UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSES OF AND THE SOLUTIONS TO POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN MADAGASCAR: INFORMATION ASYMMETRY, CULTURE AND PERCEPTION OF CORRUPTION

Abstract

The literature on corruption is filled with different approaches in either defining corruption, in estimating its impacts, in analyzing its causes or in suggesting the solutions. This research aims at understanding what the main causes of political corruption are in Madagascar, why the anti-corruption reforms that have been adopted did not work, and what would be the solution. After going through the literature on political corruption, this research has selected two of the most popular theories, the principal-agent theory and the cultural theory. The hypotheses tested in this paper were derived from those two major theories. This research is based on survey conducted on 167 randomly selected individuals in Madagascar who reside in areas surrounding the capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo. Their responses helped us greatly in linking the causes of corruption raised by the literature on political corruption to the reality in Madagascar. The survey data showed a strong correlation between perception of political corruption as well as the trust in political leaders with information asymmetry.

This strong correlation supports the theory that information asymmetry has a significant effect on the level of political corruption as those who have more political knowledge are more likely to be concerned with political corruption than those who have less political knowledge. But there was not a statistically significant relationship between the attitude of the respondents regarding the gravity of political corruption compared to other political and social issues, as well as the belief that Madagascar is governed by the rule of law. We attempted to offer some possible explanations on why this is the case. Regarding the cultural theory, the survey data failed to support this theory. The finding showed that Madagascar does not have a strong static culture. Also, there was no statistically significant differences found between those who lean toward static culture and those who lean toward progressive culture when it comes to their attitude or opinions regarding political corruption.