Bad Governance and Corruption

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

   PDF

2. Setting Standards for Good and Bad Governance

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 1-20

3. Getting What You Want from Governance

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 21-37

4. Exploiting National Government

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 39-59

5. Exploiting People at the Grass Roots

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 61-81

6. Explaining Who Pays Grass-Roots Bribes

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 83-105

7. Politicians Behaving Badly

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 107-125

8. The Impact of Corruption on Citizens

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 127-144

9. Making Government Transparent

   • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

   Pages 145-165

10. Reducing Corruption

    • Richard Rose, Caryn Peiffer

    Pages 167-186

11. Back Matter

    Pages 187-205

    PDF

This book explains why the role of corruption varies greatly between public services, between people, between national systems of governance, and between measures of corruption. More than 1.8 billion people pay the price of bad government each year, by sending a bribe to a public official. In developing countries, corruption affects social services, such as health care and education, and law enforcement institutions, such as the police. When public officials do not act as bureaucrats delivering services by the book, people can try to get them by hook or by crook. The book’s analysis draws on unique evidence: a data base of sample surveys of 175,000 people in 125 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. The authors avoid one-size-fits-all proposals for reform and instead provide measures that can be applied to particular public services to reduce or eliminate opportunities for corruption.

• corruption
• bribery
• governance
• public services
• reform
• political legitimacy
• economic development

“This volume by Rose and Peiffer offers a welcome political science perspective. … Any text co-authored by Richard Rose will command respect given his colossal contribution to political science and public studies. This book does not disappoint. … Bad Governance and Corruption will soon be on the reading list of all courses examining corruption. It will easily warrant the attention of researchers and students alike for the statistical material offered and the clarity of the authors’ analysis.” (Neil Collins, European Political Science, Vol. 18(4), 2019) “This well-structured and insightful book is about what ordinary people experience when they use public services. The perception of governance at grassroots level and its analysis is an invaluable tool for public policy.”(Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Professor, Hertie School of Governance, and Director, European Research Centre for  Anti-Corruption and State-Building, Germany)

“Most people in the world confront daily problems of corruption and one of its consequences, bad governance.  Scholars have invested a great deal of time and effort attempting to understand corruption, but Richard Rose and Caryn Peiffer have written the most comprehensive account available of the nature and impact of corruption.  The geographical and conceptual breadth of their analysis is exceptional, as is the clarity of the presentation.  And unlike many studies on both corruption and bad governance they discuss possible remedies, and the ways that citizens, and their governments, can attempt toovercome entrenched corruption.   Should they read it, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats will not like this book, but that is why it should be widely read and its recommendations widely considered.” (B. Guy Peters, Maurice Falk Professor of Government, University of Pittsburgh, USA)

 “Compelling and authentic data on how corruption, a $1 trillion tax on developing world outcomes, affects citizens everywhere, are rare.  But Rose and Peiffer provide the kinds of new survey results that make this path-breaking study of Bad Governance and Corruption absolutely essential reading for opinion-shapers, policy makers, and those who want to know how much of the global estate is actually governed, and for whom. The authors sensibly recommend how societies can reduce corruption: by removing the kinds of temptations that usually present in many citizen/bureaucrat interactions, and by shifting those kinds of dealings online so they are less susceptible to individual discretion.” (Robert I. Rotberg, Harvard Kennedy School, USA, and Author of The Corruption Cure)

• Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

  Richard Rose

• School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

  Caryn Peiffer

Richard Rose is Founder-Director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, UK. He has pioneered the comparative study of public policy by the integration of institutional, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and presented his research in 45 countries and translations in 18 languages.


Caryn Peiffer is Lecturer in International Public Policy and Governance at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK. She researches problems of governance in developing countries across Africa and Asia, using quantitative, qualitative and experimental methods. 

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