CORRUPTION AND DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING: A PERPLEXING RELATIONSHIP

By

MARIN EXLER

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Department of Political Science

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

May, 2020

1

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

We hereby approve the thesis of

Marin Exler

candidate for the degree of Master of Arts*

Committee Chair

Kelly McMann

Committee Member

Karen Beckwith

Committee Member

Pete Moore

Date of Defense

5/1/2020

*We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein.

2

Table of Contents Abstract ...... 4 Introduction ...... 5 The Phenomenon of Corruption ...... 6 The Phenomenon of Democratic Backsliding ...... 9 The Argument and Its Contributions ...... 11 Methods And Data ...... 14 Comparative Analysis ...... 18 Brazil ...... 21 Poland ...... 22 Thailand ...... 23 Hungary ...... 24 Turkey ...... 25 Argentina ...... 26 Case Study: Venezuela...... 28 Legislative Corruption...... 30 Judicial Corruption ...... 35 Public Sector Corruption ...... 40 Executive Corruption ...... 44 Addressing the Actual Potential Cause of Democratic Backsliding in Venezuela ...... 48 Conclusion ...... 53 Appendix ...... 57 Appendix A ...... 57 Appendix B ...... 59 Appendix C ...... 64 Appendix D ...... 68 Bibliography ...... 69

3

List of Tables

Table 1 ...... 68

List of Figures

Figure 1 ...... 21 Figure 2 ...... 22 Figure 3 ...... 23 Figure 4 ...... 24 Figure 5 ...... 25 Figure 6 ...... 26 Figure 7 ...... 28 Figure 8 ...... 30 Figure 9 ...... 35 Figure 10 ...... 40 Figure 11 ...... 44 Figure 12 ...... 64 Figure 13 ...... 64 Figure 14 ...... 65 Figure 15 ...... 65 Figure 16 ...... 66 Figure 17 ...... 66 Figure 18 ...... 67

4

Corruption and Democratic Backsliding: A Perplexing Relationship

Abstract

By

MARIN EXLER

To what extent does corruption contribute to democratic backsliding? This study begins with the assumption that there is a relationship between governmental corruption and the strength of democratic institutions. Understanding the relationship between corruption and democracy is essential, as understanding what causes and facilitates democratic backsliding can be used to help inhibit backsliding. Surprisingly, this study demonstrates that corruption does not seem to contribute to backsliding. Namely, significant increases in corruption do not precede backsliding, and all of the countries that did experience backsliding had various corruption levels preceding backsliding. This thesis shows specifically that the use of public office for private gain does not necessarily erode democratic institutions to the point where they cause a democratic reversal. To illustrate these points, this study utilizes a comparative analysis of large countries that have recently experienced backsliding and a case-study of Venezuela, a country that has undergone a complete democratic reversal.

5

Introduction

Countries around the world have seen a movement towards increasing democratization in the past half century, a promising indication that a global shift away from authoritarianism is occurring.1 While the world now sees the highest level of democracies that it has ever seen, a recent wave of democratic reversal has also occurred; within the past decade, numerous countries have seen their democratic institutions erode.2

Corruption has been considered to weaken democratic institutions, and therefore could be considered a factor in facilitating backsliding.3 The basic definition of corruption is use of public office for private gain.4 Essentially, government officials are making decisions for private gain rather than representing their constituencies, which logically, would weaken democratic institutions. Yet, interestingly, increases in corruption do not seem to precede democratic backsliding and not all countries with moderate to high levels of corruption experience backsliding.

I will begin by discussing the varying definitions of corruption and specify the exact definition of corruption being used in this study, and then go on to discuss the theory of democratic backsliding and the global trend of democratic backsliding. I will then review the general literature regarding the relationship between corruption and democracy and how one would expect corruption to have a negative impact on democracy to the extent that it could facilitate democratic backsliding.

1 Kurlantzick, J. (2011). The great democracy meltdown. New Republic, 242(8), 12-15. 2 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 3 Moreno, A. (2002). Corruption and democracy: A cultural assessment. Comparative Sociology, 1(3- 4), 495-507. 495. 4 Weyland, K. G. (1998). The politics of corruption in Latin America. Journal of Democracy, 9(2), 108-121. 108. 109. 6

I then proceed to examine different levels of corruption coexisting with varying levels of democratic consolidation prior to democratic backsliding in various countries.

This is shown through a comparative analysis of five major countries that have experienced democratic backsliding, but that all have varying levels of corruption within each country.

I utilize the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset for this information regarding levels of corruption and liberal democracy. This comparison shows that in each country it is evident that there is no substantial increase in corruption preceding backsliding.

Then I will move onto a case study of Venezuela in order to explore why corruption actually does not contribute to democratic backsliding. Although it is clear cross-nationally that corruption does not contribute to backsliding, it is also important to understand why, hence the utilization of an in-depth case study analysis. Through examining the causal mechanisms between what factors of democracy need to decrease in order for backsliding to occur and the nature of corruption, it becomes evident that corruption (use of public office for private gain) does not cause a reversal of democracy. In the discussion of this study, I will examine what causal mechanisms actually did facilitate democratic backsliding in Venezuela, and further clarify how corruption was not a key part of causing democratic backsliding. Democratic backsliding began in Venezuela in 1999, so I then begin to discuss possible alternative and relevant theories as to why democratic backsliding did occur in Venezuela.

The Phenomenon of Corruption

The term “corrupt” is used often in literature to describe governments that are not functioning in a way that they were intended to, and often reference immoral practices in government. The term “corruption” is used widely, but some studies neglect to define it 7 specifically. As previously mentioned, corruption can be identified as the use of public office for private gain. But what is private gain? Private gain can range anywhere from a physical cash payment to a guaranteed position in a company when a public officer leaves office.

Political Corruption: A Handbook addresses common, broader terms of corruption, including the destruction of the integrity of a position for personal gain.5 Other definitions of corruption expand to include nepotism (granting a position to an individual based on personal connection rather than merit) and misappropriation (appropriating public resources for private interests).6 In some definitions of corruption, clientelism is included.

Clientelism mostly occurs when a politician offers a service or policy action in exchange for support, often electorally.7 Clientelism may also occur when politicians use public dollars to prioritize social programming for members of their own political party over others, as can be seen historically in Venezuela. Additionally, non-political corruption also exists, such as corruption within major businesses. Corruption within business practices tends to bleed into the political realm as well; Eisen et. al argue that corruption within business can include “state capture,” in which firms use their power to bribe politicians to make laws in favor of unethical business practices. Business corruption can also stifle market competition and negatively impact the overall health of the democracy.8

5 Heidenheimer, A. J., Johnston, M., & Le Vine, V. T. (Eds.). (1989). Political corruption: A handbook (Vol. 11). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. 8-9 6 Ibid. 7 Hicken, A. (2011). Clientelism. Annual review of political science, 14, 289-310. 291 8 Eisen, N., Kenealy, A., Corke, S., Taussig, T., & Polyakova, A. (2019). The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding. Retrieved from Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-democracy-playbook-preventing-and-reversing-democratic- backsliding/. 37 8

However, the focus for this paper will stay centered around the traditional and pinpointed definition of political corruption, rather than including nepotism, clientelism, and business corruption that doesn’t interact with state officials. This is because the V-

Dem Institute specifically defines corruption as external actors offering monetary compensation to public officials in order to gain something. Therefore, “public office” can include any role in government, from public sector, to judicial, to legislative, and executive.

“Private gain” will be centered around illegitimate funding in turn for a favor. This funding may be literal cash, or it may be rewards or special gifts. It can include kickbacks, illegal bank accounts, money-laundering, tax evasion, and theft.9 Most importantly, there will be some sort of monetary compensation as part of the reward for engaging in corrupt practices.

Corruption is associated with a sense of deviancy, a disregard for the sanctity of a position in order for personal gain. Clearly, it would seem as though actions like these would lead to democratic weakening. But a democracy can persist on, even with increasing levels of corruption. This is because the transition to democracy and whether the not the democracy has fully consolidated impacts how effectively the system can function.10 Trust, satisfaction, and support of democracy are core aspects for ensuring that democracies weather challenges, and the general literature implies that this can be difficult to achieve when corruption is widespread in a country. While this may be true to a certain extent, corruption’s impact on democratic consolidation is fundamentally different than its impact on democratic backsliding. As I argue, while corruption may generate discontent and

9 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 269. 10 Drapalova, E., Mungiu-Pippidi, A., Palifka, B., & Vrushi, J. (2019). (Rep.) Corruption and the crisis of democracy: the link between corruption and weakening democratic institutions. Transparency International. doi:10.2307/resrep20482. 6 9 frustrate members of the public, it does not inherently inhibit elected officials and members of the government from carrying out their function, protecting civil liberties, and acting as a check on the executive branch.

The Phenomenon of Democratic Backsliding

Democratic backsliding is “the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy.”11 While not necessarily specified in many definitions of democratic backsliding, a key and important component of

Bermeo’s definition is her mention of backsliding being “state-led.” This means that actors within the government are actively working to erode democratic institutions. Democratic backsliding can result in two outcomes: either the democracy fully reverses into an authoritarian state, or the democracy becomes a hybrid regime.12

The recent wave of democratic backsliding is concerning because it has specifically developed in large countries, many with democracies thought to be democratically stable or on a clear path towards democratic consolidation.13 The global decline in democracy since 2010 has been significant enough to that the “average global citizen in the world has now been cast back to where we were around 1990.”14 For the first time since 1978, more countries are experiencing democratic reversal than there are countries experiencing democratic advancement. Even as smaller countries continue to democratize, the threat of

11 Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19. 5 12 Ibid, 6. One third option is that the backsliding stops (through intervention) and reverses, going back to a liberal democracy. 13 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 10 14 Ibid. 13 10 the democratic reversal of large countries means that more and more people may lose access to their basic civil liberties.

Why is this important? Democracy is considered to be the most representative form of government, that allows for a variety of individuals to express a wide range of opinions and discuss those opinions. Democracies tend to be the countries with the most robust respect for human rights, particularly when they are full-fledged democracies with multiparty competition.15 Hybrid regimes, which some eroded democracies become, typically hold elections but civil liberties are often curbed. Regression of this nature (from a liberal democracy to an electoral democracy) has occurred in various countries including

Hungary and Poland. A fully democratic reversal to autocracy (neither a liberal democracy nor an electoral democracy) occurred in Thailand and Venezuela.16

Democratic backsliding shows itself in a variety of patterns for individuals across the globe. According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute, “When countries autocratize, multiparty elections and their quality are not the primary targets, instead key aspects that make them meaningful are: freedom of expression, reasoned public deliberation, rule of law, and to a some- what lesser extent, freedom of association.”17 While electoral integrity is extremely important, the ability to mobilize and use collective voice and action is integral to a successful democracy.

