The socio-political dynamics of corruption: An analysis on the EU countries [Yolsuzlugun sosyo-politik dinamikleri: AB ülkeleri üzerine bir analiz]

The roots of corruption are grounded in a country's economic, political, legal, social and cultural history. The aim of this paper is to empirically test a model that associates non-economic factors such as democracy, law system, education, ethnic fractionalization and Protestant tradition with average corruption rates in a cross-section of 25 Europe countries between the years 2004 and 2007. The empirical results of the study found that democracy, law system, education and Protestant tradition were statistically significant determinants of corruption. In this respect, a country's transition from weak democracy and powerful democracy reduces corruption. An effective law system and education system also decrease corruption. Moreover, it was found that corruption was low in countries with the dominant Protestant tradition. However, in this study, ethnic fractionalization was not found to be statistically significant determinant of corruption