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Today• Projects - discussion• Comments and questions on readings• Brief lecture and summary of concepts reviewed

Next Week – SPEER, J. Participatory Governance Reform: A Good Strategy

for Increasing Government Responsiveness and Improving Public Services? World Development, v. 40, n. 12, p. 2379–2398, dez. 2012.

– BESLEY, T.; BURGESS, R. The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India. Quarterly Journal of Economics, v. 117, n. 4, p. 1415–1451, 2002.

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Questions

• What is so important about state capacity? • What is a regressive tax or policy? • What are the conditions that led to the enactment and

strengthening of the US FOIA? Who were the chief actors?• Secrecy became a concern in the US because of what

phenomena? • Why does Botswana not have a FOI law? And who cares?• If, according to the IMF, you don’t ‘fight corruption by

fighting corruption’, how do you fight it? • If we are to blame the private sector for corruption, what

industries are particularly culpable?

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A Few Indicators

Transparency International CPIWorldwide Governance IndicatorsWorld Bank Governance SurveysWorld Bank Governance DataDataGov

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Reviewing a key concept – Electoral systems

• Proportional Representation

v.• Pluralist (majority systems)

Or• Hybrid e.g. Mixed-member systems

e.g. Argentina vs. Brazil vs. the U.S.

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Key concepts from this week’s readings

• State capacity goal – effective, long term policy– Policy stability – Capacity to adjust– Enforcement

• The importance of strong...– Parliaments– Parties: working inside or outside the system– Cooperative frameworks– Progressive taxes– Probabilistic v. Deterministic attitudes

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Accountability

• Bidimensional concept (Schedler 1999)– Answerability– Enforceability

• Horizontal and vertical accountability• Prospective and retrospective

accountability

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Consequences of Corruption

-Slows down business-Lowers investment economic growth-Misallocated talent-Reduces effectiveness of aid-Loss of tax revenue-Adverse budget consequences-Quality loss in public services

-Social anomie

-Contagion effect leadership as example for adherence to the rule-of-law

-Sense of entitlement, particularism and classism

What are some ways of Combatting Corruption

• A) Protection of private property and the rule of law• B) Reduce state regulations, eliminate red tape• D) Downsize and professionalize the bureaucracy• E) Broaden press freedoms and electoral

competition• F) Encourage greater citizen involvement for reform

and alter public tolerance for corruption• G) Change culture: Iberian traditions, jetinho,

hierarchy

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Horizontality and information asymmetries

• Information flows better on an “even playing field” information symmetries– Hierarchy promotes secrecy, formal and

informal asymmetries– Information key to reducing transaction costs

• Pros and cons of transparency – Legislative voting– Diplomacy e.g. Wikileaks

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Veto Points/Players and policy stability

• “Vetocracy” Fukuyama• Improve accountability• Frustrate responsiveness• Promote policy stability• Institutional variables that affect vetoes:

– Degree of presidential power– Unicameralism v. bicameralism– Degree of unionization– Minority v. Majority government

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Corruption as the most important problem

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 20090%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

Paraguay

Ecuador

Argentina

Brazil

Venezuela

Chile