PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
Contacts
Address 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 adminponars@gwu.edu 202.994.5915
NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • Preparing for the Parliamentary Elections of 2021: Russian Politics and Society (Gel’man, Lankina, Semenov, Smyth, and more)

    View
  • Russians supported Putin’s moves in Crimea in 2014. Here’s what’s different in 2021

    View
  • Putin’s Rules of the Game: The Pitfalls of Russia’s New Constitution

    View
  • In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace

    View
  • Russia’s Niche Soft Power: Sources, Targets and Channels of Influence

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • Music and Politics in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2021] April 12, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Gorbachev about the dynamic music scene in contemporary Russia, and how free Russian musicians are to make political statements.
  • How is the Russian Government Coping with Rising Food Prices? [Lipman Series 2021] March 15, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
  • The Communist Party of the Russian Federation: More Than Just Systemic Opposition? [Lipman Series 2021] March 5, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Felix Light and Nikolay Petrov about the contemporary Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including the divisions between its leadership and membership, its attitude toward Alexei Navalny, and why it might be more than just "systemic" opposition after all.
  • Internet Resources: Civic Communication and State Surveillance [Lipman Series 2021] February 16, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Andrei Soldatov and Tanya Lokot about the role of the internet in contemporary Russian politics, including both as a tool of the Russian opposition and as an instrument of the increasingly repressive Russian regime.
  • The Rise of Alexei Navalny's Political Stature and Mass Protest in Russia [Lipman Series 2021] February 1, 2021
    In the first PONARS Eurasia Podcast of 2021, Maria Lipman chats with Greg Yudin about the current protests taking place in Russia, and what Alexei Navalny's growing popular support means for the Putin regime.
  • Russian Social Policy in the COVID-19 Era [Lipman Series 2020] December 21, 2020
    In 2020’s final episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sarah Wilson Sokhey and Ella Paneyakh to discuss Russian social policy in the COVID-19 era, and public perception of Russia’s overall pandemic response.
  • Conscious Parenting Practices in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2020] December 10, 2020
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Julia Yuzbasheva and Maria Danilova to learn more about the proliferation of "conscious parenting" practices in contemporary Russian society.
  • The Transformation of Belarussian Society [Lipman Series 2020] November 11, 2020
    In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Masha Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe about the long-term and short-term factors that led up to the current protests in Belarus, and the ongoing transformation of Belarussian society.
  • Russian Lawmakers Adjust National Legislation to the Revised Constitutional Framework [Lipman Series 2020] October 26, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about ongoing changes to Russia’s national legislation based on the recently revised constitutional framework, and what these changes portend for the 2021 Duma election.
  • Russia's Regional Elections [Lipman Series 2020] September 25, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Graeme Robertson and Konstantin Gaaze about Russia’s September 13 regional elections and whether or not the Kremlin should be worried about upcoming Duma elections.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

When Does Corruption Matter?

  • April 26, 2018
  • Sarah Wilson Sokhey

(PONARS Eurasia) Corruption coupled with related economic stagnation has spurred waves of recent protests in countries like Russia in 2017 and, more recently, in Armenia in April 2018. But commentators have noted that even in these cases, there are still many citizens unwilling to protest and who seek help from the regime, not its downfall. When does corruption actually undermine support for a regime, or even diminish trust among groups in a society? Recent work presented at the conference of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago (April 5-8, 2018) suggests important insights into the role of corruption.

First, corruption can undermine trust in government. Celeste Beesley and Darren Hawkins conducted original survey experiments in Peru and Ukraine, seeking to see whether knowing that government officials participated in corrupt behavior would undermine government legitimacy. The evidence suggests mixed results which may be highly dependent on contextual factors. Beesley and Hawkins find evidence in both Ukraine and Peru that mentioning corruption by local, unelected officials—what they call petty corruption—decreases trust in government. By contrast, mentioning corruption by national election officials—what they refer to as grand corruption—has much less influence on trust in government. Providing information about whether the effects of corruption are positive or negative, however, differ for Peru and Ukraine, and differ within each country across regions, for instance, across Eastern and Western Ukraine.

In short, their results suggest that we know corruption matters, but pinning down its precise effect may be tricky. This makes it difficult to know, for instance, whether the chronic corruption in countries like Russia and Armenia as well as many others will result in any kind of sustained uprising.

Second, work on corruption also continues to suggest that it undermines trust among groups within a country. Such work may suggest another route by which corruption undermines support for a regime. Perhaps corruption undermines trust which leads to more dissatisfaction and/or a more poorly functioning government which in turn, ultimately, undermines the functioning of a country. A long line of research tells us that trust matters including recent, novel findings by Nora Webb Williams. Williams find that rural communities in Kazakhstan fared better when there were legacies of high levels of horizontal trust, here meaning trust between neighbors.

Ekaterina Borisova, Denis Ivanov, and Nathasha Gimpelson presented recent research at MPSA in which they examine how institutional quality influence trust and support for redistribution. They argue that more trusting people will support for redistribution among those who might be suspected of cheating, but only in places with well- functioning institutions in which welfare fraud will be punished.

They test their argument using the Life in Transition II survey which includes 38,000 respondents from 35 countries. In countries with lower levels of corruption, individuals who are more trusting also respond that the poor and unemployed are deserving of support. This is an interesting and important finding: the converse, of course, means that in countries where levels of corruption are higher, more trusting people do not think the poor and unemployed are more deserving of support. This emphasizes the need for both trust and well-functioning institutions to accomplish good outcomes.

The findings from both studies are especially significant for understanding the politics of countries like Russia and others in the post-communist sphere. Corruption itself breeds discontentment, but corruption also results in poorer policy outcomes through more indirect paths; it undermines trust and support for government services that might mitigate inequalities and help the poorest in society. Both pieces of research, then, suggest we should adopt a more nuanced understanding of how, when, and why corruption influences support for a government or regime.

Sarah Wilson Sokhey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a Faculty Associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science, and an Associate Fellow at the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia.

Also see by Sarah Sokhey, “Social Policy & Regime Type,” April 27, 2018.

 

Homepage image credit

Sarah Wilson Sokhey
Sarah Wilson Sokhey
Website | + posts
Assistant Professor
Affiliation

University of Colorado Boulder
Links

University of Colorado Boulder (Bio)
Expertise

Business-State Relations, Comparative Politics, Economic Reform, Pension Reform, Social Policy, Central Asia, Russia
  • Sarah Wilson Sokhey
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/sarah-wilson-sokhey/
    COVID-19 in Russia: What Russians Expected, What They Got, and What They Think About It
  • Sarah Wilson Sokhey
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/sarah-wilson-sokhey/
    Social Policy in Putin’s (Last?) Term
  • Sarah Wilson Sokhey
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/sarah-wilson-sokhey/
    The Political Economy of Pension Policy Reversal in Post-Communist Countries
  • Sarah Wilson Sokhey
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/sarah-wilson-sokhey/
    Social Policy & Regime Type
Related Topics
  • Armenia
  • Corruption
  • Peru
  • Russia
  • Sokhey
  • Ukraine
Previous Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отставка Саргсяна имеет не только внутриполитическое измерение

  • April 25, 2018
  • Sergey Markedonov
View
Next Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

The Anti-Russia Surge in U.S. Politics: Finding Context

  • April 26, 2018
  • Ivan Kurilla
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Непереломный момент: Смена Конституции

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 6, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Кейс Фургала и три мифа режима

  • Kirill Rogov
  • August 5, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.