Korruptionen i det svenska folkstyret: vad säger medborgarna?

Abstract

Prior research on corruption highlights the importance of considering ordinary citizens’ views of corruption in politics and public administration. A key reason for this is that these views appear to have a significant impact on people’s confidence in public institutions. Moreover, to get a better understanding of corruption in “least corrupt” democracies with functioning market economy, it is important not only to include bribery, but also other types of corruption. In this article we use country representative data from Survey 2012 of such a case, Sweden, to better understand the variation of corruption across levels of government and how respondents’ own experiences of corruption relate to their perceptions of corruption. Cross-country studies portray Sweden as one of the least corrupt. However, Swedes tend to see corruption as present in public administration and in the recent past Sweden has experienced several corruption scandals. Our results show, in line with previous studies, that corruption is perceived as more common in subnational government than state government. In addition, when asked about their own experience of corruption (or the experience of someone they know) we show this to vary depending on what type of corruption situation it concerns: More respondents have experience of nepotism than bribery. Another major finding of the present article concerns the relationship between respondents’ experience of corruption and their perception of how much corruption there is in government. In particular, perceptions of extensive corruption are more likely among those with own experience of corruption. Given the potential impact of corruption views on support for the democratic system, this link between citizens’ experience of corruption and perception of its prevalence merits further research.