Indignation or Resignation: The Implications ofTransparency for Societal Accountability
MONIKA BAUHR* and MARCIA GRIMES*
International organizations, policy experts, and nongovernmental organi-zations promote greater governmental transparency as a crucial reform toenhance accountability and curb corruption. Transparency is predicted todeter corruption in part by expanding the possibilities for public or societalaccountability, that is, for citizens and citizens associations to monitor,scrutinize, and act to hold public office holders to account. Although thesocietal accountability mechanism linking transparency and good govern-ment is often implied, it builds on a number of assumptions seldom exam-ined empirically. This article unpacks the assumptions of principal-agenttheories of accountability and suggests that the logic of collective action canbe used to understand why exposure of egregious and endemic corruptionmay instead demobilize the demos (i.e., resignation) rather than enhanceaccountability (i.e., indignation). We explore these theoretical contentionsand examine how transparency affects three indicators of indignationsversus resignation—institutional trust, political involvement, and politicalinterest—given different levels of corruption. The empirical analysesconfirm that an increase in transparency in highly corrupt countries tendsto breed resignation rather than indignation.
Introduction
Let it be impossible that any thing should be done which is unknown to thenation—prove to it that you neither intend to deceive nor to surprise—you takeaway all the weapons of discontent. The public will repay with usury the con-fidence you repose in it. (Bentham [1839] 1999, 30)
As the quote by Jeremy Bentham indicates, the conviction that transpar-ency induces good behavior in incumbents and that this behavior willenhance the legitimacy of office holders has deep historical roots. In thelast decade, however, the transparency movement has gained newmomentum, with international organizations and NGOs promoting trans-parency as a necessary condition for better government quality, greateraccountability, and a more limited scope for corruption and impunity(CEPA 2009; IMF 2008; Islam 2006; Kaufmann, Mehrez, and Gurgur 2002;Kurtzman, Yago, and Phumiwasana 2004; OECD 2002; UN-Habitat and
Transparency International 2004; UNODC 2004) as well as bringing abouteconomic growth (Kurtzman, Yago, and Phumiwasana 2004; Siegle 2001).In addition to these predicted beneficial consequences, advocates alsoincreasingly point to transparency and the right to know as a fundamentalhuman right (Birkinshaw 2006; UN 1948).
Although the link between transparency and better government insti-tutions has become conventional wisdom and permeates the thinking ofinternational organizations and development cooperation agencies alike,our understanding of this link remains more anchored in normative con-viction and assumptions about human behavior rather than empiricalinvestigation. Studies arguing that transparency plays an important role inreducing government corruption and improving institutional quality donot always specify how and under what conditions this beneficial effect islikely to materialize. Moreover, recent studies reveal an ambiguouspicture of the actual effects of transparency, with some authors suggestingthat transparency does not necessarily promote better decision making,less corruption, and more effectiveness (Bac 2001; Bastida and Benito 2007;Bauhr and Nasiritousi 2012; Kolstad and Wiig 2009; Roberts 2006). Otherspoint to essential conditions—such as a capacity among the populous totake in and use information—that need to be in place for transparency topromote societal accountability (Lindstedt and Naurin 2010). However,the more fundamental questions of how the increased availability of infor-mation on government performance actually may influence collectiveaction and mobilization, and what role these reactions might play inpromoting accountability, are less explored.
The most compelling arguments linking transparency to better practicesin government operations build on the logic of principal–agent theory.Transparency increases the likelihood that principals will detect malfea-sance on the part of agents and will exact punishment, thereby deterring theabuse of public power. Recent iterations of principal–agent theoryacknowledge that where corruption is endemic, citizens may be the mostviable candidates to play the role of principal, as other potential principalsthemselves engage in collusive networks at the expense of the publicinterest (Besley 2006; Kaufmann 2002; Rose-Ackerman 1999). Our articlecalls into question one of the basic assumptions upon which this predictedeffect of transparency builds, namely, that exposure of corrupt institutionswill produce widespread public indignation and pressure for accountabil-ity and reform. If transparency exposes institutions rife with venality, itmay instead alter perceptions about the extent and entrenchment of cor-ruption in society. Moreover, if citizens come to believe that most othercitizens engage in corruption, transparency may also erode the bases forsocietal accountability efforts by aggravating the inherent problems ofcollective action. Transparency reforms that reveal pervasive corruptionmay, in other words, breed resignation and withdrawal from public andcivic endeavours rather than induce and empower citizens to mobilize forbetter government (Persson, Rothstein, and Teorell Forthcoming).
2 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
The article unpacks the theoretical model linking transparency toinstitutional quality—and in particular the assumptions and microfoundations upon which it rests—and explores these empirically usingindividual- and country-level data.
Can Transparency Reduce Corruption? The Public as Principal
The arguments regarding the potential benefits of increased transparencyare well established, and numerous studies suggest that transparency canreduce corruption (IMF 2008; Islam 2006; Kaufmann 2002; Kurtzman,Yago, and Phumiwasana 2004; Lindstedt and Naurin 2010; Montinola andJackman 2002; OECD 2002; Reinikka and Svensson 2005; Rose-Ackerman1999; Siegle 2001; UNODC 2004). The theoretical claim and correspondingpolicy recommendations make sense and seem almost indisputable ifaccountability and good government are considered in the light ofprincipal–agent theory (Rose-Ackerman 1999). In the principal–agentmodel, information asymmetries present the primary obstacle that pre-vents principals from monitoring and holding agents accountable.Whether defined as elected politicians, audit offices specifically empow-ered to monitor public offices, or the demos to which government isultimately accountable, the principal is more able to reduce moral hazardif also able to reduce the information asymmetry. If agents create andoperate in predominantly opaque organizations, principals are largelyobstructed from exercising accountability.
Jonathan Fox (2007) provides a concise, useful outline of the two over-arching mechanisms through which transparency can reduce corruption,one interinstitutional and the other involving extrainstitutional actorssuch as civil society and the media.
. . . the power of transparency, defined in terms of the tangible impacts of thepublic spotlight, depends in practice on how other actors respond. These reactiveresponses can be indirect, when the mass media, opposition political parties, orvoters make an issue of newly revealed abuses; or they can be direct, as whenthe judicial or elected authorities make binding decisions in response. (Fox 2007,666)
Transparency grants political and public institutions greater insight intoone another’s operations, thereby increasing their capacity to hold oneanother accountable, what Fox refers to as the direct mechanism. Aneffective flow of information regarding policy outcomes can, for example,empower and equip legislative assemblies and executive offices to inves-tigate suspected resource leakage and waste in public administration. AsFox observes, this does not guarantee that irregularities will be investi-gated and redressed but without access to such information, governmentoversight and accountability will be ad hoc at best.
