Bribes and Ballots: The Impact of Corruption on Voter Turnout in 75 Democracies.

Daniel Stockemer (Daniel.Stockemer@web.de) Bernadette LaMontagne (Bernadette.LaMontagne@uconn.edu) Lyle Scruggs (Lyle.Scruggs@uconn.edu)

Department of Political Science University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269 Abstract: While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like to keep their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious effects in democracies is no secret. Numerous scholars have brought into the limelight the impact of corruption on a range of economic and political outcomes. One outcome that has received less attention, however, is voter turnout. Do high levels of corruption push electorates to avoid the polls or turn out in larger numbers? Though of great consequence to the corruption and voter turnout literature, few scholars in either area have tackled this question and none has done so with aggregate level data. Equipped with a new dataset, this paper engages in this endeavor through an analysis of 75 democratic states. Incorporating corruption into Blais baseline model for voter turnout, we make two substantial findings. First, the results reveal that corruption is negatively related to democratic electoral participation: as corruption increases, the percentage of people who go to the polls decreases. Second, this significant outcome exposes a major shortcoming in the baseline model and voter turnout literature in general: the omission of a relevant variable. In order to provide a more complete model, future analyses that seek to understand variations in turnout should include the variable of corruption.

The senate seat is a .valuable thing, you dont just give it away for nothing -Except from Illinois Governor Blagojevichs taped conversation that led to his impeachment

While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like to keep their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious consequences is no secret. Scholars of both political science and economics have brought into the limelight the numerous impacts of corruption or the misuse of public office for private gains1. Research has uncovered corruptions impact on economic growth, stability, and trade (Merton 1957; Leff 1964; Nye 1967; Huntington 1968; Mo 2001) inequality (Li, Xu, and Zou 2000; Gupta, Davoodi, and Alonso-Terme 2002), investment (Mauro 1995: Wei 2000), interpersonal trust (Seligson 2002), as well as citizen satisfaction with and confidence in democracy (Pharr and Putnam 2000; Wagner, Schneider, and Halla 2008). Yet, despite the widespread attention paid to the predominantly negative impacts of corruption on a number of outcomes, few scholars have investigated the nature of corruptions impact on democratic participation, particularly at the polls. Do electorates mobilize at election time to oust (or support) corrupt officials, or rather, do they become disengaged and abstain from voting as corruption increases? More generally, does increased corruption push electorates in democratic states to vote, or does it influence them to avoid the polls at election time? While the answer to this intriguing question could help shed light on another potential outcome of corruption and an additional determinant of voter turnout, only a handful of scholars (Dominguez and McCann 1998; Kostadinova 2003; Kostadinova

This definition differs slightly from that of Lipset and Lenz (2002, 112) who define corruption as private gain at public expense. In contrast, Rose-Ackermans (2008) definition highlights that corruption is misuse of public officea specification that, while leav[ing] open the issue of what constitutes misuse, takes into account that some private benefits accrued to bureaucrats are legitimate (551).

2009; Simpser 2004) in either the corruption or turnout literature have taken up the corruptionturnout nexus at all. Those who have addressed the question, however, have taken a specific country view (Dominguez and McCann 1998), a regional focus (Kostadinova 2003; Kostadinova 2009) or have restricted their attention to authoritarian states and electoral fraud (Simpser 2004). Consequently, their analyses offer at best, only preliminary evidence or conjectures about the macro-level relationship between these variables, leaving largely unanswered the question of how citizens of democracies around the world act in the face of increased corruption. This study represents the first attempt to fill this gap by answering the question at the aggregate level. Equipped with a new dataset covering 75 democratic countries and all democratic elections for which data were available, the authors analyze the impact of corruption on voter turnout around the world. To investigate this puzzle, the paper proceeds as follows. The first section will highlight the existence and potential impact of corruption and points out the dearth of scholarship addressing corruption and voter turnout. In the second section, the authors will look to the few prior studies on the potential relationship between corruption and turnout. The third section will present the international dataset and the standard model of turnout (which does not include corruption). The fourth part will present the model estimates and the assessment of corruptions impact on turnout. Finally, the authors will summarize the main findings and suggest some further avenues for research. Corruption in Democracies The misuse of public office for private purposes is widespread in democracies and very problematic, given the potential economic and political effects of corruption.2 Though early
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In the United States alone between the years 2001 and 2006, there were almost 6,000 convictions for public corruption offenses (U.S. Department of Justice 2008). Other democracies (e.g. India, Italy, and Hungary) also struggle with abuse of public office for private gain. In Italy and Hungary, for example, favoritism among

