Gender and Corruption

Historical Roots and New Avenues for Research

Helena Stensöta, Lena Wängnerud, Helena Stensöta, Lena Wängnerud

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319709284
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319709291
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The link between gender and corruption has been studied since the late 1990s. Debates have been heated and scholars accused of bringing forward stereotypical beliefs about women as the "fair" sex. Policy proposals for bringing more women to office have been criticized for promoting unrealistic quick-fix solutions to deeply rooted problems. This edited volume advances the knowledge surrounding the link between gender and corruption by including studies where the historical roots of corruption are linked to gender and by contextualizing the exploration of relationships, for example by distinguishing between democracies versus authoritarian states and between the electoral arena versus the administrative branch of government—the bureaucracy. Taken together, the chapters display nuances and fine-grained understandings. The book highlights that gender equality processes, rather than the exclusionary categories of "women" and "men", should be at the forefront of analysis, and that developments strengthening the position of women vis-à-vis men affect the quality of government.

Part IIntroduction

© The Author(s) 2018

Helena Stensöta and Lena Wängnerud (eds.)Gender and CorruptionPolitical Corruption and Governancehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70929-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Why Expect a Link Between Gender and Corruption?

Helena Stensöta¹ and Lena Wängnerud¹

(1)

Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Helena Stensöta

Lena Wängnerud (Corresponding author)

End Abstract

It happens that you meet with a skeptical smile when you say that you study the link between gender and corruption. Feminist scholars tend to hint that you are trapped in stereotypes, whereas mainstream scholars tend to hint that you are dealing with an aspect of minor importance. Our answer, when met with this skepticism, is that, over and over again, the gender factor gives rise to significant results in studies on corruption—a high presence of women tends to be correlated with low levels of corruption—and there is a need to understand why this correlation appears. Moreover, our point of departure is not that women are inherently “fair,” but that gender differences are rooted in culture and social structures. Thus, the gender factor should not be seen as a monolithic phenomenon, but rather as a hub for complex relationships. The aim of this book is to investigate the historical roots of the effect of gender, to explore relationships between gender and corruption in a large number of contexts, and to discuss new avenues for research. The contribution is not intended to promote one specific gender theory, but to display nuances and fine-grained understanding. The theoretical propositions forwarded by the chapters can only be summarized broadly. Here we will highlight two main ideas:

First, norms attached to regime type and institutions seem to affect how the link between gender and corruption plays out. Gender differences are more suppressed in authoritarian states than in democracies. Even within democracies, they are more suppressed through bureaucracy than in the electoral arena . In short, it is in contexts where there is room for women to maneuver and where norms allow for personal experiences to make an imprint that we most likely can expect the presence of women to curb corruption . Second, the relationship is less about “women” and “men” as exclusionary categories than about gender equality processes. Gender egalitarianism , the striving for equal treatment of women and men, has put countries on a route to good governance , but has also sparked far-reaching changes within organizations such as political parties and has made voters in corrupt contexts look more favorably on female political candidates.

Before we present the various chapters and the ideas behind this book in more detail, we will give an overview of some of the previous research in the area.

Initial Empirical Evidence

It was the article “Are Women Really the “Fairer” Sex? Corruption and Women in Government,” by David Dollar , Raymond Fisman, and Roberta Gatti at the Development Research Group of the World Bank that presented the initial empirical evidence of a link between gender and corruption. The article was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization in 2001, but the main results had, through draft versions, been disseminated before that. In fact, Daniel Kaufmann (1998) at the World Bank was one of the first to mention a possible link between gender and corruption. In 2001, another research group with a connection to the World Bank, consisting of Anand Swamy , Stephen Knack, Young Lee, and Omar Azfar, published a study with similar results to those of Dollar et al. in the Journal of Development Economics. These early studies have been very influential, and they constitute the point of departure for most current research in the field. The article by Dollar et al. presents a large cross-country study and establishes that the proportion of women in parliament has a significant effect on corruption, even when other factors, such as overall level of social and economic development , political and civic freedom, average years of schooling, and ethnic fractionalization are taken into account (Dollar et al. 2001). The core measurements consist of an index of corruption based on the International Country Risk Guide, data from the World Bank and figures for the percentages of women elected to national parliaments from the Inter-Parliamentary Union database. The article is rather short, and the point is to prove the expected relationship: that higher rates of female participation in government are associated with lower national levels of corruption.

In this first study, the assumption that women are more honest than men was never tested but was underpinned by results from previous research suggesting, for example, that women are more likely than men to exhibit “helping” behaviors and to base voting decisions on social concerns (Eagly and Crowley 1986; Goertzel 1983). Dollar et al. pointed to the need to be cautious when interpreting the results, but at the same time they stated that “there may be extremely important spinoffs from increasing female representation : if women are less likely than men to behave opportunistically, then bringing more women into government may have significant benefits for society in general ” (Dollar et al. 2001, pp. 427–428).

The study by Swamy et al. utilized a wider range of data and was more complex in design. Swamy et al. did a cross-country comparative study using data from the International Country Risk Guide, the World Bank, and Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index as measurements of corruption. They distinguished between different forms of female participation : women government ministers, women in national parliaments and women in the labor force. Since all gender factors display significant results on the level of corruption, the researchers merged these categories into a “women’s participation index” (Swamy et al. 2001, p. 43) when they did multivariate analysis and controlled for a set of “standard” variables (GNP per capita, average years of schooling, ethnic and religious factors, colonial history, and political freedoms), to show that, on average, greater female participation results in less corruption. Swamy et al. also used micro data from the World Value Surveys, in which respondents were asked their opinions on the acceptability of various dishonest or illegal behaviors. Moreover, they used micro evidence from a World Bank study of corruption in Georgia , which included a survey of 350 firms. Their analyses showed that firms owned or controlled by men were less likely to “never” pay bribes than those owned or controlled by women, even after controlling for the size, ownership, sector, and scope of the firm and the education of the manager /owner (Swamy et al. 2001, pp. 34–35). Finally, they added data on the changes in women’s position and the extent of corruption within countries over time. They emphasized the use of several distinct datasets and careful analyses when they underpinned their argumentation:

We are making a simple point: to question the central finding of this paper, one needs to argue that the results of careful analyses of several distinct data sets have, by sheer fluke, all been biased in the same direction. Our conclusion, that there is indeed a gender differential in tolerance for corruption , is more plausible (Swamy et al. 2001, p. 25).

Initial Theoretical Reasoning

The study by Dollar and colleagues especially has been accused of bringing forward stereotypical beliefs about women as a new anti-corruption force (e.g., Goetz 2007). One reason for this criticism may be the lack of thorough theoretical reasoning. The group around Swamy included a more comprehensive discussion on the role of the gender factor and ended their article by sugge...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Introduction
• Part II. Citizens and the Electoral Arena
• Part III. Engendering the Bureaucracy
• Part IV. Gender, Change, and Corruption
• Part V. New Avenues for Research
• Back Matter