Direct mechanisms of accountability may be insufficient for tworeasons. First, research on congressional oversight has long acknowledged
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 3
the costliness to the point of impracticability of direct mechanism alone(McCubbins and Schwartz 1984). The immensity of bureaucracies tends todwarf the legislative staff and executive offices responsible for keepingthem in check and issuing ex post sanctions (Miller 2005, 209). Second, andmore relevant to the argument at hand, interinstitutional accountabilityrequires what Timothy Besley (2006) terms a principled principal, publicoffices willing and able to exercise accountability on a routine and politi-cally neutral fashion. When corruption is endemic, incentives for mutualpolicing are weak if not lacking altogether.
Scholars of public oversight, as well as authors advocating transparencyas a means of curbing public misconduct, therefore to a large extentendorse the idea that ordinary citizens and citizen activists can be empow-ered by access to government information to hold public officials account-able, either via regular free and fair elections or other channels forsounding alarms. Placing the demos in the role of principal has alternatelybeen termed public accountability (Rose-Ackerman 1999), the politicalagency model of accountability (Besley 2006), and vertical or electoralaccountability (O’Donnell 2001). Nicely phrased by Daniel Kaufmann:“Transparency-enhancing mechanisms involving a multitude of stake-holders throughout society can be thought as creating millions of ‘audi-tors’ ” (Kaufmann 2002, 21). Implicit in this proposed accountabilitymodel is that citizens will rise to the challenge and assume the role ofroving auditor.
That citizens can take action and bring about sanctions to end theabuse of power is by now quite well documented in a growing schol-arship on societal accountability (e.g., Peruzzotti and Smulovitz 2006). Anumber of case studies attest to that citizens and civil society organiza-tions in various local and national contexts have brought abuses to lightand induced institutions with formal accountability power to investigateand issue sanctions (Goetz and Jenkins 2005; Peruzzotti and Smulovitz2006; see also Apaza and Johnston 2009 and Grimes 2008 for an over-view of this research). It would be an error of inference, however,to conclude that information about abuses and misconduct will promptthe same civic response regardless of the extent of abuses revealed orthe viability of accountability mechanisms available for citizens to soundalarms. One of the more consistent findings of both small and largeN empirical studies is that important conditions have to be fulfilledfor transparency to produce the expected benefits regarding betterquality government (Bastida and Benito 2007; Bauhr and Nasiritousi2012; Fenster 2006; Kolstad and Wiig 2009; Lindstedt and Naurin 2010;Stasavage 2004). In sum, there is reason to expect that the effect oftransparency on political attitudes and behaviors is also contingentupon the specifics of the context. The next section examines thebasic assumptions and theoretical microfoundations of the modellinking transparency to better government with the public in the role ofprincipal.
4 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
Assumptions of the Public-As-Principal Model: A Critique
The theoretical model that places the public in the role of principal, whilecertainly plausible, builds on a host of assumptions regarding publicreactions to the newly acquired information. As Figure 1 illustrates,increased transparency, presuming that it exposes practices of which thepublic disapproves, incites public indignation and protest, which thengenerates enough individual complaints or alternately is channeled intomovements pressuring for investigations of abuses. Public pressure mightalso be directed at the objective of bringing about broader institutionalreform, though this form of civic action is more exceptional and uncommonthan efforts to redress specific abuses in order to secure public goods andservices (Grindle 2007, 124ff). Public pressure, if sufficiently well orches-trated and noticeable, prompts actors with formal accountability powers toreact and redress problems. The model captures a best case scenario, avirtuous cycle of transparency, mobilization, accountability, and eitherinstitutional reform or sustained popular efforts to monitor public officialsand sound alarms, over time enhancing the quality of government.
Several of the elements in this theorized spiral are tenuous, however,and there are at least two points—represented by the lighter arrows—atwhich the positive spiral might derail. Rather than inciting indignation,information may, as suggested by arrow 1, instead create or reinforce a
FIGURE 1Theorized Long-Term Positive Effects of Transparency on GoodGovernment
Increased transparency
Pressure for accountability
or reform
Public indignation and
mobilization
Public resignation
Abuses redressed/better quality government Public
resignation
Increased institutional
trust
1
2
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 5
perception among citizens that bribe paying or clientelistic exchanges arethe strategy chosen by most other citizens, thereby further underminingthe incentive to comply with formal rules or take action to report andredress abuses. Similarly, if transparency reveals that those in power rou-tinely prioritize their individual interests over collective endeavours, itmay further affirm the rationality of individual strategies over collectiveendeavours in citizens as well.1
The model may also derail if pressure for accountability or reforms failsto yield the desired result. Attempts to hold public officials to accountpresents considerable challenges as well. Studies of successful instances ofsocietal accountability suggest that the public cannot exercise any form ofaccountability directly; such efforts instead always operate via institutionalarrangements such as ombudsman offices, whistleblower hotlines, citizenreport cards, or by prompting oversight institutions (public prosecution,judicial system, etc.) to react (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; Peruzzottiand Smulovitz 2006; Rose-Ackerman 1999, 171).2 Where corruption ispervasive, such offices may be lacking, ineffectual, or themselves deeplyembedded in collusive or clientelistic networks. In sum, public indignationthat yields little or no success in bringing about reform or accountabilitymay turn to resignation and a withdrawal from civic and public life.
Information may, in short, have differential effects on citizens’ attitudesand behavior depending on the characteristics of—and the norms thatpermeate—the institutional context. Although principal–agent and collec-tive action theory approach corruption from somewhat different angles,each offers a highly plausible explanation for why this may be the case.Principal–agent theory assumes that principals have the means to utilizeinformation to hold agents accountable; absent such means, principalsmay simply renounce their role as principals. If citizens become cognizantof corruption but see no available means of bringing about sanctions orchange, they may elect to invest their invariably finite personal resourcesin other endeavours (arrow 2, Figure 1). Collective action theory suggeststhe same, though for a somewhat different reason. If faced with informa-tion confirming that potential collaborators routinely opt for a self-interested strategy over a strategy in line with the collective interest, thenwhy voluntarily assume the role of the sucker and collaborate when othersdo not (arrow 1, Figure 1)? Both of these theoretical approaches thereforepoint to the same conclusion: that a deluge of information revealing cor-ruption, especially if corruption appears to citizens to be the normthroughout public institutions, can be expected to lead to resignation,rather than indignation and, in the longer term, greater satisfaction withthe political system.
