In the 1990's, theorists of social capital were led to establishing a direct connection between political culture and the performance of governmental institutions. If such a causal relationship does in fact exist, then it should be possible to identify the cultural factors that are associated with corruption. In this article we test this hypothesis at a world level. Using quantitative methods, we develop a series of multi-variate models meant to measure the effect of cultural factors - such as religious tradition, interpersonal confidence and law abidance - on levels of corruption in several countries, using non-governmental organizations' reputational evaluation of "International Transparency" as a dependent variable. This article shows that the level of corruption in a particular country is essentially an attribute of the type of political regime and level of economic development. However, certain cultural characteristics lend explanatory power to these models, thus contextualizing macroeconomic and macropolitical interpretations of corruption.
corruption; social capital; political culture; democracy; World Values Surveys; International Transparency