scholars (e.g., Merton 1957; Leff 1964; Nye 1967; Huntington 1968) maintained that corruption helped business in countries with slow or inefficient ``bureaucracies 3(Kawata 2006), more recent scholarship (North 1990; Ades and Di Tella 1996; Mauro 1997; Gupta, Davoodi, and Alonso-Terme1998; Fisman and Svensson 2000; Podobnik et al 2008), has countered these rosy claims, highlighting the numerous dangerous impacts of corruption. One area that may be affected most is a countrys economy. Not only can governments lose significant portions of much needed revenue as they are unable to tax money hidden as bribes (Podobnik 2008, 409), but corruption also dissipates resources that could have been used productively. Bribery in particular, makes economic transactions irrational when governmental jobs end up going to the highest bribe payer instead of the lowest paying best quality provider (410) and the higher risk of bad contracts means that corruption may also provide disincentives to invest (North 1990)4. Perhaps even more detrimentally, corruption can corrode the institutions and foundation of democracy itself (Brooking/Transparency International 2004; Warren 2004). Specifically, corruption produces inefficient delivery of public services, as corrupt officials redirect money and vital services away from a general population that is democratically entitled to them (Warren 2004; Podobnik 2008). More fundamentally, corruption, such as bribes and graft, erodes the

government officials is more the norm than an anomaly (Global Competitiveness Report 2008). Fledgling democracies are especially affected, as corruption ranks among the top three problematic factors to doing business in the Dominican Republic, surpassing factors such as tax rates, tax regulations, inefficient bureaucracy2, restrictive labor regulations, an inadequately educated workforce, as well as access to financing2 (Global Competitiveness Report 2008, 150-188). 3 These authors assert that corruption quickens monetary transactions by allowing politicians to circumvent poorly functioning government and bribes provide incentives for civil servants to work harder. Additionally, the black market created by corruption deals would further promote the survival and growth of more efficient firms by allowing richer resourceful firms to outbid poorer weaker companies. 4 Recent studies (Mauro 1997; Podobnik et al 2008) have found, for example, that when a states corruption increases by two points on a ten point scale, GDP decreases by .5 percent, and investment declines by 4 percent (Mauro 1997). In addition, a decrease in corruption by one unit leads to an annual decrease in the GDP growth rate of 1.7 percent. The impact is even more profound for European countries, where a decrease in corruption by a single unit generates an increase in the annual GDP growth rate by 2.4 percent (Podobnik et al 2008).

principle pillars of democracy when they transform what should have been institutionalized rights and protections of citizens into favors, to be repaid in kind (Warren 2004, 328). When sufficiently widespread, corruption can chip away at a citizens civic-mindedness and interpersonal trust (Seligson 2002), making citizens skeptical of not only those officials who engage in corruption, but most or all public officials whether or not they are guilty (Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Warren 2004). As a result, corruption has been shown to compromise citizens satisfaction with the performance of their political system (Anderson and Tverdova 2003) and even leach down to the roots of democracy, decreasing citizens satisfaction with democracy (Wagner, Schneider, and Halla 2008) trust in democratic institutions (Mishler and Rose 2001), their confidence in the performance of democracy (Pharr and Putnam 2000) and ultimately, their belief in the legitimacy of democratic states (Seligson 2002). What is of high concern is that it is precisely this civic-mindedness and trust (lost to corruption) that is believed necessary for bolstering democratic participation, an essential component of democracy. Putnam (1993) asserts that civic engagement (including turnout) requires a community bound together by horizontal relations of reciprocity and cooperation, not by vertical relations of authority and dependency and a community in which leaders are, and conceive themselves to be, responsible to their fellow citizens (88)5. If, however, this civic mindedness is lost to corruption, citizens may lose faith in politicians and at worst, no longer see elections as instruments of democracy (Powell 2000) worth their time and effort. This is particularly troublesome, given that high voter apathy signals to politicians that they will not be publically sanctioned for their corrupt actions (Heidenheimer and Johnston 2002, 142). Provided

Putnam (1993) in fact, conducted a preliminary test of this assertion by examining the impact of clientelism on voter turnout in Italy, and found a strong negative association (93).

