Blog 9

Blog 9: Good Governance

            To study the relationship between economic development and good government, I conglomerated data for 186 countries and compared them.

            To measure economic development, I used the World Development Indicator’s database to gather data for state’s GDP per capita for 2011. This measures the average citizen’s yearly income, in US dollars, for the year of 2011. This is a great measure of a state’s standard of living, which in turn gives me insight into that state’s level of economic development. Obviously, if citizens are earning more money on average, then the state is more likely to be developed.

            To measure good government, I used Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. This index gives states a composite score on a scale of 1-10 by combining polls from reputable institutions that measure corruption-related data, such as abuse of public power, bribery of public officials, and embezzlement of public funds (Transparency International). This index combines a lot of good data and is a solid representation of the level of corruption in a state. If a state has a low level of corruption, we can assume it has better governance.

            By looking at my graph, we can see a fairly strong linear correlation between economic development and level of corruption. States that are ranked as being less corrupt (closer to 10) tend to have higher a higher GDP per capita. The states with the highest level of corruption are mostly clumped together, and the trend of a higher GDP becomes clearer past the corruption level of 4.

            However, the relationship is not perfect. There are a few outliers, and they tend to be oil-producing states. States like Kuwait, in the Middle East, have a disproportionately high GDP in comparison to their corruption level due to being rich in this valuable resource. Their wealth does not stem from a history of strong, corruption-free government, but instead has spiked. If these states continue to rely on this un-renewable resource as the staple of their economies, we might see a crash in their GDP in the future.

            I think these results are quite sensible. To have a high GDP per capita, a state must provide opportunities to its citizens and have a relatively good distribution of wealth among its citizens. A corrupt state is generally one where power is largely consolidated at the top, which leaves less opportunity for those at the bottom. There is less incentive to improve the state as a whole, and instead incentive to stay in power and make money. Rich states that do not rely on a single resource are generally going to have a more educated populace with stronger skill sets that have better opportunities to make money. The government will be seen as legitimate by the people, and corruption will not be tolerated because power is more spread out.

REFERENCES

Samuels, David J. 2012. Comparative Politics. New Jersey: Pearson Education

Transparency International. Corruption Perceptions Index.             http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview (accessed November 15, 2012).

World Bank. World Development Indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-            development-indicators (accessed November 15, 2012).