15 De Mesquita, B. B., Downs, G. W., Smith, A., & Cherif, F. M. (2005). Thinking inside the box: A closer look at democracy and human rights. International Studies Quarterly, 49(3), 439-457. 440. 16 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 16 17 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 17 11

The Argument and Its Contributions

To better illuminate this trend in democratic backsliding, I examine the impact of corruption on democracy. I argue that while corruption is not necessarily healthy for democracy, it does not cause democratic backsliding. It is important to understand corruption’s impact on democracy and democratic backsliding specifically because we must know what does or does not cause democratic backsliding in order to attempt to prevent it.

When exploring the relationship, I find that the correlation between corruption and levels of democracy is different for each country, some being positive (corruption increasing while democracy is also increasing) and some being negative (corruption decreasing while democracy is increasing).18 The general literature notes that there is a curvilinear relationship between corruption and democracy, where low and moderate levels of democracy allow for higher levels of corruption.19 However, in the time that I examine between democratization/the establishment of democracy and democratic backsliding, I use the correlations referenced in Appendix D to show that in countries with varying levels of democracy, there is no uniform way that corruption interacts with democracy preceding backsliding.

Because the core aspect of corruption is private gain, corruption does not inherently act as an attack on aspects of liberal democracy such as freedom of expression or freedom of association. It will be important to delve into this argument more in depth as I go on, because it may seem counter-intuitive to what the current body of literature argues. I will

18 See Appendix D 19 McMann, K. M., Seim, B., Teorell, J., & Lindberg, S. (2019). Why Low Levels of Democracy Promote Corruption and High Levels Diminish It. Political Research Quarterly. 1-15. 1. 12 address important distinguishing factors between aspects of corruption and aspects of democracy, such as a corruption within the judiciary being different from an non- independent judiciary. Distinctions such as these are often not explained in the current literature, and are a subject of very interesting focus when explained and explored sufficiently.

Understanding corruption’s relationship to democratic backsliding is essential for two reasons: 1) it is important to identify the causes of democratic backsliding in order to know how to prevent it and 2) corruption and democratic backsliding are global phenomena, and acknowledging how corruption manifests can be beneficial for policymakers and practitioners that are trying to eliminate it. My argument regarding the relationship between democratic backsliding and corruption is also important because it addresses a void in the existing literature. Findings from prior research may lead us to suspect that corruption promotes democratic backsliding, but this earlier research has not actually examined the impact of corruption on democratic backsliding. This study takes on this task.

Corruption has been widely agreed upon to have a negative impact on democracy itself. Specifically, corruption is seen to decrease responsiveness of government officials; when government officials receive funding through bribery, they are less likely to be responsive to the demands of the people.20 It has also been shown that corruption can undermine public support for democracy. Moreno argues that, “permissiveness towards corruption is strongly and negatively correlated with support for democracy and with interpersonal trust, both of which are important components of democratic political

20 Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Political corruption and democracy. Conn. J. Int'l L., 14(2), 363-378. 363 13 culture.”21 Therefore, the more people think that corruption is “inevitable” and

“acceptable,” the less strong faith they have in democracy. These studies of how corruption weakens democracy suggest that perhaps it could promotes democratic backsliding.

Other scholars have identified factors that contribute to democratic backsliding, but they have not focused on corruption. In a review of the democratic backsliding literature,

Lust and Waldner identify different theories of democratic backsliding. They examine state strength, strength of democratic culture, resource wealth, structure of political institutions, and international pressure.22 However, none of the theories explored by Lust and Waldner investigate the impact of corruption on backsliding. Eisen et al. touch upon the negative impacts of corruption on democracy, but do not come to a concrete conclusion that corruption can truly cause and facilitate democratic backsliding.23 Moreover, the focus on their policy report, published by The Brookings Institution, is on preventing and reversing backsliding, not demonstrating corruption’s specific impact. More substantial literature on the extent to which corruption impacts democratic backsliding does not seem to exist.

Additionally, some scholars argue that there is a strong correlation between weak democracies and democratic backsliding. Democracies that have not consolidated fully are much more susceptible to influencing factors that undermine democracy. According to

Lust and Waldner, Goldstone et al.’s theory that hybrid regimes are more likely to

21 Moreno, A. (2002). Corruption and democracy: A cultural assessment. Comparative Sociology, 1(3- 4), 495-507. 496. 22 Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with democratic backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21, 93-113. 23 Eisen, N., Kenealy, A., Corke, S., Taussig, T., & Polyakova, A. (2019). The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding. Retrieved from Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-democracy-playbook-preventing-and-reversing-democratic- backsliding/. 37 14 backslide than fully consolidated democracies is the strongest theory regarding what leads to backsliding. Goldstone et al. argue that quality of democracy and stability of democracy are related; higher levels of democracy result in a democracy less likely to backslide.24 In states with low democratic checks and balances, corruption can flourish more easily, thus one might expect that this weakens democratic institutions and could lead to backsliding.

However, corruption can still be prevalent in strong democracies, therefore indicating that corruption can have a negative impact on democracy regardless of the starting point.

Another common theme in the relationship between corruption and democracy is the argument regarding the relationship between the perceived impact of corruption and democracy. Gates argues that corruption has the strongest impact on democracy when “the public perceives corruption to be a problem and is preoccupied with addressing this problem.”25 While this public pressure can encourage politicians to take actions to mitigate corruption, public dissatisfaction can also weaken support for existing leadership and the fact that democratic institutions and processes should be able to remove poor leadership from office (whether that be through impeachment, electing a new leader, or simply, that a term limit means that they cannot govern anymore). However, this position neglects to address how corruption itself can weaken democracy or not. The aim of this study is to examine the actual impact of corruption, not the impact of perception of corruption.

24 Goldstone, J., Bates, R., Epstein, D., Gurr, T., Lustik, M., Marshall, M., Ulfelder, J., & Woodward, M. (2010). A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability. American Journal of Political Science, 54(1): 190-208. 25 Gates, L. (2009). The politics of corruption in Venezuela. SUNY-Binghamton. Available from: http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/congress-papers/lasa2009/files/GatesLeslie.pdf. 1 15

Methods And Data

This study consists of a cross-national time series study of six countries and a case study of Venezuela. For both, I draw on data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset. For the case study, I use both historical and political-science centered scholarly articles, augmented with examples of cases of corruption in Venezuela.

For the cross-national time series analysis I examine Brazil, Poland, Thailand,

Hungary, Turkey, and Argentina. I selected these countries for a variety of reasons. Brazil,

Poland, Thailand, Hungary, and Turkey have each undergone a democratic transition and have experienced a reversal within the past two decades. Brazil and Turkey both have large populations, Brazil being the sixth largest country in the world with over 212 million residents, and Turkey being the 17th largest country in the world with 84 million residents.26

Poland and Hungary have had both had high levels of liberal democracy, but have had their democracies weakened coinciding with the influence of right-wing populist leaders.

Thailand was on a steady path towards democracy and consolidation, even with high levels of corruption, until that reversed. Chosen countries span Latin America, Europe, the

Middle East,27 and Asia, to address the fact that democratic backsliding is a global phenomenon.28 This aspect of the design provides external validity, meaning that the result of this study are more generalizable.29

To strengthen the internal validity, I also examine the contrasting case of Argentina.

Inhabiting the same region of the world of Venezuela and Brazil, Argentina has also dealt

26 World Population by Country (n.d.). Retrieved from https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ 27 Turkey is sometimes categorized as European and other times categorized as Middle Eastern 28 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 14 29 Gerring, J. (2006). Case study research: Principles and practices. Cambridge university press. 43. 16 with populist leadership, prevalent corruption, and economic crises that have seriously challenged the integrity of the democracy.30 However, Argentina has yet to experience democratic backsliding, contrary to countries surrounding it.

To further increase internal validity and examine possible causal mechanisms between corruption and backsliding, I examine Venezuela’s experience in depth. I choose

Venezuela because of its history of relatively strong and lengthy democracy while also maintaining moderate-high levels of corruption. Because corruption is present in the country, we would expect that preceding backsliding that there would also be a rise in levels of corruption. However, there is no evidence of this phenomenon, creating an interesting puzzle that is the goal of this paper to resolve.

Venezuela democratized in 1958 under the compromise of two major parties,

Acción Democrática and COPEI, through the Pact of Punto Fijo.31 The two party nature of its democratization is important, as the role of the elitist two-party system contributed to the high levels of corruption that were maintained in the country for decades. Democracy remained stable for four decades, and Venezuela was considered a model for democracy in Latin America. However, in 1999, democratic backsliding began. Because corruption was such a prevalent part of the country, it provides an interesting case study of the relationship between corruption and democracy. Additionally, the types of corruption

Venezuela has exhibited exist in other countries, making my findings more generalizable.

The goal of employing both the cross-historical analysis and the individual case study is to

30 Llanos, M., & Maia, J. (2019). Argentina 2019: Broken Economy, Strengthened Democracy. GIGA Focus Lateinamerika(6), 1-11. 1 31 Molina, J. E., & Pérez, C. (1998). Evolution of the party system in Venezuela, 1946–1993. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 40(2), 1-26. 7. 17 address both breadth and depth; analyzing the overall relationship between corruption and backsliding, and pinpointing the causal mechanisms in a specific case.

For both designs, I utilize data from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem).

Each of the V-Dem indicators I use are based on data from country experts. The V-Dem institute recruits over 3,000 country experts from across the globe, and gathers data from five experts for each observation, enabling them to “statistically account for both uncertainty about estimates and potential biases that experts may evince, using a custom- built Bayesian measurement model.”32 Questions asked of the experts attempt to be clear, solicit objective answers, and leave little room for interpretation.33 In response to the potential of variability, the V-Dem Institute works with a Bayesian Item-Response theory

(IRT) to count for varying levels of expert knowledge.

The independent variable is corruption, so I use the V-Dem political corruption index. For the Venezuela case I also use each of the political corruption index broken down components: judicial corruption, executive corruption, public sector corruption, and legislative corruption.34 The dependent variable is level of liberal democracy. V-Dem’s conceptualization of liberal democracy is based on Dahl’s (1973) definition of minimum requirements for a liberal democracy.35 For the Venezuela case, I also examine key components of liberal democracy, including freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, freedom of association, clean elections, equality before the law and

32 Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91- 44ba601b6e6b/v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf. 33 Ibid. See: V-Dem Methodology: Aggregating Expert Assessments 34 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 35 Dahl, R. A. (1973). Polyarchy: Participation and opposition. Yale University Press. 18 individual liberty, judicial constraints on the executive, and legislative constraints on the executive.36 V-Dem provides an index for each of these. Questions asked in each indicator and further descriptions for both corruption and the liberal democracy index can be found in Appendix A and Appendix B.