with this incentive to become even more corrupt, politicians may increase their engagement in these activities (Rose-Ackerman 1975; Holbrooke and Meier 1993), entangling a country in a spiral of decreased engagement and increased corruption. While theory would suggest that corruption decreases voter turnout in democracies, no study has yet tested on a macro-level whether this is in fact the case. Indeed the answer to this question has not only intrinsic intrigue and important ramifications for uncovering additional impacts of corruption, but also could advance the vast literature on voter turnout. In particular, one of the main goals of the turnout literature has been to build an aggregate level model, so as to better understand declining turnout rates across democracies in recent years (Weisberg 2004; Franklin 2004)6. Corruption, if significant, may provide an important key to this puzzle, adding to evidence that decreased civic-engagement is perhaps at least partially responsible for turnout drop-off. An examination of corruption is also important for the turnout literature for methodological reasons, seeing that if this variable is statistically significant, it would signal that existing models of turnout are flawed. At best, the omission of such a relevant variable would signify that scholars have consistently built incomplete models of why voters turnout at elections. At worst, the omission of a relevant could mean that other coefficients are biased- potentially skewing the answers to the important questions of voter turnout. For these reasons, it is essential to determine what, if any, is the impact of corruption on voter turnout. Yet, like the corruption literature, the voter turnout literature has thus far has consistently omitted this potentially significant variable from most of its analyses. Scholars of voter turnout

Between the 1970s and the late 1990s turnout rates fell by 4.4 percent in established democracies (Franklin 2004, 10)

have instead focusing on other important institutional, socioeconomic and contextual factors such as wealth (Blais 2006), economic inequality (Dahl 2006, Goodin and Drysek 1980, Schattschneider 1960; Solt 2008; Mahler 2002; Boix 2003; Lister 2007; Anderson and Baramendi 2008; Brady 2004; Oliver 2001), the electoral system (Ladner and Millner 1999; Franklin 2001) or presidentialism (Lijphart 2001), as well as the closeness of the race (FauvelleAymar and Abel 2006). Corruption has not factored in as part of the models. Given the importance of examining corruption and turnout and the dearth of scholarship on this topic, this paper seeks to engage in this endeavor by providing the first cross-national comparative study of corruptions impact on turnout in all democratic states. Corruption and Turnout: Studies on the corruption-turnout link are currently very limited and the few that exist focus on a particular region or country, particularly in new democracies. Most of these studies have hinted at, or provided preliminary evidence of, a negative relationship between corruption and voter turnout7. While Kostadinova (2009) has pointed out that corruption may initially mobilize voters to turnout to overthrow corrupt politicians in post-Communist countries, she reports that the current relationship is rather, negative as increased abuse has led to distrust in the political process and alienation from politics. Kostadinova (2003) further notes that this exhaustion and disappointment experienced by a public confronting high levels of corruption may push voters to withdraw from voting (743)8. Dominguez and McCann (1998) hint at similar negative

Two earlier studies on political culture in the United States, however, do find opposite results. Johnston (1983) finds corruption to positively correlate with voter turnout and Peters and Welch (1980) find no association.

reactions to corruption, and in particular electoral fraud, during Mexican elections. The authors conclude that those who believed that voting decided how Mexico was governed were more likely to turn out to vote while those who expected elections to be fraudulent were more likely to stay at home on election day (497). In one of the few cross-national regression analyses of corruption and turnout, Simpser (2004) finds that electoral corruption is negatively related to voter turnout in 88 countries between 1990 and 2000. Simpser (2004) sees this low turnout as voters response to their belief that elections are fraudulent. While underlining the same negative relationship as other studies, this analysis, like that of Dominquez and McCann (1998) is limited to electoral fraud rather than corruption in general. Furthermore, Simpsers (2004) analysis focuses primarily on authoritarian regimes, which experience on average much higher levels electoral fraud, and corruption for that matter, than democratic countries. While these studies provide interesting regional or country level studies, the general effect of corruption on turnout in democracies is currently unknown. This study helps to fill this gap by examining, through regression analysis, 75 countries that have democratic elections. Theoretical and Empirical Model and Data Assessing the impact of corruption on turnout among all liberal democracies requires starting with a basic model of turnout and adding corruption to that baseline. While there is not a single, definitive model for a cross-national voter turnout, Blais (2006) model (derived from Jackman (1987) and Powell (1982) is chosen as it suggests the core of such a model and includes the set of variables commonly found significant in other studies of turnout. In accordance with prior literature on turnout, authoritarian countries are excluded from the study, given that political choices are severely limited in these cases and it is more likely that at least some turnout figures
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have been manipulated by leaders. For these reasons, only elections that are considered free and fair, (i.e. they have a Polity IV score of at least 6) are included in the analysis. Although derived from a dataset covering all democratic elections since 1972, the data in this study covers democratic elections between 1996 and 2009 as a result of sparse corruption data preceeding the year 1996. Because most countries have experienced only two or three elections after 1996, the analysis is performed by randomly selecting one post 1996 election per country. 910 This process yields a sample of 75 democratic elections, which form the basis of the study on corruption and voter turnout.11 The baseline model: Following the baseline model of Blais (2006), this study includes the dependent variable, turnout, and six controls commonly found significant in previous studies on turnout. These controls are organized into three categories specifically, institutional, socioeconomic and contextual factors. After the discussion of these variables and the results obtained from this baseline model, the addition of corruption in the model will be addressed.

