Who Will Be the “Principled-Principals”? Perceptions of Corruption and Willingness to Engage in Anticorruption Activism

Abstract

Many anticorruption campaigns aim to encourage citizens to demand better control over corruption. Recent literature suggests that perceived high levels of corruption and government effectiveness in controlling corruption will limit citizens' willingness to actively oppose corruption. Using Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, we test these ideas across a 71-country sample. We find that perceived government effectiveness tends to encourage anticorruption civic action, while perceptions of corruption being widespread tend to have the opposite impact in non-OECD countries. Our analyses also suggest that the interaction between these perceptions is important; we find that, especially among those who perceive that the level of corruption is high, when confidence in the government's efforts grows, so does their willingness fight corruption.