Luigi Manzetti

Why Do Corrupt Governments Maintain Public Support

This article addresses an issue often neglected by the current literature on political corruption: Why do citizens support corrupt governments? The authors argue that people in countries where government institutions are weak and patron-client relationships strong are more likely to support a corrupt leader from whom they expect to receive tangible benefits. Using a cross-national analysis of citizens in 14 countries, the authors find statistical evidence consistent with the hypothesis, which also complements some of the recent works on clientelism and institutional development. This has important implications for scholars and practitioners working on accountability and good governance issues because its shows that as long as corrupt leaders can satisfy their clientelistic networks by manipulating government resources, they are likely to retain political support. This, in turn, questions the assumption that a few administrative reforms can weed out corruption in countries where formal and informal institutions provide opportunities for this phenomenon to thrive.

Market reforms and corruption in Latin America: New means for old ways

Abstract Many liberal economists hail market‐oriented reforms as a means to combat corruption in emerging Latin American democracies with state‐led economies. Such arguments assume that reforms like privatization and market deregulation by definition will eliminate the politicians’ ability to use state enterprises and government regulations to their own personal advantage. However, there has been little academic scrutiny of how these reforms have been actually implemented in Latin America. In this article, we contend that, unless market reforms are pursued in a context of transparency, they can be used as new means to pursue old corrupt ends. We begin by constructing an actor‐centered model of corruption as a function of willingness and opportunity. We then develop two hypotheses regarding die influence of economic reform on the opportunity structure for corruption: executive discretionary power will increase, and the modalities of corruption will adapt to put the economic reforms to corrupt use. An analy...

Regulatory policy in Latin America : post-privatization realities

Privatization in Latin America has meant that governments have had to redefine their roles as entrepreneurs to those of effective regulators. Are they up to this task, and how have they tackled these new roles? This volume attempts to answer these fundamental questions.

Privatization in Argentina: The implications for corruption

The article analyzes the privatization program carried out under the Carlos Menem administration in Argentina between 1989 and 1995. It shows how, on many occasions, the divestiture of government-owned assets was often carried out within a very weak legal framework which, in turn, opened windows of opportunities for corrupt behavior and collusive practices involving high ranking government officials and private corporations. Based on their findings, the authors stress the crucial role that transparency plays for effective results to take place after government selloffs. Indeed, the Argentine case shows that there is a strong correlation between the legal and regulatory problems that often arise in the aftermath of state divestitures and privatizations that have been carried out hastily and under a cloud of corruption allegations.

The Evolution of Agricultural Interest Groups in Argentina

Argentinas history has been profoundly influenced by the development of its agriculture. It was through the exportation of beef and grain that the country experienced spectacular economic growth between 1880 and 1930. Historically, agricultural and agro-industrial production have made up between 70 and 80% of export earnings. 1 As a consequence, the sectors dominant interest group during that period, the Argentine Rural Society ( Sociedad Rural Argentina – SRA) acquired enormous economic power, which led to political clout as many of its members went on to become presidents of the republic and to staff the most important ministries. Because of the political influence so attained the SRA was soon referred to as one of the key factores de poder , or power holders, along with the military, the Church and, later on, labour. This hegemony came to an end in the mid-1940s when industrialisation replaced agriculture as the main contributor to the nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and when Peronism removed the landowning elite from control of the levers of power. The agricultural sector continued to take a backseat among the priorities of most of the administrations following Perons downfall in 1955, because the future of Argentina was perceived to rest upon the promotion of import substitution industrialisation. Agricultural interest groups were never again able to gain the same kind of access to economic policy-making as they had once enjoyed. To make matters worse, the whole rural sector was forced to finance the state-led industrialisation process through a variety of direct and indirect government taxes.

Economic Stabilisation in Argentina: the Austral Plan

The relative prosperity which Argentina enjoyed at the beginning of the century made it a candidate to be a major economic power. Despite its abundant natural resources and skilled manpower, Argentina has consistently failed to live up to its potential. Periods of growth have either been too sporadic or political upheavals too frequent for coherent economic policies to be effective. In recent decades the Argentine economy has been characterised by a deterioration in current account, 1 exchange rate, 2 gross domestic product (GDP) growth, 3 investment, 4 and has seen inflation become an endemic phenomenon. 5 These factors have exacerbated the economys inability to tackle its mounting foreign debt.

Institutional decay and distributional coalitions in developing countries: The argentine riddle reconsidered

This article examines the relationship between political institutions and interest group behavior within the context of developing countries, taking Argentina as an example. More specifically, it tries to explore the relationship between the decay of weak governmental institutions and the development of strong distributional coalitions following Mancur Olsons theory of interest group behavior. While integrating the findings of previous works by political scientists and economists, this article advances an explanation that links institutional weaknesses with the failure of Argentinas main distributional coalitions to develop collective action. Lastly, the study analyzes the recent economic reforms of the Menem administration and their impact on the process of democratic consolidation. Drawing upon the theoretical and empirical discussion presented, the article argues that, contrary to the opinion of many pundits, such reforms are likely to strengthen the socioeconomic power of a select number of distributional coalitions. Thus serious doubts exist about the prospects of institution-building in Argentina in the long-run.

Poverty, Partisanship and Vote Buying

Electoral contests in Latin America are often characterized by attempts by political parties to sway the outcome of elections using vote buying – a practice that seems to persist during elections throughout the region. Much of the literature on this subject focuses on how party machines use vote buying at election time and whether they target partisans or swing voters. However, it takes for granted the root of the problem: poverty. In this article we address this gap in the literature by assessing the importance of poverty in breeding vote buying. Specifically, we examine how partisanship shapes the effect of poverty on vote buying. We hypothesize that party machines pursue a mixed strategy, broadly targeting their core voters, but also poor swing voters. Using survey data from 22 countries in Latin America, our results support the mixed strategy hypothesis, and suggest that poverty matters mainly for swing voters. For partisans, the effect of poverty on vote buying is weaker. These results suggest that poverty plays an important role in vote buying strategies – but also that partisanship moderates clientelistc parties’ vote buying strategies during election campaigns.

Perceptions of Competence and the European Economic Crisis: A Micro-Level Analysis

This study provides micro-level evidence for the new theories of accountability under globalization. We analyze the micro-level logic that underpins political accountability in democratic countries with highly globalized economies. We contend that voters discount current economic conditions in evaluating incumbent leaders if they perceive the incumbent leader moving the country in the right direction. We test this argument with survey data from eight European countries in 2012, while controlling for potential alternative explanations associated with pocketbook, sociotropic, and clarity-of-responsibility factors. We find that valence considerations related to future directions in the country sustain positive evaluations of leaders’ performance even in the face of negative evaluations of the economy.