The full dataset, which will be introduced elsewhere, can be received by e-mail from either Lyle Scruggs (Lyle.Scruggs@uconn.edu) or Daniel Stockemer (d.stockemer@web.de). 10 There is no corruption data either by the World Bank or by Transparency International before 1996; consequently restricting the analysis to the period following 1996. 11 As a validation check, the authors also ran a regression with the most recent cross-sectional data for each country. The results triggered from this cross-sectional specification are very similar to the results obtain from the regression where we randomly chose one election year. In both models, turnout has been substantively negatively and statistically significantly affected by corruption

Turnout: Turnout, our dependent variable, is measured, as it is typically the case in the voter turnout literature and in Blais(2006) reviews, as the percentage of eligible adult citizens that cast their ballot in the national legislative elections of their country.12 Institutional Factors: Three variables are included in the model as institutional factors: compulsory voting laws, electoral system type and, decisiveness of the election. The first of these variables, compulsory voting laws, is widely found to lead to higher voter turnout at election time (Jackman 1987; Franklin 2004; Blais 2006). The analysis introduces a dummy variable for compulsory voting rules. Countries must have official sanction for failing to vote, to be included in the category; countries with compulsory voting laws. The electoral system type is included as the second institutional factor. Scholars (e.g. Ladner and Millner 1999) have found that proportional representation (PR) in multi-member districts produces higher turnout rates than systems with single member districts or plurality/ majority voting. The rationale behind this is that voters in majoritarian systems have little incentive to vote when their district is safe or undisputed (Ladner and Millner 1999). However, in PR systems, because the number of votes approximately translates into the number of seats, voters are more likely to see an incentive to vote. Under PR, parties are also more likely to mobilize people throughout the country, as every vote they might

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The turnout data originates from the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (http://www.idea.int/vt/choosing.cfm) and from Adam Carrs election archive (http://psephos.adam-carr.net/. ) This data was complemented by data from the parliamentary site of each country, if the relevant election data was not included in either of the two sites mentioned above.

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gain potentially counts for them. This contrasts with plurality, in which parties concentrate their resources in competitive districts.13 As a third factor, it is also important to consider the decisiveness of the electoral race. Because of the higher stakes, more important elections are constantly reported to trigger higher vote shares, as less important elections (Blais and Dobrzynska 1998). In this analysis a decisive election is one in which all of the important seats of government are simultaneously open to be filled. In contrast, an indecisive election is one in which large numbers of seats are contested at varying times. The coding for decisiveness is performed in accordance with the scheme developed by Blais and Dobrzynka (1998). Specifically, an election is considered maximally decisive (coded 1) if all major elected positions are determined in the election14, partially decisive (coded .5) if there is an alternative election cycle for one of the following: president, provincial government, or second chamber, and not decisive, if more than one of the three institutions of power are elected at a time that is not simultaneous with the lower house election in our sample15. Socioeconomic factors: The model also controls for socioeconomic factors, such as wealth and country size. These two are included on the basis of Blais (2006) reports that turnout is negatively affected by income, and positively affected by being a very small country. While the exact mechanism connecting
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In this analysis mixed-proportional systems are coded as proportional. Scholars such as Lijphart (2001) also argue that presidentialism may reduce turnout as it makes legislative elections less decisive. This paper attempts to capture this effect by including a control for the decisiveness of the election (see below). 14 Elections in a unitary, unicameral parliamentary system are all maximally decisive. 15 Brazil and the United states provide two examples of federal, bi-cameral, and presidential democracies, and can be used to illustrate the coding scheme. In Brazil, the lower house election in 2002 is highly decisive given that the Presidential (the first round), Senate, and state-level elections occurred at the same time as the election of the Chamber of Deputies). In contrast, in the United States, Congressional elections in the U.S. score between 0 and .5 in their decisiveness score, depending on whether the presidency is being contested. (Almost all of the lower houses of the states have 2 year terms which are held concurrently with the federal election cycle). The analysis does not consider the election years to be decisive seeing as only one-third of the Senate is elected during a two-year period.

