Abstract
Political corruption is a universal phenomenon. Even though it is a cross-country reality, its level of intensity and the manner of its effect vary worldwide. In Spain, the demonstrated political corruption cases that have been echoed by the media in recent years for their economic, judicial and social significance are merely the tip of the iceberg as regards a problem hidden by many interested parties, plus the shortage of the means to fight against it. This study models and quantifies the population at risk of committing political corruption in Spain by identifying and quantifying the drivers that explain political corruption. Having quantified the problem, the model allows changes to be made in parameters, as well as fiscal, economic and legal measures being simulated, to quantify and better understand their impact on Spanish citizenship. Our results suggest increasing women’s leadership positions to mitigate this problem, plus changes in the political Parties’ Law in Spain and increasing the judiciary system’s budget.
Highlights
Political corruption is a universal phenomenon which, even though the times, ideas, laws and cultures of different countries have evolved, has remained unchanged since ancient times [1]
Spain does not enforce political parties disclosing their financial information or candidate funding in their reports, while 93% of OECD countries do [38], even though institutionalized transparency and accountability are the main aspects that promote the integrity and fairness of public decision making [39]. This situation is connected to previous scandals of political corruption that have affected the two longest-standing parties: PP and PSOE [40,41], which resulted in the end of a two-party system [42,43], and in the appearance of new political parties during general and local elections campaigning with vows to get rid of what they brand a “corrupt political elite”
The political corruption risk concept is defined in previous sections as the risk of legal or illegal acting or omission by someone based on a public office that favors self-interest, which causes public damages, which is not necessarily monetary, and should be understood as the suboptimal results obtained from their management
Summary
Political corruption is a universal phenomenon which, even though the times, ideas, laws and cultures of different countries have evolved, has remained unchanged since ancient times [1]. Roman civilization (70 and 50 BC), and as a result the legal code “Twelve Tables” [3] being passed, which imposed the death penalty on judges who accepted bribes and politicians who attempted to influence election results through bribery or other forms of “soft power” This concept lies in the ability to shape others’ preferences based on culture and intangible assets, such as the credibility and trustworthy of individuals and institutions [4]. Industry must pay more to lenders given the perceived political instability impacting the credit market [26,27,28] At those countries where the state institutions are weaker, corruption is often linked to violence, whereas in the so called mature democracies, corruption means the increase of economic and social insecurity and the opportunity for the privilege to get richer at the expense of everyone else [29]. The study identifies the drivers of the problem and highlights the main novelties of the research in terms of methodology employed, data and its contributions
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