Comparative Analysis

As previously referenced, there has been a global trend of democratic backsliding, as measured by population in the past 30 years. Numerous large democracies, many with relatively stable governments, have moved away from this stability have become less democratic. In this section, I analyze and compare trends in five major backsliders: Brazil,

Poland, Thailand, Hungary, and Turkey. I then include Argentina as a contrast to these five cases. I chose these countries specifically because of their large populations, their diverse geographical locations, and because of their differing levels of corruption. Brazil has had moderate-high levels of corruption, Poland has had low levels, Thailand has had high to moderate-high levels, Hungary has moderate-low levels, and Turkey has had almost completely moderate levels of corruption, leveling just below .5. Each country (except for

Argentina) is also characterized by the fact that it did backslide, while each country’s democracy had a different relationship regarding the correlative relationship between democracy and corruption preceding backsliding.37 Other major backsliders include Russia and the United States, which I have chosen not to include in this specific study. This is

36 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 Other components of the liberal democracy index include percent of population with suffrage and the elected officials index, which essentially describes how the government is set up. Both of these indicators show little relationship to corruption and remain flat over time. Therefore, exploring the relationship between these factors and corruption is less relevant for this study. 37 See Appendix D 19 because Russia has been on a democratic decline basically since its inception of

“democracy” and the United States has not experienced an extremely sharp drop in democracy, unlike the cases used in this study. Additionally, I will examine Argentina as a contrasting case to the major backsliding phenomenon: it has not experienced democratic backsliding despite moderate-low to moderate-high levels of corruption.

The political corruption index is made up of judicial corruption, legislative corruption, executive corruption, and public sector corruption. The V-Dem codebook examines political corruption in regards to “bribery and corruption due to embezzlement,” which is the focus of this study. Executive corruption is specifically the head of state, cabinet, and ministers, while public sector corruption accounts for the rest of general governmental bodies.38 Executive corruption specifically measures how these officials misuse public funds or engage in theft and bribery for personal or family use. Legislative corruption index does not specify whether legislative corruption is in regard to just the national legislature or also possible lower level legislatures. However, the index goes beyond theft and bribery in terms of corruption, and also includes creating laws specifically to aid private entities, in exchange for receiving a job from that entity after they leave the legislature. Judicial corruption is corruption (bribes, kickbacks, etc.) at all levels of the judiciary. This specific type of corruption is in relation to individuals or businesses making extra bribes and payments to “speed up or delay the process or to obtain a favorable judicial decision.”39

38 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 See Appendix A for the full description of the political corruption index 39 Ibid, See Appendix A 20

Liberal democracy, as noted previously, is the combination of both the electoral democracy index and the liberal component index. According to the V-Dem data, the liberal aspect emphasizes “the importance of protecting individual and minority rights against the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority.”40 The liberal component emphasizes constitutionally protected civil liberties, strong rule of law, an independent judiciary, and effective checks and balances. As liberal democracy cannot exist without electoral democracy, the index also includes the level of electoral democracy. The electoral component includes the open existence and participation of political and civil society organizations, clean elections free from irregularities, and that elections legitimately result in the change of the head of state.41

Each of the graphs in the remainder of this section shows the period from democratic transition to the present. Data includes the liberal democracy index for each country and the political corruption index for each country from the V-Dem dataset.

Variables are normalized to fit on a zero to one scale, and are measured from low levels of democracy to high levels of democracy, and low levels of corruption to high levels of corruption. Corruption will be measured through the following scale: 1) 0 - .25 will indicate a low level of corruption, 2) .25 - .5 will indicate a moderate-low level of corruption, 3) .5-

.75 will indicate a moderate-high level of corruption, and 4) .75 – 1 will indicate a high level of corruption.

40 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060. See Appendix B 41 Ibid, See appendix B 21

Brazil

Figure 1

Prior to backsliding, Brazil exhibited moderate-high to high levels of corruption that have varied only slightly since democratic transition. There was a small increase in corruption in 2003-2004, but that was preceded and followed by dips. There was no significant increase in corruption before backsliding, so it is reasonable to conclude that corruption did not promote backsliding. Additionally, legislative corruption, judicial corruption, executive corruption, and public sector corruption did not increase significantly before backsliding: all components remained high but did not increase before backsliding began.42

42 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 22

Poland

Figure 2

Poland’s levels of corruption before backsliding did not increase at all, and in fact, rather decreased slightly before the sharp drop in levels of liberal democracy in 2015.

Therefore, there is no indication per this information that the decrease in liberal democracy is related to levels of corruption, especially considering levels of corruption are in the low level in Poland. Additionally, individual components of political corruption in Poland did not significantly increase preceding the onset of democratic backsliding.43 Despite the fact that Poland has overall low levels of corruption, it still experienced a dramatic democratic reversal. This shows that even in a country with both high levels of democracy and low levels of corruption, backsliding may occur, indicating that there are other root factors causing democratic backsliding to begin.

43 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 23

Thailand

Figure 3

An increase in corruption did not precede democratic backsliding in Thailand.

Rather, political corruption was following a gradual decreasing trend, although still inhabiting the high to moderate-high level before liberal democracy index suddenly plummeted in 2012. There is no indication that an increase in corruption was the factor that contributed to democratic backsliding, as there was no increase in corruption. And similar to Brazil and Poland, when the corruption is broken down into individual components, there does not appear to be any substantial rise in one type of corruption preceding democratic backsliding.44

44 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 24

Hungary

Figure 4

There was a slight increase in political corruption preceding backsliding in

Hungary, but at the same time corruption was increasing, the liberal democracy index was increasing as well. Since Hungary’s democratic inception, levels of liberal democracy have remained high and levels of corruption have stayed in the moderate-low range, yet democratic backsliding still occurred. Again, of the spliced out components of the political corruption index, none indicate a strong individual increase before democratic backsliding began.45 This also indicates there are other factors at play in regards to causing democratic backsliding in Hungary.

45 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060

25

Turkey

Figure 5 In Turkey, preceding backsliding there was no increase in corruption, but rather, a slight decrease in corruption from its normal levels before democratic backsliding began.

Overall, Turkey maintained a moderate level of corruption preceding backsliding, hovering around the .5 range, with little to no fluctuation. No individual component showed signs of substantial increasing before democratic backsliding actually began.46 In fact, general levels of executive corruption, public sector corruption, judicial corruption, and legislative corruption ran parallel to each other, with almost no significant deviation towards increasing or decreasing.

46 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 26

Argentina

Figure 6

Argentina is included as an example of a country with levels of corruption that have waivered from moderate-low to moderate high. However, Argentina has not experienced democratic backsliding, unlike countries in Latin America such as Venezuela and Brazil.

Despite corruption increasing substantially in the 1980s, liberal democracy was also increasing and maintained relatively high levels of democracy regardless of corruption levels. In the past decade, corruption and liberal democracy have also almost simultaneously split off, with democracy on an upwards trend and corruption taking a steep decline.

27

Interestingly, the data from each country that experienced backsliding show that after backsliding begins corruption almost instantaneously begins to increase and increases dramatically. This is consistent with the well-established findings that high levels of corruption and weak democracy coincide because civic and government monitoring and accountability institutions are ineffective.47 However, it also shows that preceding backsliding, almost none of this countries faced an increase in corruption, while some of them actually experienced a slight decrease in corruption.

This preceding section focused on the major backsliders from the recent democratic reversal to show that dramatic increases in corruption are not common prior to backsliding, as the experiences of Poland and Thailand show. Hungary and Brazil experience slight increases in corruption preceding backsliding, but not in a substantially significant way.

Turkey’s level of corruption was stagnant before backsliding began. Moreover, corruption levels are not always high preceding backsliding, as the data from Poland particularly shows. Finally, moderate-low to moderate-high corruption levels can be present for many years without backsliding occurring, as the case of Argentina shows.

Through this, we see that corruption cannot be held accountable for democratic backsliding, but why is that the case? The next section turns to examining the counterintuitive idea that an increase in corruption do not necessarily promote backsliding.

I investigate this through a case study analysis of Venezuela.

47 McMann, K. M., Seim, B., Teorell, J., & Lindberg, S. (2019). Why Low Levels of Democracy Promote Corruption and High Levels Diminish It. Political Research Quarterly, 1065912919862054. See also Drapalova, E., Mungiu-Pippidi, A., Palifka, B., & Vrushi, J. (2019). (Rep.) Corruption and the crisis of democracy: the link between corruption and weakening democratic institutions. Transparency International. doi:10.2307/resrep20482 28

Case Study: Venezuela

Figure 7 Corruption has been present at all levels of the Venezuelan government since its democratic inception after 1958. As noted previously, at the core of liberal democracy are clean elections, freedom of association, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, equality before the law and individual liberty, an independent legislature, and an independent judiciary.48

While corruption might be suspected to cause democratic backsliding, the case of

Venezuela illustrates that the use of public office for private gain does not seem to have destroyed democratic institutions and practices, consistent with the data from the other countries that have experienced democratic backsliding.

48 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060. Also See Appendix B 29

Throughout Venezuela’s existence as a legitimate democracy between 1958 and

2016, there were substantially high levels of corruption. Yet, democratic backsliding didn’t begin until the late 1990s with the election of Hugo Chávez, the dissolution of the constitution, and the questionably called together Constituent Assembly that created a new constitution that vastly expanded executive power. One may note that the rise of Hugo

Chávez was primarily due to the existence of generalized corruption in Venezuela and people’s frustration with their government. Seeing Chávez as a leader that could cure the country of its corruption problems, he gained popularity and a certain level of stardom, even after his failed coup. This is important to note, as it was the perception of the negative impact of corruption that fueled popular support for Hugo Chávez. However, it was not the corruption itself that facilitated the weakening of democratic institutions enough to lead to democratic backsliding.

This section breaks down the four types of corruption that make up the political corruption index: legislative corruption, judicial corruption, public sector corruption, and executive corruption. For this section, I will examine the impact of legislative corruption on legislative checks on the executive, and judicial corruption on judicial checks on the executive as well as equality before the law and individual liberty. Because there is not exact component of the liberal democracy index that aligns with executive corruption and public sector corruption, I will examine the impact of both of these types of corruption on the equality before the law and individual liberties index, the clean elections index, freedom of association index, and the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index. 30

Legislative Corruption

Figure 8

The legislative corruption index measures legislative corruption in the following four ways: 1) accepting bribes, 2) legislators using their office to propose and support legislation that aids a specific industry in return for a position in that industry after they left the legislature, 3) obtaining government contracts for firms that the legislator and their close friends own, and 4) stealing money from the state for personal use.49 In Venezuela, accepting bribes and stealing money from the state are what I have found to be the most common types of corruption in the country. Another common type of corruption would be the legislators bribing individuals to vote for them, but that is not captured by the index.50

49 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060, See Appendix A 50 In regards to candidates providing money, goods, or services (bribery) in exchange for a voter’s promise to vote for the candidate, Capriles argues that irregular distribution of resources by the state helped create a large middle-class, an industrial sector, and fortified the two party system. Both parties had “bought” out supporters through promising extra resources to their constituencies, prioritizing 31

Examples of legislative corruption in Venezuela include when legislators would accept bribes to nominate members of their political party or personal friends to the judiciary, even if the individual was unqualified to sit as a judge. In return, those judges would overlook legal violations committed by those legislators who had secured their appointments.51 In the process of appointment to the judiciary “Congressmen [would] trade votes in order to appoint friends (from whom they can later call in favours) who more often than not [did] not have either the academic merit or the practical experience called for under the openly flouted 1980 law of the judiciary.”52 This corruption also jeopardized the integrity of the judicial branch.

