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This article calls into question one of the implicit assumptions linking democratic accountability to reduced corruption, namely, that citizens will expose institutions rife with venality and mobilize for better government. Instead, mobilization may be contingent on the type of corruption. The study develops a distinction between need and greed corruption and suggest that citizens are more likely to engage in the fight against corruption when corruption is needed to gain access to "fair" treatment (need corruption) as opposed to special illicit advantages (greed corruption). Using data from the Global Corruption Barometer 2013, the study suggest that need corruption mobilizes citizens, in particular if they perceive that fellow citizens will also engage, while greed corruption leads to secrecy, demobilization, and a propensity to "free ride" on other citizens' anticorruption efforts. The study thereby contributes to a better understanding of fundamental conditions for collective action against corruption and explaining why greed corruption persists in societies with well‐established institutions for accountability.

Do citizens that live close to the border of another European country feel more European? We suggest that border proximity affects European identity formation, but that the positive effect of border proximity is confined largely to areas where citizens live close to regions with better quality of government and lower levels of corruption. Using our newly collected individual level and post-coded data from the most recent wave of the European Quality of Government survey, covering over 129,000 respondents in all 27 European Union member countries, we show that citizens that live close to the border of another country express a stronger European identity, all things being equal. Yet the effect is driven largely by citizens that live adjacent to regions with relatively higher/lower quality of government compared to their own region. Our study thereby contributes to a closer understanding of where and why citizens become attached to Europe, and if and how benchmarking institutional performance and quality of government affect citizens' willingness to belong to, and identify with, Europe.

While recent studies find a strong association between the share of women in elected office and lower levels of corruption, we know less about if women in executive office cause reductions in corruption levels, and if such effects last over time. This study suggests that women mayors reduce corruption levels, but that the beneficial effect may be weakened over time. Using both regression discontinuity and first difference designs with newly collected data on French municipal elections combined with corruption risk data on close to all municipal contracts awarded between 2005 and 2016, we show that women mayors reduce corruption risks. However, newly elected women mayors drive the results, while gender differences are negligible in municipalities where women mayors are re elected. Our results can be interpreted as providing support for marginalization theories, but also suggest that the women that adapt to corrupt networks survive in office.

AbstractTransparency has been widely promoted as a tool for improving public service delivery; however, empirical evidence is inconclusive. We suggest that the influence of transparency on service provision is contingent on the nature of the service. Specifically, we argue that transparency is more likely to improve the quality of service provision when street‐level discretion is high. Discretion increases information asymmetries, and, in the absence of transparency, allows officials to target public services in suboptimal ways. Using finely grained data from the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index between 2011 and 2018, we show that communes that experience increases in transparency also experience improved quality of education and health (services characterized by greater discretion), while the quality of infrastructure provision (characterized by less discretion) bears no relation to increased transparency. The findings help us understand when transparency can improve service provision, as well the effects of transparency reforms in non‐democratic settings.

Do men and women perceive corruption differently? While evidence suggest that there is a strong link between gender and corruption, and that gender differences can at least partly be derived from men and women having different attitudes towards corruption, most studies to date focus on gender differences in perceptions of the scale or severity of the corruption in general, rather than its different forms. However, we argue that factors such as role socialization, social status and life experiences may make men and women perceive different kinds of corruption. Drawing on the distinction between 'need' and 'greed' corruption, we suggest that women are more likely than men to perceive that corruption is driven by need rather than greed. In particular, women may be more likely to be exposed to need corruption because of their greater care taking responsibilities both in the professional and private sphere, and, much in line with marginalization theory, have easier access to forms of corruption that are less dependent upon embeddedness in collusive networks. Using unique survey data, we show that women and men indeed differ in their perceptions of need vs. greed, and that women perceive more need corruption, while men perceive more greed corruption. This suggests that perceptions of different forms of corruption are indeed gendered and we discuss the implication of this for anti-corruption policy.

As the European Union enters into the next decade, its leaders seemingly strive towards more future integration rather than less, despite the recent setback of Brexit and the rise of anti-EU populist parties. In his state of the Union in 2018, Jean Claude Junker emphasized s 'European solidarity'. One key policy 'expression of solidary' would be Cohesion Policy and the Structural Funds, which are "the only real, significant redistributive mechanism in the EU…" (Fratesi 2017). . Despite elite commentary, we know surprisingly little about what EU citizens think of the rationale behind the policy of Cohesion – e.g. economic redistribution within the EU. As part of the PERCEIVE Horizon2020 project, we launched a unique survey to investigate how citizens feel about economic integration within the Union, where 17,200 citizens were interviewed. In this paper, we show how we measure support for the policy, the results as well as a host of correlates. Our analysis shows the variation in citizens' support for EU Cohesion policy between countries, how support varies between demographic groups, as well as the extent to which support is correlated with utilitarian and ideational factors as well as cue taking. Implications for future developments of this policy are discussed. ; A medida que la Unión Europea ingresa en la próxima década, sus líderes aparentemente luchan por más integración futura en lugar de menos, a pesar del reciente revés del Brexit y el surgimiento de los partidos populistas anti-UE. En su estado de la Unión en 2018, Jean Claude Junker hizo hincapié en la "solidaridad europea". Una política clave de "expresión de solidaridad" sería la Política de Cohesión y los Fondos Estructurales, que son "el único mecanismo redistributivo real y significativo en la UE." (Fratesi 2017). A pesar de las opiniones de la élite, sorprendentemente sabemos poco sobre lo que piensan los ciudadanos de la UE sobre la lógica detrás de la Política de Cohesión, de la redistribución económica dentro de la UE. Como parte del proyecto ...

What factors explain public support for international redistribution? While the European Union has sent billions of taxpayers' money to over indebted euro countries in an attempt to avoid an economic collapse, these transfers have encountered fierce resistance among both donor and recipient constituents. However, we know surprisingly little about why citizens support or oppose redistribution within the EU. This paper suggests that domestic levels of corruption and institutional quality may be one of the most important explanations for the great variation in public support for financial assistance, bailouts and aid. Using recent European Elections Survey data merged with data on regional level quality of government, we show that the effects of institutional quality are consistently stronger than macro-economic factors, including economic development, inequality or levels of public debt. We find strong evidence that citizens in low corrupt contexts are more likely to support financial assistance to fellow member states. The results have implications for future challenges in securing public support for EU economic integration as well as for our understanding of how and why corruption undermines society's collective action capacity.

Together with researchers in six other European countries1, we launched an EU-wide survey to investigate how citizens' feel about cohesion policy in which 17,200 citizens in 15 Eureopan countries were interviewed2. In addition, people were asked a set of questions having to do with knowledge and experience with the EU's regional policy, along with how much and how one identifies with Europe, political attitudes and perceptions of institution and the economy. We found that less than one-half of all citizens (roughly 45%) have even heard of the policy itself, while roughly one-third claim they have 'benefitted from some EU project in their area'.