CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Participation, institutions, and syndromes of corruption 49
Four groups of cases
Our four categories of countries are suggestive, but do they have anything to
do with reality? In this section I present statistical evidence suggesting that
these groupings are sufficiently coherent to merit further study. Using
country-level indicators of participation and institutional strength and
a K-means cluster analysis, I identify four groups of countries that
generally fit the categories and inhabit different sections of the corruptionand-development
scatter plot in chapter 2. Other indicators also support
the descriptions above. Statistics at this level cannot, by themselves,
give details of corrupt processes within societies, but they allow us to select
countries for the case-study chapters that will be the real test of the
syndromes argument.
Clusters of countries
The results that follow are based upon a 168-country dataset I assembled
using a variety of existing indicators of corruption, development, political
and economic liberalization, and institutional quality. 1 The main statistical
technique is K-means cluster analysis. It is a bit like factor analysis
stood on end: where factor analysis begins with a correlation matrix and
groups variables in terms of their fit on particular dimensions or factors,
cluster analysis uses a set of variables to identify groups of cases. Those
variables and the number of clusters sought are specified in advance by
the user; thus, cluster analysis is simply a way of asking, ‘‘If we were to
define N groups of countries using variables X, Y, and Z, what would
those groups look like?’’ If the analysis were to show that statistically
significant clusters could not be identified, or the clusters do not fit
expected patterns, then we would need to rethink the expected relationships
between participation and institutions. If, as is the case below, the
results are consistent with expectations we will have shown only that our
groups of cases are worth further study.
The data Performing this analysis requires statistical indicators
of participation and institutions. The time period to include affects not
only the scope of development trends to be considered but also the
number of societies we can include: data on most post-Soviet states, for
example, have become available only relatively recently. Other sections of
the world, such as the Middle East, are less well represented in datasets
1 The data and documentation are available at http://people.colgate.edu/mjohnston/
personal.htm.