Concepts and Hypotheses
How can we conceptualize resignation and indignation? Empiricalattempts to capture public resignation use concepts such as disengage-
6 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
ment, lack of interest, distrust, and even cynicism and alienation (Krouweland Abts 2007).3 As discussed in more detail below, we employ threeindicators of public reactions that, taken together, help us understandwhether increased exposure breeds resignation or indignation: politicalinterest, political involvement, and institutional trust. Each of these cap-tures a facet of the concept of resignation, but resignation refers to a anabsence of all three of these states of mind. In order to understand thedynamics in the theoretical model, we first discuss the expected effects ofincreased transparency on each of the three indicators.
Bruce Gilley provides evidence on a highly plausible mechanisms viawhich exposure of corruption might diminish political interest, involve-ment, and trust, namely, via legitimacy beliefs regarding political institu-tions and incumbents. As Gilley writes: “. . . it is notable that democraticrights, while certainly qualifying as one of the most important causes oflegitimacy, turn out to be roughly on par with welfare gains, and both ofthese are far less important than good governance” (2006, 58). Theseresults support the relationships suggested in Figure 1 that if transparencyexposes egregious corruption, legitimacy beliefs and by extension politi-cal interest may suffer. Hence, our first hypothesis is:
Hypothesis 1: Transparency reduces political interest where corruption is pervasive,ceteris paribus.
With respect to political involvement, the empirical record is somewhatmixed. A number of studies building on field experiments and naturalexperiments indicate that more information can, under favorable circum-stances, increase political participation, and perhaps in particular electoralparticipation. Lassen (2005) finds a positive information effect inDenmark, and Oberholzer-Gee and Waldfogel (2006) uncover similareffects among Hispanic voters in local elections in the United States.Chong et al. (2011) explore the effects of information specifically regard-ing corruption on voter participation in municipal elections in Mexico.Their findings indicate, in contrast, that information revealing the extent ofcorruption among incumbents and challengers can instead lead to voterapathy and electoral abstention. The information effects on voter turnouttherefore appear positive under conditions that present citizens withviable channels to express their discontent and negative when such con-ditions are lacking, supporting the plausibility of the second hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2: Transparency reduces political involvement in highly corrupt contexts,ceteris paribus.
Research on the effect of transparency on institutional trust paints amore ambiguous picture. Theoretically, transparency is assumed toengender increased institutional trust. In fact, one of the main motivationsused to promote increased transparency lies in its promise to increaselegitimacy and institutional trust. Transparency breeds confidence ingoverning institutions, as it is seen as a necessary component of quality
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 7
of government and condition for mitigating corruption. That lower levelsof corruption engender confidence in government is a contention forwhich there is considerable empirical evidence (Anderson and Tverdova2003; Chang and Chu 2006; Seligson 2002; Warren 2006). Other authorshave, however, postulated that transparency affords citizens an apprecia-tion of the complexities and constraints in political decision making,which in turn generates trust (CEPA 2009, 40; Kaufmann and Bellvar 2005).
Two recent experimental studies examine whether citizens gain confi-dence in decision-making authorities under conditions of greatertransparency (De Fine Licht 2011; Grimmelikhuijsen 2010). Both usemanipulations in which respondents either receive cursory descriptions ofa decision-making process, or more detailed information. Both studiesfind that more information about the decision process tends to have littlebearing or even undermine the perceived trustworthiness of decisionmakers and the decision-making process. Moreover, both studies are con-ducted in and refer to contexts generally rated high on country compari-sons of quality of government: Sweden (De Fine Licht 2011) and Holland(Grimmelikhuijsen 2010). Worthy’s (2010) qualitative study of responsesto the Freedom of Information act in the United Kingdom concurs withthese experimental findings. These studies suggest that more informationmay undermine trust in well-functioning policy settings. It seems plau-sible that this negative effect may be, if anything, more severe in settingsin which good governance is lacking. To date, however, no studies havecompared public responses to government transparency in divergentinstitutional settings.
Institutional trust, political involvement, and political interest are herealso argued to collectively capture the underlying construct spanningfrom resignation to indignation to satisfaction. Trust and civic activism areinterlinked in complex ways. Levi and Stoker’s (2000) instructive reviewof political trust research suggests that trust is linked to higher rates ofpolitical participation for most people most of the time. On the other hand,among those highly interested in politics, highly educated, or with stronginternal and external efficacy (Citrin 1977; Miller 1974), a loss of trust mayinstead prompt greater involvement in politics.
Taken together, the three capture the states of resignation, indignation,and satisfaction. Indignation may express itself as distrust that incitesincreased involvement in political life, whereas distrust and withdrawalfrom political life instead together suggest resignation. Citizens who are atone and the same time inactive, disinterested, and distrusting of govern-ment institutions and office holders are resigned and unlikely to assumethe role of vigilant principals pressing for more accountable government.
Hypothesis 4: Transparency in highly corrupt contexts leads to political resignationrather than satisfaction, ceteris paribus.
8 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
The existing empirical research lends some support to the positive spiralmodel but also the possible points at which this model might derail. It isagainst this background that we turn to the empirical questions at hand:How have transparency reforms in fact affected civic engagement andinstitutional trust in countries with varying levels of corruption?
Data and Measures
In order to explore the microfoundations through which transparency caninfluence the quality of government institutions, we use a multileveldesign with attitudinal factors measured on the individual level using datafrom wave 5 (2005–2007) of the World Values Survey (see AppendixTable A2 for details on all measures). We use four dependent variables inour article: political interest, political involvement, institutional trust, andfinally an index building on these three variables. The political involvementmeasure is the mean of four dichotomous variables indicating whether theperson had signed a petition, joined a boycott, attended a demonstration,or attended an unofficial strike. Political interest is measured with thequestion: “How interested would you say you are in politics?” with aresponse scale from 1 (not at all interested) to 4 (very interested).
Institutional trust, the third dependent variable, is a conceptual subcom-ponent of political trust. Political trust refers to institutions on both theinput and output sides of the political systems, that is, both politicians aswell as administrative agencies (Rothstein and Stolle 2007). Institutionaltrust is less sensitive to respondents’ political preferences (Rothstein andStolle 2007) and therefore a more apt measure of confidence in the gov-ernment as a whole (Hetherington 1998; Lühiste 2006; Miller and Listhaug1999). Our measure of institutional trust is the mean of responses to threequestions (Cronbach’s a = 0.77) regarding trust in the civil service, thejudiciary, and the government (1 = none at all, 4 = a great deal).
