Do reforms reduce corruption perceptions? Evidence from police reform in Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACT Corruption is a ubiquitous problem, but implementing serious anti-corruption measures is politically hard – the backlash from the corrupt is certain, but the broader political benefits are uncertain. Consequently, reformers face a dilemma in that even if they can pass reforms, it is not clear that the public will notice or reward them. To date, we have limited evidence on whether citizens notice anti-corruption reforms, how such reforms shape corruption perceptions, and whether there are real political benefits to reformers. In this article, we exploit a quasi-experiment embedded in the rollout of traffic police reform in Ukraine following the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013–14 to address each of these issues in turn. We find that citizens do respond quite accurately and durably in their evaluations of the most immediately affected institutions, but the spillovers to other political institutions are limited, short-lived, and offer little electoral gain.