The effect of anticorruption policies on social and political trust: a comparative approach

Purpose Corruption and anti-corruption are two often studied topics in social sciences today and often highly debated issues in both the national and international political arena. They are important in the context of democratization and democratic consolidation as they include the idea of a government that serves its citizens in a transparent manner, and tie with it notions of social and political trust. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between anti-corruption policies and social and political trust and hypothesizes that anti-corruption policies have a desired positive effect on social and political trust in settings with low and moderate levels of corruption, whereas they have no effect in highly corrupt settings. Design/methodology/approach The study uses regression analysis and includes all world democracies (33) for which complete data are available for a period of nine years (2005-2014). Findings Results indicate that anti-corruption policies have the expected results on social trust: in low to moderately corrupt countries, the effect is positive, while it disappears in highly corrupt countries. There are no significant effects on political trust. Originality/value This study is important because it questions the effect of anti-corruption policies that are assumed to have particular effects on corruption. It is also the first study to analyze the effect on such policies on social and political trust in democracies.