As discussed above, indignation and resignation are underlying senti-ments that express themselves in an interrelationship between observablebehaviors and attitudes. The index reflects the factor loadings of the threeindicators of the underlying resignation–indignation–satisfaction con-tinuum. Low values represent resignation; high values represent satisfac-tion. Although values in the middle of the range are difficult to interpret insubstantive terms, the index nonetheless represents an improvement overonly using the component indicators separately. We refer henceforth to thismeasure as the resignation–satisfaction index.
Turning to the independent variables, we suggest, in concurrence withthe definition highlighted by Florini (1999, 5), that transparency is “therelease of information by institutions that is relevant to evaluating thoseinstitutions.” This definition suggests that transparency is related toaccountability without introducing conceptual muddle. Some definitionsof transparency conflate transparency with either press freedom or news-
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 9
paper circulation (Adesèra, Boix, and Payne 2003; Besley and Burgess2002; Brunetti and Weder 2003) or accountability itself and are thereby lessanalytically precise.
At present, the World Bank’s economic and institutional transparencyindex provides the best available measure for this definition of transpar-ency. The index builds on 13 surveys carried out in 2003 and (primarily)2004 by various international organizations and nonprofit organizationsand includes indicators of access to information laws, transparency ofpolicy and the public sector, transparency of the budget process, thepublication of economic data, and e-government (Bellvar and Kaufmann2005).4
The measure used to capture the prevalence of corruption is the controlof corruption index of the World Bank Governance Indicators. The indi-cator is based on a combination of data from both citizen and expertperceptions of corruption, covering several aspects of the phenomenon,such as for example the frequency of “additional payments to get thingsdone” to perceptions of grand corruption among political elites(Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2009; Teorell et al. 2011).
The theoretical vagueness and approach to data collection used by theWorld Bank Institute have given rise to considerable criticism of theWorldwide Governance Indicators in recent years (Apaza and Johnston2009; Arndt and Oman 2006; Knack 2006; Thomas 2010).5 We validate thecontrol of corruption measure by examining how it relates to more theo-retically founded measures. The Quality of Government Institute has con-ducted a Quality of Government Survey in which 529 country expertsevaluate impartiality and rule of law in 52 countries (Teorell 2009). Thesurvey contains several questions relating to government practices thatare firmly anchored in theoretical and conceptual discussions of goodgovernment (Rothstein & Teorell, 2008). An index building on five suchquestions correlates strongly with the World Bank’s Control of Corruptionmeasure (r = 0.8, P < 0.001), which adds to the construct validity of themeasure (Teorell 2009).6 The World Bank measure is used in the analysesbelow as the Quality of Government data and World Values Survey datacover too few countries in common.
Perception-based measures of corruption also may not fully and accu-rately capture actual levels of corruption and are sensitive to fluctuationsin media reporting, discursive shifts, and even policy attention (Galtunget al. 2006; Knack 2006; Olken 2007). Kaufmann et al. (2007, 3) argue that“perceptions matter because agents base their actions on their perceptions,impression, and views,” and in that sense, perception-based measuresoffer an apt measure for our model. It is citizens’ perceptions of corruptionthat would, according to the four hypotheses, foster both a sense of indig-nation but also might induce resignation.
Transparency measurements may also be perception based or objectivebased (Bellvar and Kaufmann 2005), the latter of which refer to surveys ofgovernment information published (primarily) electronically, or reporting
10 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
of data to international organizations (Grigorescu 2003; Hollyer,Rosendorff, and Vreeland 2010; International Budget Partnership2010). These objective measures of transparency are less suitable for theseanalyses, however, in that they only capture one aspect of transparency—a government’s propensity to publish information proactively.Although this aspect of transparency is not unimportant, it does notcapture whether citizens feel they have the opportunity to request andreceive information that goes beyond what the government has elected topublish. Mindful of these issues, we consider the World Bank measuressufficiently reliable for an explorative analysis of the kind we presentbelow.
Transparency and control of corruption, while conceptually distin-guishable, correlate strongly with one another (r = 0.75 in the sample ofcountries included in the analyses), which raises the question of whethersufficient variation in levels of transparency exist at different levels ofcorruption to examine the hypotheses. Figure 2, a scatter plot of these twoindicators, indicates that while clearly related, numerous cases fall outsidethe 95% confidence interval, and countries at lower levels of control ofcorruption do vary in terms of levels of transparency (e.g., Ethiopia com-pared to Mexico, or Zambia compared to Ukraine).
Issues of reverse causation are also of concern, as levels of politicalactivism in a country may, for example, show some continuity over time,and citizens’ political involvement historically may to some extent explain
FIGURE 2Bivariate Relationship between Transparency and Control ofCorruption with 95% Confidence Intervals
Andorra
Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
Cyprus
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Italy
Japan
Jordan
South Korea
Mexico
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Poland
Russia
Vietnam
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
ThailandTurkey
Ukraine
USA
Burkina Faso
Uruguay
Zambia
01
23
4
Co
ntr
ol o
f C
orr
up
tio
n
0 1 2 3 4
Economic and Institutional Transparancy
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 11
levels of corruption and transparency today. Careful attention in modelspecification to some extent allows us to capture alternative explanationsthat may contribute to the associations of primary interest in these analy-ses. First, we control for gross domestic product (GDP) per capita aseconomic development is empirically linked to government transparency,to corruption, and also to the dependent variables. The extent to which acountry is a democracy—as measured by an index combining twoFreedom House (civil liberties and political rights) and one Polity 2variable, which in turn combines the Polity measure of democracy andautocracy (Teorell et al. 2011)—may certainly affect citizens’ politicalinvolvement and interest and is also linked to levels of corruption, if notin a simple, linear fashion (Bäck and Hadenius 2008; Charron andLapuente 2010). The third control variable is the U.S. State Department’smeasure of political terror. This control is of both theoretical and meth-odological value, as political terror can both influence citizens’ politicalattitudes and behavior, but also affect what respondents are willing toreport in a survey. Individual factors such as gender, education, and ageare also taken into account (see Tables A1 and A2 in the Appendix formeasurement details).
In order to further address the issues of causation and endogeneity, wealso investigate the possibility of omitted variable bias and simultaneity oftransparency and control of corruption in each of our models using aregression-based test of endogeneity described in Wooldridge (2002, 2009)and developed by Hausman (1978, 1983).7 The results of these tests arediscussed in conjunction with the analyses, but not reported in Table 1.
