Popularity and Power: The Political Logic of Anticorruption in Authoritarian Regimes

Jiang, Junyan; Xu, Yan

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2641567

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…While fighting excessive corruption may be an important motivation behind recent, intense anti-corruption campaigns in places like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Iran, it is likely that these campaigns—at least in part—are also a cover for more typical purges of elites by the authoritarian leadership (Hubbard, 2020; Jiang & Xu, 2015; Lorentzen & Lu, 2018; Petrov & Rochlitz, 2019). Indeed, much of the literature on anti-corruption in China is focused on determining whether arrests are motivated by real corruption concerns or by factional disputes.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, much of the literature on anti-corruption in China is focused on determining whether arrests are motivated by real corruption concerns or by factional disputes. A number of these studies suggest that personal connections to the top leadership can help protect officials from persecution (Goh et al, 2019; Jiang & Xu, 2015; Lorentzen & Lu, 2018).…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Buckley

Reuter

Rochlitz

et al. 2022

Comparative Political Studies

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Although repression against elites is a common occurrence in authoritarian regimes, we know little about which elites are targeted. This paper uses an original dataset on the prosecution of mayors in large Russian cities to examine the factors that make elites more likely to be arrested. We argue that in electoral authoritarian regimes like Russia, regime leaders are reluctant to arrest popular officials. Such officials command political capital that is useful to the regime, and arrests of prominent officials can produce popular backlash. We examine this argument using an original dataset on all arrests of municipal leaders in Russia’s 221 largest cities between 2002 and 2018. We find that mayors who won their elections by large margins are less likely to be arrested. In addition, we document several other substantively important patterns: (1) a mayor’s professional background is not related to the likelihood of arrest, (2) opposition mayors are four times more likely to be arrested, and (3) mobilization of votes for the regime is not protective against arrest. JEL Classifications P16, P30, R59

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Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Buckley

Reuter

Rochlitz

et al. 2022

Comparative Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While fighting excessive corruption may be an important motivation behind recent, intense anticorruption campaigns in places like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Iran, it is likely that these campaigns-at least in part-are also a cover for more typical purges of elites by the authoritarian leadership (Hubbard 2020;Jiang and Xu 2015;Lorentzen and Lu 2018;Petrov and Rochlitz 2019). Indeed, much of the literature on anti-corruption in China is focused on determining whether arrests are motivated by real corruption concerns or by factional disputes.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, much of the literature on anti-corruption in China is focused on determining whether arrests are motivated by real corruption concerns or by factional disputes. A number of these studies suggest that personal connections to the top leadership can help protect officials from persecution (Goh et al 2019;Jiang and Xu 2015;Lorentzen and Lu 2018).…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although repression against elites is a common occurrence in authoritarian regimes, we know little about which elites are targeted. This paper uses an original dataset on the prosecution of mayors in large Russian cities to examine the factors that make elites more likely to be arrested.We argue that in electoral authoritarian regimes like Russia, regime leaders are reluctant to arrest popular officials. Such officials command political capital that is useful to the regime, and arrests of prominent officials can produce popular backlash. We examine this argument using an original dataset on all arrests of municipal leaders in Russia's 221 largest cities between 2002 and 2018. We find that mayors who won their elections by large margins are less likely to be arrested. In addition, we demonstrate several other substantively important patterns: 1) a mayor's professional background is not related to the likelihood of arrest, 2) opposition mayors are four times more likely to be arrested, and 3) arrests are more likely in ethnic republics.

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“…For example, if we understand the Chinese economy as in Bai et al (2014Bai et al ( , 2020 and Li et al (2019) where corruption "greases the wheels," Corollary 1 is consistent with the Communist Party of China's narrative that "the major risks in the political, ideological, economic, scientific and technological, social, international-relation, and party-building realms" faced by the party was one of the primary motives behind the anti-corruption campaign since 2012 (e.g., Xi, 2017;People's Daily, 2019). Jiang and Xu (2015) recognize that between 1988 and 2014 "[a]nticorruption enforcement [was] tightened in years when there were significant economic/political events that have, or could have instigated considerable popular unrest." They also provide time-series evidence that higher intensity of anticorruption enforcement was correlated with lower economic growth and higher inflation in the previous year, which they interpret as signs of greater social pressure and higher risk of political instability.…”

Section: Stage 1 Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

Erosion of State Power, Corruption Control, and Political Stability

Roland

Xie

2020

SSRN Journal

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How do corruption and the state apparatus interact, and how are they connected to the political and economic dimensions of state capacity? Motivated by historians' analysis of powerful empires, we build a model that emphasizes the corrosive effect of corruption on state power. Under general assumptions about fat-tailed risk, we show that, if fiscal capacity is strong, then the optimal response for the head of the state apparatus will be an endogenous lexicographic rule whereby local corruption is maintained at such a level that no erosion of state power is tolerated. Comparative statics shows the impacts of additional risk of crisis on corruption tolerance as well as the complementarity between personalistic rule and corruption. Implications of corruption at the head of the state apparatus are also analyzed. If fiscal capacity is not sufficiently strong, however, the state will have to over-tolerate corruption to retain its affiliates, risking its control in crises. Our model predicts that the correlation between state's political stability and corruption is non-monotonic across different levels of fiscal capacity, and this prediction is robustly consistent with recent cross-country panel-data.

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Popularity and Power: The Political Logic of Anticorruption in Authoritarian Regimes

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Staying Out of Trouble: Criminal Cases Against Russian Mayors

Erosion of State Power, Corruption Control, and Political Stability

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