Fortunately, there is analternative approach that I plan to utilize in my dissertation. I will gather real politicians toobserve their choices in person, allowing me to observe how choices are made and wherecorruption arises. This method of data collection will allow me to observe the behavior ofgovernment officials rather than studying corruption via third party surveys. I will recruit asample of politicians who ran for local government in Zambia and Tanzania. Some of thesubjects will have won the last election and some of them will have lost, providing me withcomparison groups. With carefully chosen comparison groups, any differences in behavior in myexperiments can be attributed to the political institutions associated with holding office.This work holds promise for both policymaking and science. Donors andinternational organizations believe that corruption undermines prosperous and peacefulgovernments in Africa. While some members of this group believe that the creation and supportof well-designed political institutions can reduce the level and extent of unethical behavior,others believe that such behavior is too culturally entrenched to change. There is little rigorousresearch to inform these positions. My dissertation will help provide a theoretically informed andmethodologically sound examination of the foundations of corruption. Understanding the causesof corruption can enable policymakers to create institutions designed to moderate its existenceand effects. The project also takes an important step forward in the use of politicians asparticipants in the study of corruption. Hundreds of research projects have been designed totackle issues of politics, but none that we know of use actual politicians to investigate thefoundations of the choices of the political elite.