In order to estimate the effects of transparency on political interest,political involvement, institutional trust, and the resignation–satisfactionindex, we use a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression. The advantageof this model is that it allows us to mix country level and individual levelvariables and to include a number of important control variables at theindividual level.
Analyses and Results
Transparency is often presented as a powerful anticorruption measure,not least as it equips citizens to act as principals and hold public officialsto account for misdeeds. The discussion above calls the universality ofthese policy predictions into question, as greater transparency in highlycorrupt systems is hypothesized to induce a sense of resignation amongthe populous, a withdrawal from political matters, and perhaps evencement self-serving behavior as the prevailing norm for office holders andcitizens alike. The odd numbered models examine the main effects oftransparency and control of corruption, whereas the even numberedmodels examine the conditional effect of transparency at different levels ofcorruption.
12 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
TAB
LE
1T
he
Infl
uen
ceof
Tra
nsp
aren
cyon
Pol
itic
alIn
tere
st,P
olit
ical
Act
ion
,In
stit
uti
onal
Tru
st,a
nd
Res
ign
atio
n–S
atis
fact
ion
Ind
ex
Dep
end
ent
Vari
able
Polit
ical
Inte
rest
Polit
ical
Invo
lvem
ent
Inst
itut
iona
lTru
stR
esig
nati
on–S
atis
fact
ion
Ind
ex
Mod
el1
Mod
el2
wit
hIn
tera
ctio
nM
odel
3M
odel
4w
ith
Inte
ract
ion
Mod
el5
Mod
el6
wit
hIn
tera
ctio
nM
odel
7M
odel
8w
ith
Inte
ract
ion
Fixe
def
fect
sTr
ansp
aren
cy-0
.18*
*(0
.08)
-0.3
6**
(0.1
2)-0
.02
(0.0
2)-0
.08*
*(0
.03)
-0.0
8(0
.08)
0.05
(0.1
2)-0
.10*
*(0
.05)
-0.2
3***
(0.0
7)C
ontr
olof
corr
upti
on0.
16**
(0.0
8)-0
.02
(0.1
1)0.
07**
(0.0
3)0.
01(0
.03)
0.25
**(0
.07)
0.39
***
(0.1
0)0.
16**
*(0
.05)
0.02
(0.0
7)Tr
ansp
aren
cy*
Con
trol
ofco
rrup
tion
0.09
**(0
.04)
0.03
**(0
.01)
-0.0
7*(0
.04)
0.07
**(0
.03)
Polit
ical
Terr
orSc
ale
0.04
(0.0
6)0.
03(0
.06)
0.04
**(0
.02)
0.03
**(0
.02)
0.04
(0.0
5)0.
05(0
.05)
0.07
*(0
.04)
0.06
*(0
.04)
GD
P/ca
pita
0.00
(0.0
0)0.
00(0
.00)
0.00
(0.0
0)0.
00*
(0.0
0)0.
00(0
.00)
0.00
(0.0
0)0.
00(0
.00)
0.00
(0.0
0)D
emoc
racy
(Fre
edom
Hou
se/
Polit
y2)
-0.0
3(0
.03)
-0.0
2(0
.03)
0.01
(0.0
1)0.
01**
(0.0
0)-0
.09*
**(0
.03)
-0.1
0***
(0.0
3)-0
.01
(0.0
1)0.
00(0
.01)
Gen
der
(fem
ale)
-0.2
2***
(0.0
2)-0
.22*
**(0
.02)
-0.0
2***
(0.0
1)-0
.02*
**(0
.00)
0.03
**(0
.01)
0.03
**(0
.01)
-0.1
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INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 13
Transparency and Political Interest
The first set of analyses examines how transparency affects citizens’ inter-est in politics. The model 1 estimates (without the interaction term)suggest, counter to conventional wisdom, that levels of political interesttend to be lower in countries with more government transparency; bettercontrol of corruption seems, however, to instead be positively associatedwith interest in politics.8 A key point here is that this relationship emergeswhen factors such as degree of democracy, political terror, economicwealth, as well as individual factors such as gender, age, and education areheld constant. The first model therefore suggests that greater levels oftransparency may dampen political involvement not only when govern-ment corruption is highly prevalent, as our first hypothesis posits, but alsoacross the board.9
Model 2 investigates the first of our four hypotheses: How transpar-ency affects citizens’ interest in political matters given different levels ofquality of government in a country. The model, and in particular theinteraction term, suggests that it may be primarily the more corrupt coun-tries driving the results of model 1. Among countries where corruption isprevalent, higher levels of transparency are associated with lower overalllevels of political interest. Rather than mobilizing interest in collectiveefforts to bring about change, receiving additional information about gov-ernment affairs may, where corruption is pervasive, instead breed disillu-sionment and political apathy. The negative relationship betweentransparency and political interest in countries with high levels of corrup-tion is substantively quite strong and statistically significant. The positiveinteraction term and the corresponding marginal effects plot shown inFigure 3 suggest, however, that this negative relationship abates in coun-tries with higher values of control of corruption.10 In countries with a scoreof 1 on the control of corruption scale, the estimated relationship betweentransparency and political interest is approximately -0.3. To illustrate theeffects substantively, countries such as Ethiopia, Vietnam, Turkey, Thai-land, and Mexico all have control of corruption scores near 1 but vary from0.2 and 0.4 (Ethiopia and Vietnam) to 1.68 and 2.42 (Thailand and Mexico)on the 0 to 3.6 transparency scale. At this level of corruption, the modelwould predict that the overall level of political interest in two countries asdifferent as Ethiopia and Mexico in terms of transparency would differ by0.65 on the 1 to 4 political interest scale.11 Figure 3 also suggests that incountries with a score of more than 2.3 on the control of corruption scale(e.g., Italy or South Korea and just above the 1.6 mean for all countries), therelationship between transparency and political interest is no longer sta-tistically significant. The subsample for which transparency shows a nega-tive relationship with interest in politics consists of 35 of the 53 countriesand 72% of all respondents. Somewhat surprisingly, at no level of corrup-tion does transparency seem to have a positive relationship to citizeninterest in political affairs.12
14 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
Transparency and Political Involvement
The second set of analyses turn to the question of whether greater accessto government information incites citizens to take action to express griev-ances. The results of these analyses largely concur with those regardingpolitical interest. Rather than prompting citizens to action—measured asthe mean of four dichotomous variables indicating whether the personhad signed a petition, joined a boycott, attended a demonstration, orattended an unofficial strike—transparency instead is associated withlower levels of political activity in countries with low control of corruptionscores, as suggested by the results of model 4.
