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Corruption, Good Governance and Economic Development: Contemporary Analysis and Case Studies
Andrew Williams
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late 1980s and early 1990s, yet the scores on the release of data by their governments show a discernible increase. In this sense, the release of information by governments is clearly not based on current incomes. For these five transition countries, then, the significant increase in the release of information from the early 1990s suggests an (initial) optimistic attitude on the government’s part surrounding their country’s future prospects. (ii) Political constraints: If income does not appear to be primarily driving the release of information, then perhaps it is the prevailing political institutions that are: Figure 3.4 shows the relationship between the RI index and the degree of constraints on the executive (taken from the POLITY IV database) in 2005. As can be seen, as these constraints get larger, the release of information is also higher.vii Overall, the correlation between the two (in 2005) is 0.56. Of course, correlation is not causation, but this is certainly suggestive that governments tend to release more information when there is pressure on them to do so, not because they want to.
RI, 7, 0.71 RI, 6, 0.65 RI, 4, 0.61 RI, 2, 0.51
RI, 5, 0.61
RI, 3, 0.50
RI Index
RI, 1, 0.45
Executive Constraints (POLITY IV, 2004)
Figure 3.4 The Release of Information and degree of executive constraints, 2005 Source: Author’s calculations, Marshall and Jaggers (2002).
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