Editing Accountability (section)

== Accountability and corruption ==
Political corruption refers to "the misuse or the abuse of public office for private gains". Corrupt practices include fraud, appropriation of public funds, and accepting bribes.<ref name=":11">{{cite journal|last1=De Vries|first1=Catherine E.|last2=Solaz|first2=Hector|date=11 May 2017|title=The Electoral Consequences of Corruption|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=20|issue=1|pages=391–408|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-052715-111917| doi-access=free|issn=1094-2939}}</ref><ref>{{multiref2
|1={{cite journal|last1=Ferraz|first1=Claudio|last2=Finan|first2=Frederico|date=1 May 2008|title=Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil's Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes|url=https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/123/2/703/1930865|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|language=en|volume=123|issue=2|pages=703–745|doi=10.1162/qjec.2008.123.2.703|citeseerx=10.1.1.222.8752|s2cid=8148400|issn=0033-5533}}
|2={{cite book|title=Helping Countries Combat Corruption. The Role of the World Bank|publisher=World Bank|year=1997}}
}}</ref> Corruption can cause people to negatively evaluate politicians, since citizens may perceive corruption as a signal of poor performance, motivating them to sanction an incumbent.<ref name=":13">{{cite journal|last1=Chong|first1=Alberto|last2=De La O|first2=Ana L.|last3=Karlan|first3=Dean|last4=Wantchekon|first4=Leonard|date=1 January 2015|title=Does Corruption Information Inspire the Fight or Quash the Hope? A Field Experiment in Mexico on Voter Turnout, Choice, and Party Identification|journal=The Journal of Politics|volume=77|issue=1|pages=55–71|doi=10.1086/678766|s2cid=8379010|issn=0022-3816}}</ref> As the model of [[retrospective voting]] suggests that voters incentivize good politicians' behavior by rewarding good performance and punishing bad performance, citizens are expected to sanction corrupt politicians.<ref name=":11" /> However, studies suggest that though voters have a distaste for corruption, they often fail to punish corrupt incumbents; some of them receive benefits from their representatives' corrupt practices, and prefer to retain this type of politician.<ref name=":12">{{cite journal|last1=Klašnja|first1=Marko|last2=Little|first2=Andrew T.|last3=Tucker|first3=Joshua A.|date=July 2018|title=Political Corruption Traps*|journal=Political Science Research and Methods|language=en|volume=6|issue=3|pages=413–428|doi=10.1017/psrm.2016.45|s2cid=155201513|issn=2049-8470}}</ref><ref name=":11" /> In high-corruption contexts, voters may become more tolerant of or even prefer corrupt politicians because others are also perceived as corrupt, leading to a corrupt [[Equilibrium point|equilibrium]] "where voters are generally willing to retain corrupt politicians", referred to as a "political corruption trap".<ref name=":12" /> This high corruption equilibrium is difficult to break due to interaction between corrupt politicians, voters who tolerate and retain corrupt politicians, and potential entrants or challengers who also engage in corrupt practices, leading to the maintenance of corruption.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":14">{{cite book|title=Routledge handbook of comparative political institutions|last1=Gandhi|first1=Jennifer|last2=Ruiz-Rufino|first2=Rubén|year=2015 |isbn=978-1-315-73137-7 |publisher=Routledge |location=Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon|oclc=907374446}}</ref> Economic development is associated with a decrease in corruption.<ref name=":14" /> Freedom of the press contributes to the reduction of corruption by exposing corrupt actions.<ref name=":14" /> Documentation on how a corrupt government (e.g. [[Alberto Fujimori]]'s government from 1998 to 2000 in [[Peru]]) can strategically undermine [[Separation of powers#Checks and balances|checks-and-balances]] institutions, suggests that the news media—i.e. newspapers and mainly television—is crucial to the dissemination of information to the public.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mcmillan|first1=John|last2=Zoido|first2=Pablo|date=December 2004|title=How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru|journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives|language=en|volume=18|issue=4|pages=69–92|doi=10.1257/0895330042632690|s2cid=219372153|issn=0895-3309|url=https://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1173.pdf}}</ref> There is also evidence about the importance of local media, such as local radio stations, in holding corrupt incumbents accountable and in promoting non-corrupt politicians.{{cn|date=July 2023}} Information about corruption may not only lead to vote losses for the incumbent parties, but also for challenging parties, as well the erosion of partisan attachments, which implies that information about corruption also provokes citizens' disengagement from the political process.<ref name=":13" />

Scholarly literature about corruption finds mixed results about the role of political institutions on the level of a country's corruption.<ref name=":14" /> For example, some scholarly research suggests that more horizontal accountability, or oversight across branches of government, would generally decrease corruption.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Kiewiet|first1=D. Roderick|title=The Logic of Delegation|last2=McCubbins|first2=Mathew D.|date=1991-06-18|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-43531-2|language=en}}</ref> However, other research shows that increased oversight could increase corruption when actors in one branch can pressure actors in another to collude; in Ghana, bureaucrats are more likely to engage in corruption on behalf of politicians when politicians have higher levels of discretion to oversee the bureaucracy (e.g., by threatening to transfer noncompliant bureaucrats).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brierley|first=Sarah|date=2020|title=Unprincipled Principals: Co-opted Bureaucrats and Corruption in Ghana|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajps.12495|journal=American Journal of Political Science|language=en|volume=64|issue=2|pages=209–222|doi=10.1111/ajps.12495|s2cid=202313542|issn=1540-5907|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Low accountability for corruption is difficult to combat, and some anti-corruption activities may also lead to perverse consequences.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Fisman |first1=Raymond |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VXgLDgAAQBAJ&dq=corruption+fisman&pg=PP1 |title=Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know |last2=Golden |first2=Miriam A. |author-link2=Miriam A. Golden |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-046397-7 |language=en}}</ref> For example, in places where private sector work pays better than public sector work (e.g., China), highly qualified individuals engaging in public sector work may only find such work attractive because it allows for further compensation through corrupt activities. Government anti-corruption activities can therefore decrease the quality and overall representativeness of the bureaucracy as a result.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Jiang|first1=Junyan|last2=Shao|first2=Zijie|last3=Zhang|first3=Zhiyuan|date=n.d.|title=The Price of Probity: Anticorruption and Adverse Selection in the Chinese Bureaucracy|journal=British Journal of Political Science|volume=52|language=en|pages=41–64|doi=10.1017/S0007123420000393|s2cid=234411216|issn=0007-1234}}</ref> On the other hand, there is evidence that, despite strategic evasion and unintentional consequences, anti-corruption initiatives are beneficial, as they lower malfeasance and increase social welfare, even where strategic evasion is relatively large.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fisman |first1=Raymond |last2=Golden |first2=Miriam |author-link2=Miriam A. Golden |date=26 May 2017 |title=How to fight corruption |journal=Science |language=en |volume=356 |issue=6340 |pages=803–804 |bibcode=2017Sci...356..803F |doi=10.1126/science.aan0815 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=28546172 |s2cid=206658780}}</ref>