Figure 4 suggests that the effect of transparency on political action isnegative in countries with control of corruption scores below approxi-mately 1.3, that is, just below the mean for all 190 countries for which dataare available, and a span that includes 17 of the 53 countries and 36% ofrespondents. The tendency for increased transparency to undermine citi-zens’ political involvement is evident, in other words, in a smaller sub-sample of countries and is also less substantively strong than it is withrespect to political interest. Returning to the concrete examples mentionedabove, where corruption is comparatively prevalent (i.e., countries with ascore of around 1 on the control of corruption measure), the model pre-dicts only a 0.11 difference in average levels of political involvement incountries with the lowest (e.g., Ethiopia) and highest (e.g., Mexico) levels
FIGURE 3Marginal Effect with 95% Confidence Intervals of Transparency onPolitical Interest at Varying Levels of Control of Corruption
-.6
-.4
-.2
0.2
Ma
rgin
al E
ffect o
f T
ransp
are
ncy o
n P
olit
ica
l In
tere
st
0 1 2 3 4
Control of Corruption
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 15
of transparency. As the political involvement measure ranges between 0and 1, the effect, while not large, is not inconsequential. At higher levels ofcontrol of corruption, an increase in transparency has no relationshipwhatsoever with citizens’ inclination to engage in political actions.
Transparency and Trust
One of the more common causal claims regarding transparency is that itwill enhance public trust in government. The results of these analysesprovide no support for these contentions, however, indicating instead alack of a relationship between institutional transparency and institutionaltrust, irrespective of the pervasiveness of corruption in a country. In con-currence with the findings of previous research, however, control of cor-ruption constitutes a positive and substantively important component ofinstitutional confidence (cf. Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Chang and Chu2006; Seligson 2002), even under control for the overall economic well-being of the country and availability of educational opportunities.
Transparency’s implications for institutional trust appear, according tothe interaction term in model 6, to become increasingly negative at lowerlevels of corruption and show a statistically significant and negative rela-tionship in countries with control of corruption scores above 3 (only 11countries and 18% of respondents) in our sample (Figure 5). A number ofprevious studies have documented a negative effect of transparency on
FIGURE 4Marginal Effect with 95% Confidence Intervals of Transparency onPolitical Involvement at Varying Levels of Control of Corruption
-.15
-.1
-.05
0.0
5.1
Ma
rgin
al E
ffect o
f T
ransp
are
ncy o
n P
olit
ica
l In
volv
em
ent
0 1 2 3 4Control of Corruption
16 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
trust for government institutions (De Fine Licht 2011; Grimmelikhuijsen2010; Worthy 2010); our results suggest that this finding may, paradoxi-cally, be stronger in settings with more well-functioning institutions. Therole of information in strengthening trust in governments, it seems, defiessimple theoretical modeling. We have tested numerous model specifica-tions and operationalizations of institutional trust, and the resoundingconclusion is that transparency tends, if anything, to show a negativerelationship with institutional trust.
These results add to the mounting misgivings regarding transparencyas a simple means of enhancing broad-based societal accountability andin the longer term good government. If transparency instead had led toa drop in civic engagement but an increase in trust, one might concludethat transparency breeds a sense of confidence in the governments’ inter-nal capacity to deal with corruption through interinstitutional oversightmechanisms. A combination of reduced institutional trust and politicalinvolvement, however, implies less promising developments as sug-gested by the possible nodes in Figure 1, that disclosure may breed res-ignation rather than indignation. The final set of analyses turn to theseissues.
Transparency and Resignation versus Satisfaction
The results reported in models 7 and 8 indicate that transparency has anegative and statistically significant relationship with the resignation–
FIGURE 5Marginal Effect with 95% Confidence Intervals of Transparency onInstitutional Trust at Varying Levels of Control of Corruption
-.4
-.2
0.2
.4M
arg
inal E
ffect of T
ranspare
ncy o
n Institu
tional T
rust
0 1 2 3 4Control of Corruption
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 17
satisfaction index. Transparency seems to undermine satisfaction andfoster resignation. The estimate of the interaction term in model 8 further-more suggests that this effect is more pronounced in polities with higherlevels of corruption and diminishes to zero as control of corruptionapproaches the cutoff point of approximately 2.2 (a range encompassing 33of 53 countries, and 69% of all respondents; see Figure 6). As illustratedin Figure 6, the transparency effect on country level averages on theresignation–satisfaction index is approximately -0.18 among countrieswith a control of corruption score of 1. Returning to the Ethiopia andMexico comparison, the 2.22 difference in transparency levels betweenthese two countries would lead us to expect the two countries to differ onthe resignation–satisfaction index by 0.4, which is not negligible consider-ing the index spans from -0.71 to 1.63. Taken together, the analysessuggest that at low levels of control of corruption, transparency mayinduce resignation rather than indignation and, over the longer term,satisfaction with the political system.
Before addressing the implications of these findings, it is important torevisit the issue of endogeneity. The endogeneity test (Hausman 1978,1983; Wooldridge 2002, 2009) detects signs of endogeneity with respect totransparency in model 1 (political interest) and for the control of corrup-tion measure in model 3 (political involvement). These models were there-fore run using predicted values of transparency and control of corruption
FIGURE 6Marginal Effect with 95% Confidence Intervals of Transparency onResignation–Satisfaction Index at Varying Levels of Control ofCorruption
-.4
-.2
0.2
Ma
rgin
al E
ffect o
f T
ransp
are
ncy o
n S
atisfa
ctio
n
0 1 2 3 4Control of Corruption
18 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
instrumented using four variables—years of democracy since 1930, lati-tude of the country, total imports, and total exports. These variables areexogenous to the model, are linked to corruption and transparency(Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001; Bäck and Hadenius 2008;Sandholtz and Gray 2003), and have been used as instruments for institu-tional quality by several researchers (e.g., Charron and Lapuente 2010;Gupta, Davoodi, and Alonso-Terme 2002). They satisfy the empirical con-ditions required of instrumental variables as they correlate with control ofcorruption and transparency but not with our dependent variables, andtherefore also do not correlate with an unobserved variable that affectspolitical interest and involvement (Sovey and Green 2011, 193–194;Wooldridge 2002, 508). With respect to political interest, the results for themain effect of transparency, as well as for the interaction term building onthe predicted value of transparency, mirror the findings presented inTable 1. In contrast, the findings for political involvement do not hold, andthe findings are directly counter to the second hypothesis. These findingssound a note of caution regarding the effect of transparency on politicalinvolvement.