An example of the legislature passing a law to benefit the pocket books of the members and stealing money from the state, is the Banco de Trabajadores Venezolanos scandal in the early 1980s. In this scandal, the legislators manipulated laws to allow themselves to receive illegal funding from the Banco de Trabajadores Venezolanos. The Banco de

Trabajadores Venezolanos is the main bank that “promoted, financed, and protected” the

Confederación de Trabajadores Venzolanos (CTV), the main union of Venezuelan workers.53 This union, protected by the state, was tasked with protecting rights for all

Venezuelan workers. In the early years of the Herrera administration, the legislature at the time borrowed several billion Bolívares in order to form long-term treasury notes. In 1982,

members of their own political party over other political parties.50 Additionally, because the party in the assembly has control over the distribution of resources and government services, the average citizen feared that “reporting on their experiences with corruption might endanger their access to government services.” (Mendez, Capriles, and Perdomo 1991) Therefore, buying into the corruption from the legislature and party officials made more sense than attempting to root it out. 51 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 281. 52 Ibid. 53 McCoy, J. L. (1989). Labor and the State in a Party-Mediated Democracy: Institutional Change in Venezuela. Latin American Research Review, 24(2), 35-67. 60 32

Congress then attempted to pass a law that would “allow the notes to be negotiated to ease the bank’s liquidity squeeze.”54 However, this legislation was led by Acción Democrática, and COPEI stepped in to stop it, calling the legislation an act of corruption as money from negotiating the bank notes was going to individuals throughout the government. The result of the investigation proved that members of the political parties in the legislature (both AD and COPEI), major labor leaders in both parties, and the CTV had been benefiting from improper loans and profits.55 Another example of legislators colluding with industries is that through the oil boom and nationalization of oil companies, public officials would

“divert part of the flow into their own pockets.”56 Because of the rich abundance of oil, legislators were able to succeed at this without it appearing as such an obvious and egregious form of corruption.

There is no indication that high levels of legislative corruption facilitate democratic backsliding. The V-Dem data defines checks by the legislature on the executive as “To what extent are the legislature and government agencies e.g., comptroller general, general prosecutor, or ombudsman capable of questioning, investigating, and exercising over- sight over the executive?” Just because corruption enriches legislators doesn’t necessarily prevent them from checking the executive, and fulfilling the factors listed by the component. For example, in Venezuela legislators were colluding with business officials to increase their own personal economic and political gain, but that does not inherently mean that they were unable to function. If they were engaging in an act of corruption that

54 McCoy, J. L. (1989). Labor and the State in a Party-Mediated Democracy: Institutional Change in Venezuela. Latin American Research Review, 24(2), 35-67. 61 55 Ibid. 61 56 Coppedge, M. (1994). Prospects for democratic governability in Venezuela. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 36(2), 39-64. 47 33 directly aligned with their inability to act as a check on the executive, then it may have had a negative consequence. This does not appear to be prevalent in the case in Venezuela.

Specifically, there is no indication that the collusion between members of the government and The Banco de Trabajadores Venezolanos limited the ability of the legislature to continue to act a check on the executive branch. Members of government may have been looking out for their own personal and private gains, but were still able to act as official representatives for the state. Lining one’s pocket does not inhibit the legislature from passing laws (performing its function) and acting as a check on decisions from the executive branch (protecting a component of liberal democracy). It may be more ineffective, and it may frustrate the general public, but legislative corruption does not directly facilitate legislative democratic backsliding. Clear increases in legislative corruption in the 1980s do not coincide with similar decreases in the ability of the legislature to act as a check on the executive. In fact, even as legislative corruption increased, legislative checks on the executive partially increased as well.

So what did cause the dramatic drops of legislative checks on the executive? The changes Chávez made to the legislative branch significantly reduced the oversight that the legislature had over the executive branch. Before Chávez’s election, the legislature was able to act as a check on the executive more effectively. However, one of the first things he did as president was reduce the ability of the legislature to act as a check on the executive.

Chávez called for a national referendum to dissolve the constitution at the time and establish a “Constituent Assembly” to create a new constitution. Chávez strategically organized the Constituent Assembly through a “clever nomination strategy that rationed 34 candidates from his coalition across districts and coordinated the vote from his supporters using ad-hoc lists (known as “kino cardboards”) which helped to identify official candidates with the adequate numbers for each district.57 With only 53 percent of the vote,

Chávez’s party claimed 93 seats. The following measures resulted from the Constitution created by the Constituent Assembly: 1) Presidential term limit went from 5 to 6 years, 2) created the possibility for 1 presidential re-election, 3) President had full reign over military promotions without needing legislative approval, 4) the Senate is eliminated, making legislature unicameral, and 5) the President could enact law without legislative approval, and could hold any referendum without legislative approval.58

While a unicameral legislature doesn’t necessarily make the legislature less democratic, it may create a situation in which if the same party holds onto both the presidency and the legislative body, the chances of effective oversight are greatly decreased. While there are many countries that have unicameral legislatures that have not experienced backsliding, in this scenario, the strategic manipulation of voting methods and the structure of the legislature created conditions that made abuse of power and democratic backsliding more possible. Chávez would then go on to utilize tactics to keep the opposition from gaining a majority in the legislature, which will be discussed later.

57 Corrales, J., & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition. Journal of Democracy 18(2), 99-113. doi:10.1353/jod.2007.0020. 101. 58 Ibid. 101 35

Judicial Corruption

Figure 9

The V-Dem data defines judicial corruption as how often individuals make successful payments or bribes to members of the judiciary in order to speed up or delay the judicial process, or to obtain a favorable decision, even if it is not the correctly legally justified decision.59

Administrative corruption occurs in the first part, when those who are arrested pay bribes to court administrators, such as clerks, in order to have files and other legal materials altered or lost, or to speed up or delay the hearing of the case.60 Slowing down a case may allow for the accused to come up with evidence (falsified or not) in order to help bolster their case. They may want to speed up the case because they know that the judge that will

59 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060, See appendix A. 60 Buscaglia, E. (2001). An analysis of judicial corruption and its causes: An objective governing- based approach. International Review of Law and Economics, 21(2), 233-249. 235. 36 hear the case is either a political ally, or could be bribed. Either way, the accused is seeking to influence the way that the judicial process happens, often for their own benefit (and to potentially the financial benefit of the judge.)

Operational corruption is an example of the second part of the V-Dem definition, and occurs most often in Venezuela when judges apply the wrong law or allow faulty evidence to be presented in order to dismiss charges against the accused. According to Rey, warrants for arrest in Venezuela could be bought, and corresponding judgements could be bought.61

Judge’s decisions could be bought by members of a political party that the judge was aligned with, or by any individual with enough money to cover whatever unofficial “fee” the judge charged. The judge will then manipulate evidence, legal bases for the arguments, and other factors in order to determine that the accused is innocent. With no check on these judicial processes, business leaders and legislators were often able to have their charges acquitted, and in return, judges gain the comfort of financial benefit.

Operational corruption was especially applied in larger corruption scandals, when judges had their political careers on the line if they chose to not make a decision that would acquit their political allies. Therefore, judges, knowing that they would receive economic and political advantage through helping their allies, would make decisions in their favor, regardless if it were truly the legally correct basis of the argument.62 According to Cupolo,

“The rich bribe their way to freedom, probation, or least, special treatment in jail.”63 For example, The judiciary “rarely prosecuted, let alone convicted, officials charged with

61 Rey, J. C. (1998). Corruption and Political Illegitimacy in Venezuelan Democracy. M. Kulisheck, Reinventing Legitimacy: democracy and political change in Venezuela, 113-124. 127 62 Buscaglia, E. (2001). An analysis of judicial corruption and its causes: An objective governing- based approach. International Review of Law and Economics, 21(2), 233-249. 235. 63 Cupolo, M. (1998). Public administration, oil rent, and legitimacy crises in Venezuela. M Kulisheck, Reinventing legitimacy: Democracy and political change in Venezuela, (11), 99 - 111. 100. 37 corruption” in Venezuela.64 This ties to the fact that judges could receive financial and political support from officials when encouraged not to pursue criminal convictions against those charged with corruption.

There is no indication that corruption of the judicial branch resulted in judicial democratic backsliding in the pre-Chávez era in Venezuela, nor a reduction of equal protection before the law and individual liberty. Although it was plagued by corruption, the judicial branch still functioned. This may seem puzzling; if judges are loyal to their party, and their party is in power, that could mean that they are neglecting to act as a proper check on the executive branch, or that it would at least be less independent. The data in

Venezuela shows that even corruption for personal gain did not fully inhibit the judiciary from functioning.

The primary potential connection between judicial corruption and backsliding is a weakening of judicial constraints on the executive. Judicial corruption mostly surrounded cases regarding private businesspeople and different officials within the government. The index for judicial constraints on the executive asks the question, “To what extent does the executive respect the constitution and comply with court rulings, and to what extent is the judiciary able to act in an independent fashion?” 65 While this may seem strange, as from the general literature it seems very possible that the judiciary was not independent, I argue that in many of the court cases that dealt with the executive branch, the court often never came to a decisive conclusion that found high-ranking officials guilty. This makes it possible that the executive branch was respecting the decision of the judiciary.

64 Gates, L. (2009). The politics of corruption in Venezuela. SUNY-Binghamton. Available from: http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/congress-papers/lasa2009/files/GatesLeslie.pdf. 13 65 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060 38

There is also no indication that judicial corruption resulted in the weakening of equality before the law and individual liberty index. This is because when the index is broken down, only two of the components deal with laws being transparent and rigorously enforced.

These components are the “public administration being impartial” variable and the

“ensuring that citizens receive equal opportunity to justice” variable. The index also considers variables such as secure property rights, freedom from forced labor, freedom of movement, physical integrity and rights, and freedom of religion.66 In even a corrupt judiciary, there is no indication that corruption impacted any of the latter components.

For example, at the end of the Recadi scandal, the general public was anticipating substantial convictions for the officials involved, and they were disappointed to find no convictions for anyone in the Venezuelan government. The case was so intertwined politically and throughout different levels of government, the Supreme Court realized that they would be indicting half of Venezuela’s members of government. Rather than attempt this, they convicted only one businessman from China.67 This only further embedded the deep-set frustration of the general public with the corruption of the judicial branch.

However, while cases such as the Recadi scandal show the political nature of the judiciary, it also shows that the judiciary’s inability to convict those involved in corruption does not necessarily result in democratic backsliding.