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country size to voter turnout is currently in dispute, this variable, plus wealth are both included in the model. In this analysis, national wealth is measured as per capita income (at purchasing power parity), and very small states as those countries with a population under two million.16 Contextual factors It is also important to control for the competitiveness of the race. Whereas close races are widely found to effect increased participation in elections, larger margins are associated with lower turnout. The rationale behind this reasoning is when the margin of success between two contenders is expected to be minimal, a very small number of votes could decide the outcome of the election. Such a scenario could tempt those citizens who usually stay home, but who have a slight preference for one of the candidates, to go out to vote. Additionally, close races are more likely to attract higher media coverage and campaign activity, pressuring more citizens to participate (Fauvelle-Aymar and Abel 2006). Competitive races (in which the vote shares of the top two parties are within 5 percent of each other) are coded one and uncompetitive races (where the margin is higher than 5 percent) are coded zero.17 Specification and results of the baseline model: Turnout = 0 + 1 D_ Compulsory Voting + 2 Decisiveness 3 + D_Electoral System + 4 GDP per capita + 5 D Small size + 6 Election Competitiveness + .

The data were gathered from the Penn World Table (Heston, Summers and Aten 2006) and were supplemented with UN data on real economic growth per capita after 2004. The population data are from the UN. 17 Election data including closeness, decisiveness, electoral system type, and competiveness are from Bourbeau and Scruggs (2007), the Center on Democratic Performance (2009), the database Parties and Elections in Europe (2009) and national parliament websites of the included countries.

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Turnout D_Compulsary voting Decisiveness of the race D_PR GDP per capita Small State Closeness of the race Intercept Rsquared = .3 N=75

Beta 21.322 16.570 0.552 .0002 1.959 -.033 50.468

SE 6.526 5.471 3.610 .0001 4.071 .176 5.813

Sig. .002 .003 .988 .066 .633 .851 .000

This baseline model yields two significant variables. Both compulsary voting laws and desisive races significantly increase turnout rates. Holding all other variables constant, countries which obligate citizens to turn out at elections have, on average, turnout rates that are 20 percentage points higher than those countries where voting is volontarily. The model further predicts, that compared to non-decisive races, decisive races entice around 17 percentage points more citizens to turn out at elections. The final factor, which is, however, only marginally significant is the GDP per capita. Wealthier countries tend to have somewhat higher turnout rates. However, this factor is only significant at the 10 percent level (p<.1). This article does not find support for the three other conventional claims. The estimates for proportional representation and small state are small and neither statistically significant nor substantively important. Concerning the former factor, proportional representation, the results of this paper are consistent with Blais (2006) recent findings. After controlling for the decisiveness of the election, PR systems do not trigger higher turnout rates, any more. Similar to PR, the size of the country does not impact turnout. Finally, the last factor, the closeness of the election, has

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an unexpected sign (although the estimate is far from being statistically significant) and also appears substantively irrelevant Adding Corruption to the Model: Having presented the specification and results of Blais baseline model, corruption is added to the model. While there exist several indicators of corruption that differ from each other in their precise definition and method of aggregating sub-indicators, (e.g. The Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International), International Country Risk Guide (Political Risk Services), and Control of Corruption (World Bank, Kaufmann, Kraay, Mastruzzi 2003)), all three of these measures have been found to be highly correlated with each other (Svensson 2005, 22). This study employs the Control of Corruption measure from the World Bank, given that the World Bank researchers draw on 33 sources provided by 30 different organizations and use reasonably comparable methodologies from one year to the next to build the indicator.18 Another advantage of the World Bank Control of Corruption measure is that it is available for all countries for all years since 1996. Specification and results of the model including corruption Turnout = 0 + 1 D_ Compulsory Voting + 2 Decisiveness 3 + D_Electoral System + 4 GDP per capita + 5 D Small size + 6 Election Competitiveness + 7 Control of Corruption + .