Concluding Discussion
Transparency is an indispensable component of liberal democracy andgood government, yet the findings reported above suggest that its role ina larger formula of political and institutional development is somewhatcomplex. On the one hand, transparency is an essential precondition foraccountability more generally, and therefore arguably sine qua non ofreducing the prevalence of corrupt practices. On the other hand, transpar-ency can also reveal improper or illegal government practices and poten-tially erode institutional confidence and citizens’ willingness to engage inthe individual or collective actions needed to bring about the kind ofgradual improvements hoped for. This effect is, the findings suggest,evident when corruption is the most entrenched and pervasive, preciselythe settings in which the greatest hopes are vested in citizens to act asprincipals.
The results of the analyses above raise questions regarding some of theimplicit and explicit assumptions made about the way in which transpar-ency contributes to improving the quality of government. Transparency ispresumed to allow citizens to monitor government and also to attain theinformational evidence needed to sanction officials via elections or othertypes of actions upon detecting impropriety. Although this assumptionmay very likely hold among citizens already highly interested andinvolved in political matters, whether via individual or organized efforts,our analysis suggests that the effect is not universal. Especially in settingsin which corruption is the modus operandi, transparency may insteadgive rise to resignation and a withdrawal from political life.
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 19
The findings clearly highlight the primary point on which theprincipal–agent model corresponds poorly to certain political contexts.Transparency reduces the problem of information asymmetry by shed-ding light on the extent to which the agent (i.e., the government) is pur-suing goals that are in the interest of principals (i.e., its citizens) effectivelyand efficiently (Besley 2006; Florini 2007). In other words, transparencyshould enable citizens to evaluate to what extent their interests are beingserved by government and encourage accountability and deter abuses andmisdeeds by officials (Carey 2009). However, the principal–agent presup-poses the existence of reliable means of sanctioning, and if principals(citizens) lack institutional avenues by which to utilize the information tohold agents (office holders) accountable, information may instead detercivic engagement, derailing the expected positive spiral.
Moreover, in order for citizens to act as the principal, they must alsoovercome a collective action dilemma. A key ingredient, perhaps thelynchpin, of a group’s ability to solve a social dilemma is the expectationsthat other actors are also willing and able to collaborate (Persson, Roth-stein, and Teorell Forthcoming; Rothstein 2005). If we conceptualize well-functioning governing institutions as a second-order collective actionproblem (Ostrom 1990), it becomes comprehensible why exposing corrup-tion among those in office might precipitate a general withdrawal frompolitical life among the populous. Political engagement entails costs to theindividual, and a wealth of game theoretical research reveals that ourwillingness to invest time, effort, and money into collective endeavours ishighly sensitive to evidence that others intend to do the same. This inter-pretation does not presume that people are hyperrationalistic nor that theyjustify their own actions in game theoretical terms. It simply requires thatthey on some level appreciate the magnitude of the task at hand andrecognize that those actors most well placed to behave in a rule-boundmanner and strengthen rule of law are opting not to do so.
This article does not constitute a critique of the principle of transpar-ency. Nor does it disprove the contention that transparency can contributeto enhancing accountability and limiting the scope for the abuse of publicpower for private gain. The findings presented here also do not constituteevidence that societal accountability cannot or does not occur. The casestudy evidence speaks for itself, and a number of country comparativestudies indicate that dense civil society networks, provided certain favor-able conditions are present in a country, are strongly associated with lowerlevels of corruption (Grimes Forthcoming; Lee 2007). The main policyimplication of the findings is first and foremost that where corruption isendemic, transparency reforms alone cannot be expected to ignite a broadand general process of public or societal accountability, in which thegeneral public axiomatically rises to the challenge of monitoring govern-ment offices and sounding fire alarms if irregularities are detected. Unlesstransparency reforms are accompanied by other institutional arrange-ments, transparency may do more harm than good with respect to citi-
20 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
zens’ civic mindedness and propensity to participate in accountabilityefforts. Such institutional arrangements might include meaningful partici-patory processes or systems designed to detect and process reportedimproprieties, all of which would lower the threshold to and even activelyencourage the public to act as watchdog. Absent such structural instru-ments, transparency will do little to bring about broad-based improve-ments in governance and in the longer term establish institutional trust(Frost 2003).13
Finally, our findings sound a call for continued explorations into theeffects of transparency on citizens’ attitudes and political behavior andhow these may vary among groups of citizens or depending on the insti-tutional circumstances of the polity in which they live. It is plausible toexpect, for example, that the negative effects observed in the analysespresented here are not uniform across a population but instead befallsome groups to a greater extent than others. If it were the case thatindividuals with more education instead became more civically engaged,then the results would be more encouraging in terms of the theory ofsocietal accountability. The policy implications mentioned above alsosuggest a number of testable hypotheses, namely, that transparency inmoderately to highly corrupt contexts might incite different reactionsdepending on the existence of institutional mechanisms to channel publicdiscontent. These issues warrant continued attention as data becomeavailable.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Nicholas Charron, Sten Dieden, Niklas Harring,Helena Lindholm-Schulz, Edwin Malesky, Naghmeh Nasiritousi, MarcusSamaani, Richard Svensson, and the anonymous reviewers for invaluableinput and comments on earlier versions of the article.
Notes
1. Self-interested strategies may entail abstaining from citizen activism but mayalso imply using corruption as a means to secure individual entitlements inan expeditious manner and even obtaining goods and services beyond whatone is entitled to by law.
2. It is important to point out that even if this theorized process attributes therole of principal to nonstate actors, it does not assume unbounded rationalityon the part of the public. Societal accountability does not imply that thepublic as principal carries out coordinated actions to ensure seamless moni-toring and alarm operations. The public cannot act as principal proper evenbarring problems of information asymmetry as citizens lack the ability topunish government agents, with the important but still limited exceptionof regular free and fair elections. The public is also not in most polities,however, powerless, as the considerable literature on social movements andsocietal accountability attest.
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 21
3. In research conducted predominately in more developed welfare states,resignation is often associated with behaviors such as tax evasion, voterabstention, refusing to be registered in government databases, or physicalwithdrawal.
4. The index incorporates data from 13 sources including the OECD, the Centerfor Public Policy, Open Budget Initiative, the World Bank’s Country Policyand Institutional Assessment, and the World Economic Forum.
5. For a more comprehensive review of this critique and answers to the criti-cism made, see Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi (2007).
