Strong Support, Weak Policies: Views on Corruption of Citizens and Legislators in Three Countries

To understand the paucity of forceful anti-corruption policies, we study legislator and citizen beliefs and preferences about corruption in three countries. Deploying parallel surveys in Colombia, Italy, and Pakistan, we investigate support for a political agency theory that sees politicians as rent-seekers and for an information theory under which politicians misperceive voter preferences. We find limited support for either. Using vignettes that invoke tradeoffs that could result in corruption, we find that citizens and politicians in all three countries perceive corruption as common and are equally likely to condemn it. Politicians' understanding of citizens' concerns are largely accurate, and an information treatment informing legislators of citizens' preferences leads legislators to believe citizens are less concerned about corruption, since the treatment primarily impacts those who initially overestimated citizen concerns. Our evidence suggests that feeble anti-corruption policy agendas may persist because established political parties lack electoral incentives to prioritize fighting corruption.

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