LEGISLATIVE INSTITUTIONS, PARTY CONTROL,
AND CORRUPTION: THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
The main argument of this book is that if legislative rules in developing democracies allow political parties to control the policymaking process via drafting and passage of bills in the legislature, then business groups will directly lobby political parties to influence policies, and this lobbying of political parties, in turn, will lead to an increase in corruption. In particular, the theoretical arguments in chapter 2 generated hypotheses lb, 2b, and 3b, which predict how party control of policymaking dynamics in the legislature affects corruption. These hypotheses specifically posit that party control of agenda-setting in the legislature and the introduction of amendments to bills on the legislative floor, as well as control over expulsion of party members that vote against the dictates of the party whip, have a positive impact on corruption. As discussed in chapter 2, according to the research design implemented in this project, chapters 4 and 5 tested the validity of the two-step causal mechanism by analyzing how differences in legislative rules in the selected cases, Brazil and India, led to variation in the lobbying venue choice of business groups in these countries and, hence, to variation in their levels of corruption.
The two case studies revealed that since Indian political parties formally control agenda-setting and amendment-making and moreover have the ability to expel party “dissidents,” corruption in India is higher than in Brazil. Compared to India, corruption in Brazil is lower because individual legislators (rather than policy parties) control policymaking dynamics in the legislature. Hence, comparing the Brazilian case to the Indian case provided some initial evidence for the prediction in hypotheses lb, 2b, and 3b. Furthermore, the case studies also corroborate the causal mechanism that accounts for the link between party control of policymaking in the legislature and higher levels of corruption. While these case studies are useful for assessing the causal mechanism that accounts for the link between party control of policymaking in the legislature and corruption, the findings from the case studies cannot be realistically generalized to all other democracies in the developing world.