So what did cause the various decreases in judicial constraints on the executive preceding and after backsliding began? To start, the Venezuelan Supreme Court considered

66 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060, See appendix B 67 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 273. 39

Chávez’s referendum to abolish the constitution permissible. But then, they backtracked, arguing that the existing legislature would need to follow constitutional measures in order to change the Constitution. However, Chávez ignored this ruling completely. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Cecilia Sosa Gomez, further pushed against Chávez, but the supporters that Chávez had in the legislature declared a “national emergency” over

Venezuela’s governmental structure, and began reforming according to Chávez’s guidelines, despite being blocked by the judiciary.68 In this scenario, the President did not respect the decision of the judiciary, showing that the judiciary failed to act as a check on

Chávez when he acted in an unconstitutional manner.

What is still interesting is that a part of judicial checks on the executive index is judicial independence. The general literature argues that the Venezuela’s judiciary was not independent at all, and that was its greatest weakness. Yet, according to the data, the judiciary was able to maintain some semblance of judicial independence. Because the executive branch was respecting the Constitution overall, and because these officials were often respecting the outcomes of the judiciary (mostly because those outcomes either didn’t happen or were weak at best), it pulls the entire index up to the .75 range. Regardless, the corruption of the judicial branch itself does not appear to have any significant relationship with the weakening the judicial constraints on the executive. This means that the financial incentives they had were for their own personal benefit, but party loyalty most likely had a stronger impact on judicial constraints on the executive than the corruption itself. The judiciary does prove itself to be an interesting case that may merit further exploration into

68 Corrales, J., & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition. Journal of Democracy 18(2), 99-113. doi:10.1353/jod.2007.0020. 100. 40 perception of judicial independence vs actual judicial independence, and how far judicial independence may be compromised before it could create democratic backsliding.

Public Sector Corruption

Figure 10 Public sector corruption is defined by the V-Dem codebook as 1) payments to the administrative bodies to grant favors and 2) public sector employees embezzling or misusing public funds for personal gain.69 I found that both of these types of corruption were present in Venezuela, and that part two specifically manifested as the collusion of public company employees with private companies for illegal personal economic gain.

69 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060. See Appendix A. 41

The public sector’s corruption first stems from inefficiency and bribery; individuals would bribe members of the public sector to have permits, identification, and other official documentation processed at a faster rate.70 This created a backlogged system in which the rich got ahead. According to Cupolo, the public sphere “is an instrument of political and economic appropriation mastered by the groups controlling the state.”71 It is filled with clientelistic friendships where there are only two ways to get things done officially; “know someone” on the inside, or have the cash to help move the administrative process along.72

Identified as one of the key facilitators for other types of corruption to exist, administrative or “generalized” corruption is the corruption of the practices that are meant to pass paperwork and legal documents from one institution to another. Tangled up in political allyship, the public sector is notorious for paperwork going missing in the process of being transferred from one office to another.73 In order to ensure one’s paper work would not go missing, and that it would be approved, individuals would bribe administrative employees in the public sector.

In an example of the second type of corruption, collaboration between the public sector and the private sector, Little and Herrera detail a corruption scandal between 1989 and 1990 regarding the public water company:

The Venezuelan National Institute of Sanitation (INOS) is responsible, among other things, for the supply of public water. In 1989 and 1990 INOS officials

70 Perdomo, R. P. (1990). Corruption and business in present day Venezuela. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(7), 555-566. 559. 71 Cupolo, M. (1998). Public administration, oil rent, and legitimacy crises in Venezuela. M Kulisheck, Reinventing legitimacy: Democracy and political change in Venezuela, (11), 99 - 111. 101. 72 Perdomo, R. P. (1990). Corruption and business in present day Venezuela. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(7), 555-566. 558. 73 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 280 42

deposited two and a half billion bolívares with eight private sector banks despite the fact that this practice had been forbidden by the Central Bank. According to the Auditor General’s report of 1990 these deposits earned interest at up to 30 percentage points below the prevailing market rate. In return for the money, the banks paid a commission of 5 percent. The misappropriation was a double one in that INOS employees received kickbacks and seriously damaged the financial stability of their institution.74

In another example, the PDVSA itself was accused of conspiring with private companies across the globe to maximize oil profits. Hammond states:

They [PDVSA] had an essentially capitalist vision which aimed to restore sound management and operate the firm independent of the national executive to maximize profits. They undercut OPEC by pumping as much oil as possible even when the price was low and OPEC was calling for restrictions. They “internationalized” the company by investing abroad in refineries and distribution facilities (including the U.S. gasoline company, Citgo, wholly owned by PDVSA), won court decisions to bring back foreign investment under very favorable terms, evaded Venezuelan taxes through creative accounting, and sequestered profits outside of the country and the Venezuelan treasury.”75

In this example, the money gained from evading taxes and working specifically with private corporations in illegal ways created kickbacks for officials within the PDVSA.

Unlike legislative and judicial corruption, public sector corruption does not have a direct link to a specific democratic component but rather could potentially affect multiple.

Therefore, this specific examination pulls in equality before the law and civil liberties

74 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 280 75 Hammond, J. L. (2011). The resource curse and oil revenues in Angola and Venezuela. Science & society, 75(3), 348-378. 364 43 index, the clean elections index, freedom of association index, and the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index.

Nothing within public sector corruption necessarily means that there’s a weakening in the core pillars of liberal democracy. Although petty corruption was a key factor in the functioning of daily public administration, it was not a key factor in inhibiting clean elections, nor restricting individual’s access to freedom of expression or freedom of the press.76 While petty administrative corruption in the lowest level of government may make for inefficiency and a frustrated electorate, it does not necessarily have a direct threat on the protection of civil liberties that make up the core pillars of a liberal democracy.

At the higher level collaboration between the private and public sector, corruption may have resulted in lost money for the state that instead went to the hands of officials within the public company. Although this was not beneficial for the state, this collusion does not mean that it was directly undermining the core civil liberties that make up a society. In this sense, public sector corruption is a nuisance, hurtful to the economy, and may make the electorate frustrated. However, for example, there was no limitation of freedom of expression that occurred when the public sector took bribes to push paperwork through. While not helpful for democratic institutions, public sector corruption does not actively facilitate the weakening of equality before the law and civil liberties index, the clean elections index, freedom of association index, and the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index.

76 Hybel A.R. (2020) The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in Colombia and Venezuela. In: The Challenges of Creating Democracies in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. 181. 44

Executive Corruption

Figure 11 The executive branch of Venezuela consists of the president, vice president, cabinet ministers, “and other officials as determined by the constitution and by law” per the

Constitution.77 Therefore, when discussing executive corruption, all of these actors make up the executive branch. When examining whether executive corruption affects liberal democracy, I am specifically noting whether that corruption impacts facets of liberal democracy including clean elections, freedom of association, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, and equality before the law and individual liberty.

According to the V-Dem codebook, they define types of executive corruption as 1) members of the executive branch granting favors in exchange for bribes and 2)

77 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic, Chapter 11, Section 1, article 225 45 misappropriating public funds for private use.78 I found both of these to be present in

Venezuela, with the “granting favors” being specifically relevant to business leaders.

For example, Rafael Caldera’s first presidency in the early 1970s marks the initial democratic presidential period with known instances of corruption, specifically misuse of public funds for personal benefit and for lining the pockets of party allies.79 Acción

Democrática won sweeping elections in that year, at the local level, gaining control of the legislature, and winning the presidency. This absolute control of power, along with an overwhelming influx of oil wealth, produced a weakening of checks on where and how oil money was spent.80 Public funds from the oil wealth that should have been concentrated in the hands of the people also ended up in the hands of the President.

The Pérez administration also had allegations of corruption, specifically collusion with industry leaders for personal gain. He became closely associated with powerful business leaders, and policy pushed through by his ministers specifically benefited the industries

Pérez was closest to. Pérez dubbed the group of business elites that he worked the most closely with his “twelve apostles,” and in turn for economic policy that specifically benefitted them, he earned their financial and campaign support.81 Beyond himself, his

Attorney General was accused of embezzling $18 million Bolivares worth of public funds, which resulted in the Attorney General fleeing the country.82 Pérez was ultimately forced

78 Coppedge, M., et. al. V-Dem Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3441060. See Appendix A 79 Rey, J. C. (1998). Corruption and Political Illegitimacy in Venezuelan Democracy. M. Kulisheck, Reinventing Legitimacy: democracy and political change in Venezuela, 113-124. 115. 80 Ibid. 118. 81 Duno, P. (1975). Los doce apóstoles: proceso a la degradación política. Vadell Hermanos. 82 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 280 46 to resign after charges alleging that he misappropriated $17 million from a secret account for personal and political use.83

An example of embezzlement of public funds for personal gain of the executive branch comes from one of the most notorious instances of bureaucratic corruption at all levels: the

Recadi Scandal. President Herrera Campins established the Recadi (Régimen de Cambio de Dinero) in order to act as a measure of currency exchange controls.84 It abandoned the fixed covertability for a differential exchange rate system, making it much easier for top officials in the Campins administration, including some of his ministers, to embezzle money into their personal bank accounts.85 The scandal was widespread and highly reported on by the Venezuelan media; because the intensity and clearness of the scandal was so evident, the public assumed there would finally be a substantial crackdown. This was not the case. The Recadi scandal stretched beyond executive corruption and into generalized corruption—as it included the central bank, all the commercial banks, the customs office, audit companies, business associations, and businesspeople prominent and non-prominent alike.86 Seeing a scandal that would tear Venezuelan society and public and private sector stability at the seams, the judiciary convicted no Venezuelan officials, many who had fled the country.87 While the illegality of the actions of public officials greatly undermined public trust, it had no impact on constraining the individual rights of the people

83 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 268 84 Rey, J. C. (1998). Corruption and Political Illegitimacy in Venezuelan Democracy. M. Kulisheck, Reinventing Legitimacy: democracy and political change in Venezuela, 113-124. 122. 85 Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-Carbó E. (eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 273 86 Rey, J. C. (1998). Corruption and Political Illegitimacy in Venezuelan Democracy. M. Kulisheck, Reinventing Legitimacy: democracy and political change in Venezuela, 113-124. 123. 87 Ibid. 123 47 to assemble, protest, express, and demand transparency from their government.

Additionally, in this instance, the executive branch respected the outcome of the judicial decision because the judicial decision implicated no one.

There is no indication that there is a substantial relationship between examples of executive corruption such as the previous and clean elections, freedom of association, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, and equality before the law and individual liberty preceding their weakening in the late 1990s. This is because most of the executive corruption, like other forms of corruption, included specifically manipulating the flow of public money (mainly petrodollars) into the pockets of members of the executive branch.88 The corruption did not incentivize members of the executive to reduce the individual liberties of the general public. Although these instances of corruption by no means aided the strength of democratic institutions and their integrity, collusion between the president and business officials did not impact the strength of civil liberties, and the press was free to report on any of the corruption that was unearthed.

