The historical origins of corruption in the developing world: a comparative analysis of East Asia

A new approach has emerged in the literature on corruption in the developing world that breaks with the assumption that corruption is driven by individualistic self-interest and, instead, conceptualizes corruption as an informal system of norms and practices. While this emerging neo-institutionalist approach has done much to further our understanding of corruption in the developing world, one key question has received relatively little attention: how do we explain differences in the institutionalization of corruption between developing countries? The paper here addresses this question through a systematic comparison of seven developing and newly industrialized countries in East Asia. The argument that emerges through this analysis is that historical sequencing mattered: countries in which the "political marketplace" had gone through a process of concentration before universal suffrage was introduced are now marked by less harmful types of corruption than countries where mass voting rights where rolled out in a context of fragmented political marketplaces. The paper concludes by demonstrating that this argument can be generalized to the developing world as a whole

Challenges to Democracy in Developing Countries

This chapter explores the diverse challenges that democracy faces in developing countries. Developing countries include the vast majority of political regimes in the world, many of which are countries that transitioned to democracy in the last four decades or so. They include all of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Eurasia, and most of Asia. Democracy varies within this large subset of countries, and developing countries face distinct challenges, as opposed to developed democracies in North America and Western Europe that include, namely, the heterogeneity of democratic practices, the uneven reach of the state and the rule of law, state capture by economic and private interests, and political violence.The three components of a democratic regime ? free and fair elections, participatory rights of voting and being elected, and a set of surrounding freedoms that support the likelihood of these elections and citizens? participatory rights (O?Donnell 2010) ? presuppose the concept of citizenship, on the one hand, and the existence of the state, on the other. Citizenship rights and a consolidated state are often taken for granted in democracies in the developed world. But many of the tensions that democracies in developing countries face are often related to the uneven extension of citizenship rights and the incapacity of the state to enforce the rule of law homogeneously throughout its territory. Democracies in the developing world are often uneven democracies, where there is an economic center and a periphery, where not all citizens enjoy the same rights in practice, where parts of the state may be captured by private interests, and where the state?s monopoly of the use of force may be disputed by armed groups, among others. The challenges faced by democracies in developing countries are manifold and this is the focus of this chapter.Fil: Behrend, Jacqueline Mariela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentin