Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries

Vineeta Yadav author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:5th May '11

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Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries cover

Political corruption is one of the globe's most pressing yet seemingly permanent problems. It is a root cause of low growth and inequality, and plagues numerous nations throughout the world in varying degrees. In the past, it proved difficult to measure, and the political science literature on it was thin. In recent years, political scientists have greatly improved their analytical tools for analyzing and contextualizing corruption, and it is now a hot topic in the discipline. In Political Parties, Business Groups, and Corruption in Developing Countries, Vineeta Yadav examines corruption levels in sixty-four developing democracies over a twenty-year period. Her comparative focus is on Brazil and India, two of the most important developing nations. Drawing from a 2005-06 survey of Brazilian and Indian businesses that she conducted, Yadav finds that legislative institutions are central in determining the degree and type of corruption. Most importantly, in legislatures where the party holds sway (as opposed to individual legislators), the level of corruption is higher. Party costs are higher than that of any one legislator, which explains part of the difference. More fundamentally, the fact that different systems offer different incentives to business groups and legislatures explains why some systems are less corrupt than others. Given structural variation across democratic political systems, her book allows to predict which states are most susceptible to political corruption, and which reforms might best alleviate the problem.

Vineeta Yadav's book is full of brilliant insights, fascinating paradoxes, and compelling empirical narratives about corruption and lobbying Brazil, India, and other developing countries. Counter-intuitively, Yadav finds that strong political parties in developing country democracies can lead firms' lobbying efforts to tend toward political corruption. Yadav's book is essential reading for scholars, policy makers, and managers who do business in emerging markets. * Rawi Abdelal, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School *

ISBN: 9780199735914

Dimensions: 155mm x 231mm x 20mm

Weight: 386g

288 pages