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

政治学博士论文研究：权力会腐败吗？

• 批准号: 1160515
• 负责人: Clark Gibson
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-15 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1160515&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

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.

政府腐败在非洲广泛。但是，就像中央政府中的丑闻腐败一样壮观，正是当地官员直接经历的是地方官员的行为，而在这个层面上，鉴于缺乏媒体存在和官僚主义的监督，政府官员可能尤其容易受到影响。腐败的文化促进了短期，自私的行为，并惩罚了公民对公平和面向共同利益（例如平等主义和信任）的行为。这种行为的提议可能是灾难性的。但是是什么导致腐败？非洲政治中的广泛腐败是政治机构的产物还是寻求就职的个人类型？个人易于自我选择，易于自我选择，还是拥有在腐败行为的办公室条件特征？一些政治学研究人员断言，政治机构负责非洲腐败。其他人则认为，非洲面临广泛的腐败，因为非洲人是腐败的，他们的文化将腐败嵌入了传统和互动中。根据前一个群体的观点，腐败的政治官员就职。根据后一种观点，文化的观点，腐败是永远存在的。对于我的论文，我计划通过使用同步性的一系列实验来测试政治机构是否与赞比亚和坦桑尼亚的地方一级政治领导人进行了一系列实验。自从桑比亚和坦桑尼亚具有相似的国家腐败水平，但在地方一级有不同的腐败环境，它们是令人信服的比较案例。设计研究以研究腐败的起源很困难，因为大多数现有数据都是基于公民的临时性，而不是基于政府官员的行为。幸运的是，我计划在论文中使用隔离方法。我将亲自聚集真正的政客，以便亲自选择他们的选择，让我观察如何做出选择和出现腐败的方式。这种数据收集方法将使我能够观察政府官员的行为，而不是通过第三方调查研究腐败。我将招募竞选赞比亚和坦桑尼亚地方政府的政客。某些人将赢得上次选举，其中一些人会输给我比较比较的团体。通过精心选择的比较群体，我的实验性行为上的任何差异都可以归因于与办公室相关的政治机构。这项工作对政策制定和科学都有希望。捐助者和国际组织认为，腐败会破坏非洲的繁荣与和平腐败。尽管该群体的一些成员认为，建立和支持精心设计的政治机构可以降低不道德行为的水平和程度，而其他人则认为这种行为在文化上太根深就无法改变。几乎没有严格的研究来告知这些职位。我的论文将有助于为腐败基础提供理论上知情的和方法上的合理研究。了解腐败的原因可以使决策者能够创建旨在调节其现有影响的机构。该项目还迈出了重要的一步，即在腐败研究中使用政客天际主义者。数以百计的研究项目被设计为政治问题，但我们知道，我们不知道使用实际的政客来调查政治精英选择的基础。