6. The five survey questions were: (1) By a common definition, impartialityimplies that when implementing policies, public sector employees should nottake anything about the citizen/case into consideration that is not stipulatedin the policy. Generally speaking, how often would you say that public sectoremployees today, in your chosen country, act impartially when deciding howto implement a policy in an individual case? (2) Hypothetically, let us say thata typical public employee was given the task to distribute an amount equiva-lent to US$1000 per capita to the needy poor in your country. According toyour judgment, please state the percentage that would reach the needy poor.(3–5) Thinking about the country you have chosen, how often would you saythe following occurs today? a. Firms that provide the most favorable kick-backs to senior officials are awarded public procurement contracts in favor offirms making the lowest bid? b. When deciding how to implement policies inindividual cases, public sector employees treat some groups in societyunfairly? c. When granting licenses to start up private firms, public sectoremployees favor applicants with which they have strong personal contacts?
7. In brief, the technique involves running two “first-stage” regressions inwhich the dependent variables are those suspected to be endogenous,namely, transparency and control of corruption. As independent variables inthe first-stage regressions, we utilize all other independent variables in themodel along with additional variables considered to be exogenous. In orderto be considered exogenous, the additional variables must correlate with thevariable suspected of being endogenous, but not with the dependent vari-ables in the article’s main models. The residuals as well as the predictedvalues for transparency and control of corruption are saved from thesefirst-stage models. In order to test for endogeneity, the residuals from each ofthe first-stage regressions are included among the independent variables ineach of the models without interaction terms (models 1, 3, 5, and 7 inTable 1). If a second-stage regression returns a significant slope parameterestimate for a first-stage residual, the associated (first-stage) dependent vari-able is considered endogenous, and its predicted value from the first-stageregression is used in the second-stage model as a less biased estimate.
8. The negative relationship between transparency and political interest alsodoes not seem to be an artifact of multicollinearity as the pattern exists evenif control of corruption is removed from the model (not shown in table).
9. The political interest variable does not satisfactorily comply with theassumption of interval dependent variables. We therefore fit a multilevelmodel for ordinal responses (see Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal 2008). Theresults of these confirmatory analyses concur with the results presented formodels 1 and 2 in Table 1. In addition, the political involvement measuredoes not meet the assumptions of interval scale measurement and normaldistribution. The variable is the mean of four dichotomous measures and themost common value for all respondents is zero. We therefore also ran model4 using negative binomial regression with clustered standard errors forcountries, and the results concur with those reported in Table 1.
22 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
10. Transparency and control of corruption are to some extent collinear. Thiscondition makes it difficult to adjudicate whether the interaction term exclu-sively captures an interaction between these two conditions or instead cap-tures nonlinear effects of the one or the other of the two. Further researchand in particular field experiments are therefore needed to parse out theexact interrelations of these conditions.
11. 0.65 = 0.3*(2.42–0.2). Such interpretative exercises must of course beregarded with caution. What, after all, does a two-step change on a stan-dardized transparency measure mean in terms of policy measures andreforms? Nonetheless, the pattern is sufficiently robust to suggest nonran-dom variation.
12. It does not seem to be the case that this null result stems from a lack ofvariation in transparency at higher levels of control of corruption (seeFigure 2).
13. Such conditions include reforms such that transparency can strengthenintragovernmental accountability mechanisms, as well as institutionalarrangements encouraging public participation, so as to allow for input bycitizens in public policies. In the words of Schumann (2007, 856), “Transpar-ency reforms may often usher in a democracy of access but not necessarilythe democratization of decision-making. It potentially obfuscates as much asit illuminates.”
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AppendixTABLE A1Descriptions of Variables Used in Analyses and Coding
TABLE A2Source, Year and Original Coding of Variables Used in the AnalysisVariable Source Question Wording etc. Original Coding Year
Politicalinterest
World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
How interested wouldyou say you are inpolitics?
(1) Very interested(2) Somewhat interested(3) Not very interested(4) Not at all interested(scale reversed
in our analysis)
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
Politicalaction
World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
Average number of thefollowing politicalactions that therespondents actuallyhave carried out (0–4):
• Signing a petition• Joining in boycotts• Attending lawful
demonstrations• Joining unofficial
strikes
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
Institutionaltrust
World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
Mean indexUsing confidence in thecivil service governmentand justice systemI am going to name anumber of organizations.For each one, could youtell me how muchconfidence you have inthem:
(1) A great deal(2) Quite a lot(3) Not very much(4) None at all(scale reversed in
our analysis)
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
Resignation–satisfactionindex
World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=808664
-2.5–2.5 (recodedso that min = 0)
2003–2004
Control ofcorruptiona
World Bank Governanceindicators (Kaufmanet al. 2009)
Seehttp://www.govindicators.org
-2.5 to 2.5 (recodedso that min = 0)
2002–2008(varies bycountry)
Politicalterrora
Political Terror Scale—US State Departmenthttp://www.politicalterrorscale.org(Gibney, Cornett, andWood 2010; Gibneyand Dalton 1996)
Human rights score, 1(low political terror)to 5 (high politicalterror). See originalsource for details oncoding
2002–2007(varies bycountry)
(Continued)
28 MONIKA BAUHR AND MARCIA GRIMES
TABLE A2Continued
Variable Source Question Wording etc. Original Coding Year
Democracya Freedom House/Polity 2
0 (least democratic)-10 (most democratic)
2000–2006(varies bycountry)
GDP/capitaa Gleditsch ExpandedTrade and GDP data
2002
Gender World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
1 Male2 Female
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
Age World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
This means you are____ years old(write in age in twodigits).
Number of yearsof age
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
Education World Value Surveyhttp://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
What is the highesteducational levelthat you haveattained?
1 No formal education)2 Incomplete primary
school3 Complete primary
school4 Incomplete secondary
school: technical/vocational type
5 Complete secondaryschool: technical/vocational type
6 Incomplete secondary:university-preparatorytype
7 Complete secondary:university-preparatorytype
8 Some university-leveleducation, withoutdegree
9 University-leveleducation, withdegree
2005–2008(varies bycountry)
aData accessed through Teorell et al. (2011). The Quality of Government Dataset, version 6 Apr 11. University ofGothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, <http://www.qog.pol.gu.se>.
INDIGNATION OR RESIGNATION 29
TABLE A3Correlations among Key Dependent and Independent Variables
TransparencyControl ofCorruption
PoliticalTerror Democracy
PoliticalInterest
PoliticalAction
Transparency 1.00Control of corruption 0.79 1.00Political terror -0.52 -0.76 1.00Democracy (Freedom
