Journal Articles

Deliberate Indiscretion? How Political Corruption Encourages Discretionary Policy Making

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This article reports the first empirical evidence that politicians delegate to trusted bureaucrats to diminish political responsibility for policy. Political science has been perennially concerned with why political leaders delegate authority to bureaucrats, but this work’s focus on advanced democracies has overlooked how corruption and political influence over bureaucrats can turn delegation into a means of obfuscating responsibility. Using a measure that differentiates political corruption from corruption at lower levels of government and a new data set of policy making on more than 600 European Commission directives in the 10 former communist European Union (EU) member states, I show that political-level corruption is associated with increased delegation to bureaucrats. This relationship between political corruption and bureaucratic discretion is conditional upon the political independence of the bureaucracy, such that politicians engaged in corruption delegate more to reduce clarity of responsibility only when they possess informal means to influence bureaucrats.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Comparative Political Studies

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications., 2015

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0010-4140

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 48, Issue 6 May 2015, pages 728-758

Subject(s)

Political corruption
Democratic accountability
Bureaucratic discretion

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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