Political culture, social capital and perceptions of corruption: quantitative research at a world level

In the 1990s, theorists of social capital were led to establishing a direct connection between political culture & the performance of governmental institutions. If such a causal relationship does in fact exist, then it should be possible to identify the cultural factors that are associated with...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Revista de sociologia e política 2003-11, Vol.21 (21), p.51-69
Main Authors: Power, Timothy J, Gonzalez, Julio
Format: Article
Language:Portuguese
Subjects:
Corruption
Crosscultural Analysis
Crossnational Analysis
Cultural Capital
Democracy
Perception
Political Culture
Political science
Quantitative analysis
Social capital
Sociocultural Factors
Sociology
Transparency
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In the 1990s, theorists of social capital were led to establishing a direct connection between political culture & the performance of governmental institutions. If such a causal relationship does in fact exist, then it should be possible to identify the cultural factors that are associated with corruption. In this article, we test this hypothesis at a global level. Using quantitative methods, we develop a series of multivariate models meant to measure the effect of cultural factors -- eg, religious tradition, interpersonal confidence, & law abidance -- on levels of corruption in several countries, using nongovernmental organizations' reputational evaluation of "international transparency" as a dependent variable. This article shows that the level of corruption in a particular country is essentially an attribute of the type of political regime & level of economic development. However, certain cultural characteristics lend explanatory power to these models, thus contextualizing macroeconomic & macropolitical interpretations of corruption. 3 Tables, 2 Graphs, 52 References. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0104-4478