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As it is the case with any of the other indicators, the World Bank Control of Corruption Indicator is not without its problems. One problem involves measurement. The World Bank researchers measure governance in units that are scaled to have a zero mean and a unit standard deviation in each period. Yet, the per-country average scores of the corruption indicator do not change considerably from one time period to the next. This should allow researchers to draw reasonable conclusions about the level of corruption in a specific country.

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Turnout Corruption D_Compulsary voting Decisiveness of the race D_PR Closeness of the race GDP per capita Small State Intercept Rsquared = .34

Beta 6.112 21.198 16.554 1.080 -.081 -.0001 .659 52.668 N=75

SE 3.019 6.378 5.351 3.567 .174 .0002 4.032 5.788

Sig. .047 .001 .003 .763 .645 .534 .633 .000

As hypothesized, corruption has a statistically significant and substantially negative impact on voter turnout. Holding all other variables constant, the model predicts that per unit increase in Control of Corruption (which ranges from -.2.5 to 2.5), turnout increases by 6 points. Hypothetically, this means that the most corrupt countries have 30 percentage points fewer citizens turning out than the least corrupt countries at elections. With one exception (the GDP per capita), the sign and the magnitude of the other variables in the model does not change. Both compulsory voting laws and the decisiveness of the election continue to drive turnout in this second model. The model still predicts an increase in the vote by more than 20 percentage points once compulsory voting is established, holding all other factors in the model constant. Similarly, voting increases by 16 percentage points, when changing from a non-decisive to a decisive election. The only major change in the model is that the variable the GDP per capita is no longer (marginally) significant and the sign switches. This change is due a high positive correlation (R = .84) between the variable GDP per capita and

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Control of Corruption.19 The three insignificant variables remain basically unchanged from the previous model. The substantive repercussions of the findings derived from this article are multi-fold. First, this study adds to the list of negative consequences of corruption. Corruption not only undermines good governance, the rule of law, economic development, and moral values (see: Mauro 1995, Kaufmann 1997, Karklins 2005), but also hinders citizens participation at elections. Thus, corruption has a negative impact on citizens involvement. This influence might be both direct and indirect. It may be direct because people might become disgruntled with the political establishment and more importantly, lose trust in their political representative(s). In such an environment, horizontal relations of reciprocity and cooperation which, according to Putnam (1993) are a prerequisite for the functioning of democracy, cannot flourish. Rather, suspicious of politicians, potential voters might turn their back on their representatives. The impact of corruption on turnout might also be indirect. As established elsewhere, corruption decreases good governance and economic growth. Confronted with bad economic and political performance of their countries, voters might get (further) alienated from their politicians and stay at home at election time. The impact on corruption on voter apathy appears be especially strong in newer and growing democracies. For example, many (non-consolidated) Latin American or African democracies (e.g, Mali or Mexico) are characterized by high rates of corruption and relatively

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This high multicollinarity renders it problematic to leave both variables, the GDP per capita and the Control of Corruption in the model. The authors of this article ran a specification that includes Control of Corruption and drops the GDP per capita. While only dropping the R-squared by less than point, this specification renders the impact of the factor Control of Corruption somewhat stronger and more robust. Based on these findings the authors suggest including the variable Control of Corruption in the baseline turnout model and eliminating the variable the GDP per capita.

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low voter turnout. Consequently, corruption might be one factor that prevents at least some of the third or fourth wave democracies from fully materializing. Most likely bribery, despotism as well as vote and seat buying will contribute to a phenomenon, which ODonnell (1996) labels delegative democracy.20 In recent democracies corruption might not only increase the gulf between citizens and policy makers, it might also create distrust between different relevant political actors and institutions. In particular, the degree to which corruption affects vertical and especially horizontal accountability in fledgling democracies is a subject that has not received much attention. Future research should tackle this question more thoroughly. More generally, corruption might be one of the factors for why democracies have experienced declining voter turnout in the last thirty years or so. While corruption might have been present since politics exist, it has become more and more the focus of media and public attention in the last 20 or 30 years. This increased attention might not only have increased peoples awareness of the problem, but might have also contributed to a loss of trust in politicians and/or in the political system, in general. This link between declining turnout and the presence of corruption should be researched more thoroughly. If and to what degree it exists should be examined by future studies. Conclusion: This study constitutes an important addition to both the corruption and turnout literature. First, this study adds to the corruption literature in that it establishes another negative consequence of bribery, clientilism, nepotism, or illegal payments made to public agents with the goal of

Delegative democracy refers to a mixture of representative democracy and authoritarianism. It inherits free and contested election from the former and non-democratic methods of power consolidation from the latter. In particular, a delegative democracy lacks vertical and horizontal accountability two salient features for the consolidation of democracy.