Through breaking down and analyzing each type of corruption, we can begin to see the complex relationship that corruption has with democratic backsliding. Corruption can make processes slower, it can make state actors act on behalf of their own personal interests rather than the interests of the state, and it puts the wealthy at an advantage over the non- wealthy. The two-party, clientelistic history of Venezuela also created a realm where both democracy and corruption could coexist. Corruption was the way to get things done quickly in the public sector, but elections still occurred, parties still alternated power, and the media was free to report on anything that they saw as a detriment to democracy.

88 Hellinger, D. (1991). Venezuela: tarnished democracy. Westview Press. 48

Addressing the Actual Potential Cause of Democratic Backsliding in Venezuela

So what does cause democratic backsliding? If corruption truly is for personal benefit and does not necessarily contribute to autocratization, why should it be a major concern of government? Why should it be a focus of government at all?

To answer the first question, there exists a myriad of theories from emerging experts on the phenomenon of democratic backsliding. For example, experts hypothesize that the lack of democratic consolidation creates a situation most susceptible to democratic backsliding. According to Waldner and Lust, there is strong evidence through multivariate statistical models that partial democracies are more likely to experience backsliding than fully consolidated democracies.89

Factors that they identify could lead to backsliding include high concentration of presidential power and political allegiance to party over allegiance to democracy. This can result in a lack of the legislature and the judiciary acting as a check on the executive. A strong body of literature suggests that a concentration of executive power (presidential hegemony), doubled with the president’s party having control over the legislature and potential influence in the judiciary, means that the President can act at will with little oversight. This is a prime example of the type of conditions that may allow democratic backsliding to precipitate.90

In Venezuela particularly, a combination of concentration of power in the executive branch and its neopatrimonial, elitist foundation played into its difficulty to fully consolidate, thus creating the ideal situation for democratic backsliding to occur.

89 Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with democratic backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21, 93-113. 90 Pérez-Liñán, A., Schmidt, N., & Vairo, D. (2019). Presidential hegemony and democratic backsliding in Latin America, 1925–2016. Democratization, 26(4), 606-625. 49

Venzuela’s historical two-party clientelistic system, partnered with abundance of oil as the sole main resource of the country, created a situation that when oil prices were high, democracy was stable, and when oil prices dropped, democracy became unstable.91

Ross argues that when a state has a rich oil reserve before democracy develops, it is likely that democracy will become less strong. This is because governments can finance their programming via oil revenue rather than taxation. With less taxation, the governments are less accountable to the people.92 While this theory is moderately strong, just the use of oil revenue in place of taxation did not seem to account for inhibiting democracy from functioning properly in Venezuela, especially when oil revenue was high. This may seem counterintuitive to the robust findings that oil wealth inhibits democracy because oil wealth

“captures the state” and makes state actors less responsible to the citizens.93 This is because there is another body of literature that suggests that economic crises trigger dissatisfaction with the current regime, possibly resulting in regime change. While an economic crises may not necessarily lead to backsliding, it exposes weaknesses in their democratic regime, as well as problems with their democratic leaders’ strategies of handling financial issues.94

This creates a volatile situation for a single-resource state; when that resource is plentiful, individuals may be satisfied with the regime that they are under, whether it is authoritarian or democratic. However, when that stockpile is depleted and an economic crisis arises in a

91 Hammond, J. L. (2011). The resource curse and oil revenues in Angola and Venezuela. Science & society, 75(3), 348-378. 364. 92 Ross, M. L. (2013). The oil curse: How petroleum wealth shapes the development of nations. Princeton University Press. 93 Ross, M. L. (2001). Does oil hinder democracy?. World politics, 53(3), 325-361. 356 94 Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. R. (1997). The political economy of democratic transitions. Comparative Politics, 263-283. 267 50 democratic regime, the likelihood of a regime change and possible progression to democratic backsliding is heightened.95

The corruption that came along with the nationalized oil company does not appear to have actually affected the stability of democracy in Venezuela. The party in power alternated over time, there was a relatively even divide of power, and there were no concerning limitations on the right to assembly and the freedom of the media. But the presence of corruption, both petty, and high-level, sparked dissatisfaction with government and loss of faith in democracy. Hugo Chávez used this opportunity to attempt a promissoury coup. After the coup failed, his heightened popularity and critical stance on corruption made him a highly favored candidate by the general public, leading to his election in 1998. The way Chávez handled his role in office corresponds to all of the modern forms of democratic backsliding according to Bermeo’s argument.96 Beyond the coup, Chávez forwarded executive aggrandizement and strategic manipulations of elections. He started by calling for a national referendum to establish a Constituent

Assembly that would abolish the constitution and create a new one. The election to the

Constituent Assembly was manipulated through what Bermeo defines as “strategic manipulation,” where Chávez essentially ensured that his supporters would end up within the assembly, creating a constitution that greatly increased his powers.97

Chávez championed that he was the leader of a “participatory democracy” rather than a “liberal democracy,” revealing that his concern for protecting liberal democracy was not a priority. Specifically, Chávez became an example of “ how leaders can exploit both

95 Kapstein, E. B., & Converse, N. (2008). The fate of young democracies. Cambridge University Press. 96 Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19. 97 Ibid. 13 51 state resources and the public’s widespread desire for change to crowd out the opposition, and, by extension, democracy.”98 His legacy maintained this philosophy; as a true populist leader, he would speak for the people, and if the people spoke out against the two-party elitist legacy of Venezuela, he committed to tearing it down, even if that meant taking down the power structures that maintained some semblance of democracy. This is important to note; although Hugo Chávez was elected through democratic means, he used his position to dismantle existing checks and balances and legitimate institutions.99

Turning from the legislature, Chávez set his eyes on the judicial branch. The judiciary had been plagued by clientelism and political favoritism, and Chávez promised to end that. The National Constituent Assembly declared a state of emergency, suspending judges that had seven or more complaints or had any history with a criminal investigation being conducted on them. This resulted in hundreds of judges being removed from office.100 While a rigorous cleanse of the judiciary was definitely warranted, the speed and extensiveness of the process began to polarize the nation and led to unrest. Additionally, the Constituent Assembly in March of 2000 selected all of the twenty national justices to sit on the Supreme Court. Although through this election the opposition was represented in the court, the camps were not divided on schools of thought, but rather “Pro-Chávez” or

“Anti-Chávez.”101 Knowing that the structure of the Constituent Assembly was largely

98 Corrales, J., & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition. Journal of Democracy 18(2), 99-113. doi:10.1353/jod.2007.0020. 100 99 Piccone, T. (2019). Latin America’s struggle with democratic backsliding(pp. 1–11). Brookings Institute. 4 100 Wilkinson, D. (2004). Rigging the Rule of Law: Judicial independence Under Siege in Venezuela. Human Rights Watch. 8 101 Ibid. 8 52 influenced by Chávez, we begin to see the strategy of taking over the checks on the executive branch by the judicial branch.

With control over the legislature and strong influence in the judiciary, Chávez turned to the media. According to Corrales, the government invested over $40 million into the state-run television network, the government news agency, expanded the breadth of the television network and radio network by adding in 145 local radio stations, created 75 government-friendly newspapers, and began infiltrating the digital world through pro- government websites.102 Then, Chávez took to the opposition, refusing to renew the broadcast license of the private media company RCTV, on the grounds of it acting as

“golpista,” or calling for a coup against Chávez. Corrales notes, the Chávez government has made itself the first popularly elected administration in Latin America since the 1980s blatantly to curtail press freedom.”103

With Chávez and his allies in control of every major branch of government, the weakening of civil liberties followed suit, resulting in a full reversal of democracy into autocracy.104 But even through all of this, using his position for private gain was not the goal. In fact, the debilitation of democracy was not led by corruption in and of itself, but manipulation of power for political gain. Throughout the history, there is no indication that

Chávez or any of his allies were directly using their public office for private economic gain.

Then, to turn to the argument of “why corruption matters” to a democracy and to governments, we reach an interesting intersection of how corruption actually affects democracy vs how the perception of corruption affects democracy. Corruption in and of

102 Corrales, J., & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the Opposition. Journal of Democracy 18(2), 99-113. doi:10.1353/jod.2007.0020. 110 103 Ibid. 111 104 See Appendix C for detailed graphs on decreasing aspects of liberal democracy 53 itself does not necessarily facilitate democratic reversal; while it may undermine the legitimacy of actors within the state, the nature of corruption is focused on private gain.

While this may sap resources from the state, it does not inherently mean that members of the judiciary, public sector, legislature, and executive are not acting as a check and balance and protecting civil liberties. However, when the general citizenry perceives corruption to be a major problem, they are less likely to have faith in democracy and the institutions that are protecting them.

As Gates notes, whether corruption is perceived to be a “nuisance” or a “serious problem” can genuinely impact the way that citizens interact with their government.105

When corruption is an inconvenience, it could mean that business is happening, but perhaps at a more inefficient rate. But when that corruption reaches an unacceptable level, the discontent may grow to a point where the general populous loses faith in their government.

This can potentially create an opening for actors that promise higher level democracy to insert themselves into the playing field, potentially through undemocratic means, as what occurred in Venezuela.

Conclusion

The relationship between corruption and democracy is complex, but it is clear that political corruption overall does not directly contribute to democratic backsliding. This is because at the root of corruption is private gain. While this may seem counterintuitive to the general body of literature that argues that corruption is incompatible with democracy, the curvilinear relationship between corruption and democracy seems to indicate

105 Gates, L. (2009). The politics of corruption in Venezuela. SUNY-Binghamton. Available from: http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/congress-papers/lasa2009/files/GatesLeslie.pdf. 54 otherwise. Corruption can exist under moderate to moderately high levels of democracy.106

Once democracy does reach certain high thresholds, corruption is diminished. High levels of corruption are not compatible with high levels of democracy; however, democracies at any level, strong, moderate, or weak, are all susceptible to democratic backsliding.

If corruption does not contribute to democratic backsliding, as illustrated through the comparative analysis and case study of Venezuela, then what is corruption’s true impact on democracy? While corruption is certainly not healthy for democracy, and policy efforts should be taken to mitigate corruption, corruption may not be at the root cause of instability in a democracy. Corruption and democracy have a cyclical relationship: weak democratic institutions allow corruption to flourish, and when corruption flourishes, it negatively impacts democratic institutions. But there must be that initial external weakening in order for corruption to penetrate strong democratic institutions.

The fact that corruption does not necessarily cause democratic backsliding is significant; as governments are in precarious democratic positions, they need to know what factors are having the greatest impact on the breakdown of their democratic institutions.

