Political parties, political corruption, and the economic theory of democracy

Crime, Law and Social Change

Volumn 27, Issue 3-4, 1997, Pages 255-274

  Hopkin, Jonathan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 27144505759     PISSN: 09254994     EISSN: 15730751     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1008228618203     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. The term "economic" will be used in this paper to refer broadly to theories of politics founded on methodological individualism, rational calculation and the self-interest axiom. Useful introductions to economic theories of politics can be found in: J. Elster, "Introduction," in J. Elster (ed.), Rational Choice (New York: University Press, 1986);
2. P. Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991);
3. and M. Laver, Private Desires, Political Action. An Invitation to the Politics of Rational Choice (London: Sage, 1997).
4. Critical overviews include: K. Monroe (ed.), The Economic Approach to Politics. A Critical Reassessment of the Theory of Rational Action (New York: Harper Collins, 1991);
5. L. Lewin, Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics (Cambridge: University Press, 1991);
6. P. Self, Government by the Market? The Politics of Public Choice (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993);
7. and, most prominently, D. Green and I. Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory. A Critique of Applications in Political Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).
8. S. Rose-Ackerman, Corruption. A Study in Political Economy (New York: Academic Press, 1978).
9. D. Della Porta and A. Vannucci, Corruzione politica e amministrazione pubblica (Bologna: II Mulino, 1994), p. 20.
10. Rose-Ackerman, Corruption. A Study in Political Economy, cit., p. 6.
11. D. Della Porta and Y. Mény, "Introduction: Democracy and Corruption," in D. Della Porta and Y Mény (eds.), Democracy and Corruption in Europe (London: Pinter, 1997), p. 4.
12. A similar definition of corruption - "behaviour in office that is motivated by a desire for personal material gain" - can be found in A. Rogow and H. Lasswell, Power, Corruption and Rectitude (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963), p. 2.
13. It should be stressed at this point that this variable can only ever offer a partial explanation of the emergence of corruption; the arguments presented here suggest how variations in party organisation can have an effect on corruption, all other things being equal.
14. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).
15. Public goods are also indivisible: consumption by one individual has no effect on its consumption by others. A good example is clean air: no-one can be prevented from breathing it, and neither does one individual's breathing reduce the amount available to others (see for example T. Sandler, Collective Action. Theory and Applications (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), ch.1).
16. The classic exposition of the properties of public goods is P. Samuelson, "The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure," Review of Economics and Statistics, 1954 (40), 387-390.
17. For the most developed formulations of the theory of the political entrepreneur, see: N. Frohlich, J. Oppenheimer and O. Young, Political Leadership and Collective Goods (Princeton: University Press, 1971);
18. M. Laver, "Political Solutions to the Collective Action Problem," Political Studies, 1980 (28), 195-209;
19. and M. Laver, Private Desires, Political Action, op. cit. 10.
20. Laver, Private Desires, Political Action, op. cit.