GV327      Half Unit
Governance and Corruption

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

Comfort with basic statistics as covered by Research Design in Political Science (GV249) or an equivalent course in research design or introductory statistics (such as ST102, ST107, ST108, GY140) is recommended.

The design and implementation of government policies depends on the actions and capacity of politicians and bureaucrats. For policies to be effective, they must be implemented according to programmatic criteria, while avoiding leakage. This course will overview recent theoretical and empirical work on governance, corruption and state capacity. The cases we investigate will be focused on low and middle-income countries in South Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. During the course we will explore questions such as: why do politicians and bureaucrats engage in corruption? Do voters sanction graft? Are anti-corruption bodies effective? Can technological solutions improve the delivery of public services?

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay (1000 words) in Autumn Term Week 7

Students will be expected to produce 1 formative essay of 1,000 words in Week 7.

• Golden and Fisman. Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Rose-Ackerman, Susan, and Bonnie J. Palifka. Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
• Oliveros, Virginia. Patronage at work: Public jobs and political services in Argentina. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
• Weschle S. Money in Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
• Grindle, Merilee S. Jobs for the Boys: Patronage and the State in Comparative Perspective. Harvard University Press, 2012.
• Anna Grzymala-Busse. Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Boas, Taylor C., F. Daniel Hidalgo, and Marcus André Melo. "Norms versus action: Why voters fail to sanction malfeasance in Brazil." American Journal of Political Science 63.2 (2019): 385-400.
• Lewis-Faupel, Sean, et al. "Can electronic procurement improve infrastructure provision? Evidence from public works in India and Indonesia." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 8.3 (2016): 258-283.
• Brierley, Sarah. Unprincipled Principals: Co-opted Bureaucrats and Corruption in Ghana. American Journal of Political Science 64(2) (2019): 209–222.

Course participation (20%)

Essay (80%, 3000 words) in Winter Term Week 1

Course participation will include class participation and a presentation in the WT.