Knowing that corruption is not a contributor to democratic backsliding means that governments can focus efforts on heightening levels of liberal democracy in other facets, such as ensuring that the judicial is adequately equipped and balanced to act as a check on the executive, and that the legislature is independent and functioning in a way in which it can still pass general laws for the good of the society. This also means that leaders in a democracy should be wary of other leaders that seem power-hungry, or willing to change democratic rules to help their own platform or party. Strong democracies facilitate a

106 McMann, K. M., Seim, B., Teorell, J., & Lindberg, S. (2019). Why Low Levels of Democracy Promote Corruption and High Levels Diminish It. Political Research Quarterly. 1-15. 55 balance of power and peaceful transitions from one party to another, and individuals or parties that threaten that can be dangerous for democracy.

This by no means indicates that corruption is good for democracy, that it is a

“necessary evil,” or just a slight nuisance that can be brushed aside. Rather, it shows that in the fight against global democratic backsliding, the relationship is more complicated than individuals blaming backsliding on “corruption.” The term “corruption” is often used a scapegoat for greater institutional problems that require an overhaul or real fortification of democratic institutions. If the executive branch is slowly encroaching power, not for private or personal gain, but rather for political power and control, that is a prime example of a key warning sign of democratic backsliding.

It would also be significant to measure what using public office for private gain does impact, versus using public office for political gain. There may be a more substantial relationship between clientelism/nepotism and backsliding, which were not measured here.

Further research could delve more into executive power and backsliding, political party control and backsliding, and especially the relationship between the perception of corruption and backsliding. There appears to be some significance there; the more people perceive corruption to be a problem, the less faith they have in democratic institutions and leaders to get rid of that corruption.

I will also acknowledge Venezuela’s interesting relationship with the private sector.

How do nationalized industries fit in the schema of corruption? In this study, they fit in as public administration. But the nationalized industries, such as oil, behaved similarly to private industries. Other private industries most likely had similar corrupt interactions with the government as the nationalized industries did. It would be worth studying perhaps in 56 another country how the private sector more extensively interacts with the government in regards to corruption.

For now, I will conclude saying that corruption itself does not necessarily facilitate democratic backsliding. But the complex relationship between corruption and backsliding continues on, and warrants further examination and explanation.

57

Appendix Appendix A Political corruption index (D) (v2x_corr) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: How pervasive is political corruption? Clarification: The directionality of the V-Dem corruption index runs from less corrupt to more corrupt unlike the other V-Dem variables that generally run from less democratic to more democratic situation. The corruption index includes measures of six distinct types of corruption that cover both different areas and levels of the polity realm, distinguishing between executive, legislative and judicial corruption. Within the executive realm, the measures also distinguish between corruption mostly pertaining to bribery and corruption due to embezzlement. Finally, they differentiate between corruption in the highest echelons of the executive at the level of the rulers/cabinet on the one hand, and in the public sector at large on the other. The measures thus tap into several distinguished types of corruption: both ‘petty’ and ‘grand’; both bribery and theft; both corruption aimed and influencing law making and that affecting implementation. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2x_pubcorr v2x_execorr v2lgcrrpt v2jucorrdc Data release: 5-9. Aggregation: The index is arrived at by taking the average of (a) public sector corruption index (v2x_pubcorr); (b) executive corruption index (v2x_execorr); (c) the indicator for legislative corruption (v2lgcrrpt); and (d) the indicator for judicial corruption (v2jucorrdc). In other words, these four different government spheres are weighted equally in the resulting index. We replace missing values for countries with no legislature by only taking the average of a, b and d. Citation: McMann et al. (2016, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2016:23); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018

Executive corruption index (D) (v2x_execorr) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: How routinely do members of the executive, or their agents grant favors in exchange for bribes, kickbacks, or other material inducements, and how often do they steal, embezzle, or misappropriate public funds or other state resources for personal or family use? Clarification: The directionality of the V-Dem corruption index runs from less corrupt to more corrupt unlike the other V-Dem variables that generally run from less democratic to more democratic situation. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2exbribe v2exembez Data release: 5-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the average of the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for executive bribery v2exbribe and executive embezzlement v2exembez. Citation: McMann et al. (2016, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2016:23); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation Years: 1789-2018

58

Appendix A contd. Public sector corruption index (D) (v2x_pubcorr) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent do public sector employees grant favors in exchange for bribes, kickbacks, or other material inducements, and how often do they steal, embezzle, or misappropriate public funds or other state resources for personal or family use? Clarification: The directionality of the V-Dem corruption index runs from less corrupt to more Corrupt unlike the other V-Dem variables that generally run from less democratic to more democratic situation. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2excrptps v2exthftps Data release: 5-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the average of the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for public sector bribery v2excrptps and embezzlement v2exthftps. Citation: McMann et al. (2016, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2016:23); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation Years: 1789-2018

Legislature corrupt activities (C) (v2lgcrrpt) Project Manager(s): Steven Fish, Matthew Kroenig Additional versions: *_osp, *_ord, *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd, *_mean, *_nr Question: Do members of the legislature abuse their position for financial gain? Clarification: This includes any of the following: (a) accepting bribes, (b) helping to obtain government Contracts for firms that the legislator (or his/her family/friends/political supporters) own, (c) doing favors for firms in exchange for the opportunity of employment after leaving the legislature, (d) stealing money from the state or from campaign donations for personal use. Please make your best estimate, based upon what is known or suspected to be true. Responses: 0: Commonly. Most legislators probably engage in these activities. 1: Often. Many legislators probably engage in these activities. 2: Sometimes. Some legislators probably engage in these activities. 3: Very occasionally. There may be a few legislators who engage in these activities but the vast majority do not. 4: Never, or hardly ever. Scale: Ordinal, converted to interval by the measurement model. Notes: For reasons of consistency, as of December, 2014, responses to this question are reversed So that the least democratic response is ”0” and the most democratic is ”4”. Data release: 1-9. Cross-coder aggregation: Bayesian item response theory measurement model (see V-Dem Methodology). Cleaning: Set to missing when v2lgbicam is 0 Citation: Pemstein et al. (2019, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2019:21) Years: 1789-2018 * This index was normalized to fit on a 0-1 scale (to fit with the liberal democracy index) and was re-coded so that 0 indicated that the legislature “Never, or hardly ever” participated in corruption, while 1 indicated that the legislature “Commonly” engaged in corrupt activities.

59

Appendix A Contd. Judicial corruption decision (C) (v2jucorrdc) Project Manager(s): Jeffrey Staton Additional versions: *_osp, *_ord, *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd, *_mean, *_nr Question: How often do individuals or businesses make undocumented extra payments or bribes in order to speed up or delay the process or to obtain a favorable judicial decision? Responses: 0: Always. 1: Usually. 2: About half of the time. 3: Not usually. 4: Never. Scale: Ordinal, converted to interval by the measurement model. Notes: For reasons of consistency, as of December, 2014, responses to this question are reversed so that the least democratic response is ”0” and the most democratic is ”4”. Data release: 1-9. Cross-coder aggregation: Bayesian item response theory measurement model (see V-Dem Methodology). Citation: Pemstein et al. (2019, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2019:21) Years: 1789-2018 *This index was normalized to fit on a 0-1 scale (to fit with the liberal democracy index) and was Appendixre-coded so B: that Definition 0 indicated of that Dependent the legislature Variable: “Never, orLiberal hardly ever”Democracy participated in corruption, while 1 indicated that the legislature “Commonly” engaged in corrupt activities.

Appendix B Liberal democracy index (D) (v2x_libdem) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent is the ideal of liberal democracy achieved? Clarification: The liberal principle of democracy emphasizes the importance of protecting individual and minority rights against the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority. The liberal model takes a "negative" view of political power insofar as it judges the quality of democracy by the limits placed on government. This is achieved by constitutionally protected civil liberties, strong rule of law, an independent judiciary, and effective checks and balances that, together, limit the exercise of executive power. To make this a measure of liberal democracy, the index also takes the level of electoral democracy into account. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2x_liberal v2x_polyarchy Data release: 1-9. Release 1, 2, and 3 used a different, preliminary aggregation formula. Aggregation: The index is aggregated using this formula: v2x_libdem = .25 _ v2x_polyarchy1.585 + .25 _ v2x_liberal + .5 _ v2x_polyarchy1.585 _ v2x_liberal Citation: Coppedge et al. (2015, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2015:6); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018

60

Appendix B contd. Liberal component index (D) (v2x_liberal) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent is the liberal principle of democracy achieved? Clarification: The liberal principle of democracy emphasizes the importance of protecting individual and minority rights against the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority. The liberal model takes a "negative" view of political power insofar as it judges the quality of democracy by the limits placed on government. This is achieved by constitutionally protected civil liberties, strong rule of law, an independent judiciary, and effective checks and balances that, together, limit the exercise of executive power. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2xcl_rol v2x_jucon v2xlg_legcon Data release: 1-9. Aggregation: This index is formed by averaging the following indices: equality before the law and individual liberties (v2xcl_rol), judicial constraints on the executive (v2x_jucon), and legislative constraints on the executive (v2xlg_legcon). Citation: Coppedge et al. (2015, V-Dem Working Paper Series 2015:6); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018

Electoral democracy index (D) (v2x_polyarchy) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent is the ideal of electoral democracy in its fullest sense achieved? Clarification: The electoral principle of democracy seeks to embody the core value of making rulers responsive to citizens, achieved through electoral competition for the electorate’s approval under circumstances when suffrage is extensive; political and civil society organizations can operate freely; elections are clean and not marred by fraud or systematic irregularities; and elections affect the composition of the chief executive of the country. In between elections, there is freedom of expression and an independent media capable of presenting alternative views on matters of political relevance. In the V-Dem conceptual scheme, electoral democracy is understood as an essential element of any other conception of representative democracy — liberal, participatory, deliberative, egalitarian, or some other. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2x_freexp_altinf v2x_frassoc_thick v2x_suffr v2xel_frefair v2x_elecoff Data release: 1-9. Release 1-5 used a different, preliminary aggregation formula. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the average of, on the one hand, the weighted average of the indices measuring freedom of association thick (v2x_frassoc_thick), clean elections (v2xel_frefair), freedom of expression (v2x_freexp_altinf), elected officials (v2x_elecoff), and suffrage (v2x_suffr) and, on the other, the five-way multiplicative interaction between those indices. This is half way between a straight average and strict multiplication, meaning the average of the two. It is thus a compromise between the two most well-known aggregation formulas in the literature, both allowing partial "compensation" in one sub- component for lack of polyarchy in the others, but also punishing countries not strong in one sub-component according to the "weakest link" argument. The aggregation is done at the level of Dahl’s subcomponents with the one exception of the non-electoral component. The index is aggregated using this formula: v2x_polyarchy = .5 _ MPI + .5 _ API = .5 _ (v2x_elecoff _ v2xel_frefair _ v2x_frassoc_thick_v2x_suffr_v2x_freexp_altinf) + .5 _ ((1/8) _ v2x_elecoff + (1/4) _ v2xel_frefair + (1/4) _ v2x_frassoc_thick + (1/8) _ v2x_suffr + (1/4) _ v2x_freexp_altinf) Citation: Teorell et al. (2019); V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018 * This study dropped the suffrage index (v2x_suffr) and elected official index (v2x_elecoff) in the analysis of Venezuela, as both of these indicators remained flat and had no change