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obtaining benefits or avoiding costs. Corrupt practices not only hinder economic and social development, they also prevent democracies from functioning properly. Citizens in corrupt democracies might not be able or might not want to establish trustworthy relations with their representative and are confronted with mediocre governance performance. As a result, In combination with the mediocre or bad economic performance of the state (the other consequence of corruption), people get disconnected with the system and prefer to stay at home instead of casting their ballot at Election Day. Second, this study adds to vast literature on turnout in that it introduces a new relevant variable, which future studies should include in any turnout model. While the omission of the corruption variable, except for the variable the GDP per capita, does not fundamentally change the turnout function, it renders any turnout model less powerful. The variable corruption is both statistically significant and substantively relevant in explaining and predicting voter turnout. In fact, its inclusion increases the explanatory power of the model by around 15 percent. Thus, with the inclusion of corruption into the turnout function, researchers might be in a better position to explain and even more importantly predict turnout. Not only does this research provide novel findings, it also opens up a whole battery of questions for future research. As already suggested in the results section, future studies should try to establish the link between corruption and the consolidation of democracy. Does corruption hinder fledging democracies from maturating? This is a question is not only of interest for the democracy literature, but also relevant for practitioners and international organizations involved in democracy assistance. More generally, research should try to uncover whether corruption is one relevant factor that helps explain the falling turnout rates in the past 30 years. It is possible

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that both the continued presence and increased public awareness of corruption, contributes to the the factors why more and more people lose trust in their respective political system. As an addition to this study, it might also be interesting to find out what the impact of corruption on unconventional political participation is. Disgruntled with the system, people in corrupt countries might be befallen with a general political apathy and become disconnected with politics. However, it might also be the case that citizens might become angered and furious with the system and turn to more radical forms of political actions such as demonstrations or boycotts. Future research should examine these two hypotheses, so that we can get a more comprehensive picture of the influence of corruption on political participation.

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Works Cited: Ades, Alberto and Di Tella, Rafael 1996. The Causes and Consequences of Corruption: A Review of Recent Empirical Contributions. Institute of Development Studies 27(2): 6 -11. Anderson, Christopher J., and Yuliya V. Tverdova. 2003. Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies. American Journal of Political Science 47 (1): 91-109. Blais, Andr 2006. What Affects Voter Turnout. Annual Review of Political Science 9: 111-25. Blais, Andr and Agnieska Dobrzynska 1998. Turnout in Electoral Democracies. European Journal of Political Research 33: 239-61. Boix, Carles 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourbeau James and Lyle Scruggs 2007. Modeling and Forecasting Electoral Participation around the World: Voter Turnout in Democratic Regimes, 1972-2006. Paper presented at the American Political Science Meeting, Chicago, August 31th, Brady, Henry E. 2004. An Analytical Perspective on Participatory Inequality and Income Inequality. Social Inequality, ed, Kathryn. M.Neckerman, New York: Russell Sage Foundation: 667702. Center on Democratic Performance 2009. Election Results Archive. Accessed on 12/14/08 from http://www.binghamton.edu/cdp/era/countries/ Dahl, Robert A. 2006. On Political Equality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dominguez, Jorge I. and James A. McCann. 1998. "Mexicans React to Electoral Fraud and Political Corruption, Electoral Studies. 17(4): 483-503. Fauvelle-Aymar, Christine and Francois Abel 2006. The impact of closeness on turnout: An empirical relation based on a study of a two round ballot, Public Choice 127(3-4): 461483. Franklin, Mark 2004. Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democracies since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Global Competitiveness Report- (Renamed World Economic Forum 2009) Goodin Robert and John Dryzek 1980. Rational Participation: The Politics of Power, British Journal of Political Science 10(3): 273-290.
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