61

Appendix B contd. Legislative constraints on the executive index (D) (v2xlg_legcon) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent are the legislature and government agencies e.g., comptroller general, general prosecutor, or ombudsman capable of questioning, investigating, and exercising oversight over the executive? Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2lgqstexp v2lgotovst v2lginvstp v2lgoppart Data release: 1-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for legislature questions officials in practice (v2lgqstexp), executive oversight (v2lgotovst), legislature investigates in practice (v2lginvstp), and legislature opposition parties (v2lgoppart). Citation: V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018

Judicial constraints on the executive index (D) (v2x_jucon) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent does the executive respect the constitution and comply with court rulings, and to what extent is the judiciary able to act in an independent fashion? Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2exrescon v2jucomp v2juhccomp v2juhcind v2juncind Data release: 1-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for executive respects constitution (v2exrescon), compliance with judiciary (v2jucomp), compliance with high court (v2juhccomp), high court independence (v2juhcind), and lower court independence (v2juncind). Citation: V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018

Equality before the law and individual liberty index (D) (v2xcl_rol) Project Manager(s): Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent are laws transparent and rigorously enforced and public administration impartial, and to what extent do citizens enjoy access to justice, secure property rights, freedom from forced labor, freedom of movement, physical integrity rights, and freedom of religion? Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2clrspct v2cltrnslw v2clacjstm v2clacjstw v2clprptym v2clprptyw v2cltort v2clkill v2clslavem v2clslavef v2clrelig v2clfmove v2cldmovem v2cldmovew Data release: 1-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for rigorous and impartial public administration (v2clrspct), transparent laws with predictable enforcement (v2cltrnslw), access to justice for men/women (v2clacjstm, v2clacjstw), property rights for men/women (v2clprptym, v2clprptyw), freedom from torture (v2cltort), freedom from political killings (v2clkill), from forced labor for men/women (v2clslavem v2clslavef), freedom of religion (v2clrelig), freedom of foreign movement (v2clfmove), and freedom of domestic movement for men/women (v2cldmovem, v2cldmovew). Citation: V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018 62

Appendix B Continued Clean elections index (D) (v2xel_frefair) Project Manager(s): Staffan Lindberg, Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent are elections free and fair? Clarification: Free and fair connotes an absence of registration fraud, systematic irregularities, government intimidation of the opposition, vote buying, and election violence. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2elembaut v2elembcap v2elrgstry v2elvotbuy v2elirreg v2elintim v2elpeace v2elfrfair v2x_elecreg Data release: 1-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for EMB autonomy (v2elembaut), EMB capacity (v2elembcap), election voter registry (v2elrgstry), election vote buying (v2elvotbuy), election other voting Irregularities (v2elirreg), election government intimidation (v2elintim), election other Electoral violence (v2elpeace), and election free and fair (v2elfrfair). Since the bulk of these indicators are only observed in election years, the index scores have then been repeated within election regime periods as defined by v2x_elecreg. For the US and UK, the only two countries holding national elections prior to 1789 but with their first election within our sampling period occurring only in 1790, we have backfilled this index for 1789 with the value observed in 1790. Citation: V-Dem Codebook Years: 1789-2018

Freedom of association thick index (D) (v2x_frassoc_thick) Project Manager(s): Allen Hicken, Michael Bernhard, Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent are parties, including opposition parties, allowed to form and to participate in elections, and to what extent are civil society organizations able to form and to operate freely? Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2psparban v2psbars v2psoppaut v2elmulpar v2cseeorgs v2csreprss v2x_elecreg Data release: 1-9. Release 1-3 used a different aggregation formula for the thinner index v2x_frassoc. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for party ban (v2psparban), barriers to parties (v2psbars), opposition parties autonomy (v2psoppaut), elections multiparty (v2elmulpar), CSO entry and exit (v2cseeorgs) and CSO repression (v2csreprss). Since the multiparty elections indicator is Only observed in election years, its values have first been repeated within election regime periods as defined by v2x_elecreg. Citation: V-Dem Codebook Years: 1789-2018

63

Appendix B continued

Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information index (D) (v2x_freexp_altinf) Project Manager(s): Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jan Teorell Additional versions: *_codelow, *_codehigh, *_sd Question: To what extent does government respect press and media freedom, the freedom of Ordinary people to discuss political matters at home and in the public sphere, as well as the freedom of academic and cultural expression? Clarification: This index includes all variables in the two indices v2x_freexp and v2xme_altinf. Scale: Interval, from low to high (0-1). Source(s): v2mecenefm v2meharjrn v2meslfcen v2mebias v2mecrit v2merange v2cldiscm v2cldiscw v2clacfree Data release: 4-9. Aggregation: The index is formed by taking the point estimates from a Bayesian factor analysis model of the indicators for media censorship effort (v2mecenefm), harassment of journalists (v2meharjrn), media bias (v2mebias), media self-censorship (v2meslfcen), print/broadcast Media critical (v2mecrit), and print/broadcast media perspectives (v2merange), freedom of Discussion for men/women (v2cldiscm, v2cldiscw), and freedom of academic and cultural expression (v2clacfree). Citation: V-Dem Codebook (see suggested citation at the top of this document). Years: 1789-2018 64

Appendix C: Additional Graphs Political Corruption and Liberal Democracy in Venezuela after Backsliding Begins

Figure 12

Legislative Constraints after Backsliding Begins

Figure 13 65

Judicial Constraints after Backsliding Begins

Figure 14

Freedom of Expression and Alternative Sources of Information after Backsliding Begins

Figure 15 66

Freedom of Association after Backsliding Begins

Figure 16

Clean Elections Index after Backsliding

Figure 17

67

Equality Before the Law and Individual Liberty Index after Backsliding Begins

Figure 18

68

Appendix D: Correlation of Liberal Democracy and Corruption between each Country’s Transition to Democracy and Year Backsliding Begins

Country Year of Year Correlation t df p-value Name Democratic Backsliding Coefficient Transition begins

Venezuela 1958 1998 0.8261477 9.0384 38 5.246e-11*

Brazil 1990 2013 -0.5298638 -2.9305 22 0.007744*

Poland 1985 2015 -0.6429218 -4.197 25 0.0002983*

Thailand 1992 2014 -0.5431459 -2.8929 20 0.0089958*

Hungary 1991 2005 0.07893003 0.28548 13 0.7798

Turkey 1985 2005 0.4013682 1.9101 19 0.07133*

Argentina 1983 n/a 0.2055676 1.2248 34 0.2291

Table 1 This chart indicates the statistical output of the relationship between the liberal democracy index and the corruption index for each country preceding democratic backsliding. A moderate to strong negative correlation is below -.6, while a strong positive correlation is above positive .6. Statistical significance is indicated with a * and means that p ≤ .05. Source: V-Dem Institute, Dataset 2019

69

Bibliography

2020 World Population by Country. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://worldpopulationreview.com/

Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19.

Buscaglia, E. (2001). An analysis of judicial corruption and its causes: An objective

governing-based approach. International Review of Law and Economics, 21(2),

233-249.

Coppedge, Michael and Gerring, John and Knutsen, Carl Henrik and Lindberg, Staffan I.

and Teorell, Jan and Altman, David and Bernhard, Michael and Fish, M. Steven

and Glynn, Adam and Hicken, Allen and Lührmann, Anna and Marquardt, Kyle

L. and McMann, Kelly M. and Paxton, Pamela and Pemstein, Daniel and Seim,

Brigitte and Sigman, Rachel and Skaaning, Svend-Erik and Staton, Jeffrey K. and

Cornell, Agnes and Gastaldi, Lisa and Gjerløw, Haakon and Mechkova, Valeriya

and von Römer, Johannes and Sundström, Aksel and Tzelgov, Eitan and Uberti,

Luca Jacopo and Wang, Yi-ting and Wig, Tore and Ziblatt, Daniel, V-Dem

Codebook V9 (April 2019). V-Dem Working Paper Forthcoming. Available at

SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3441060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.34410

60

Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic. Retrieved from

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Venezuela_2009.pdf?lang=en

Coppedge, M. (1994). Prospects for democratic governability in Venezuela. Journal of

Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 36(2), 39-64. 70

Corrales, J., & Penfold-Becerra, M. (2007). Venezuela: Crowding Out the

Opposition. Journal of Democracy 18(2), 99-113. doi:10.1353/jod.2007.0020.

Cupolo, M. (1998). Public administration, oil rent, and legitimacy crises in Venezuela. M

Kulisheck, Reinventing legitimacy: Democracy and political change in Venezuela,

(11), 99 - 111.

Dahl, R. A. (1973). Polyarchy: Participation and opposition. Yale University Press.

De Mesquita, B. B., Downs, G. W., Smith, A., & Cherif, F. M. (2005). Thinking inside

the box: A closer look at democracy and human rights. International Studies

Quarterly, 49(3), 439-457.

Drapalova, E., Mungiu-Pippidi, A., Palifka, B., & Vrushi, J. (2019). (Rep.) Corruption

and the crisis of democracy: the link between corruption and weakening

democratic institutions. Transparency International. doi:10.2307/resrep20482

Duno, P. (1975). Los doce apóstoles: proceso a la degradación política. Vadell

Hermanos.

Eisen, N., Kenealy, A., Corke, S., Taussig, T., & Polyakova, A. (2019). The Democracy

Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding. Retrieved from

Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-democracy-

playbook-preventing-and-reversing-democratic-backsliding/

Gates, L. (2009). The politics of corruption in Venezuela. SUNY-Binghamton. Available

from: http://lasa.international.pitt.edu/members/congress-

papers/lasa2009/files/GatesLeslie.pdf

Gerring, J. (2006). Case study research: Principles and practices. Cambridge university

press. 71

Goldstone, J., Bates, R., Epstein, D., Gurr, T., Lustik, M., Marshall, M., Ulfelder, J., &

Woodward, M. (2010). A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability.

American Journal of Political Science 54(1): 190-208.

Hammond, J. L. (2011). The resource curse and oil revenues in Angola and

Venezuela. Science & society, 75(3), 348-378.

Heidenheimer, A. J., Johnston, M., & Le Vine, V. T. (Eds.). (1989). Political corruption:

A handbook (Vol. 11). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Hellinger, D. (1991). Venezuela: tarnished democracy. Westview Press.

Hicken, A. (2011). Clientelism. Annual review of political science, 14, 289-310.

Hybel A.R. (2020) The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in

Colombia and Venezuela. In: The Challenges of Creating Democracies in the

Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Kapstein, E. B., & Converse, N. (2008). The fate of young democracies. Cambridge

University Press.

Kurlantzick, J. (2011). The great democracy meltdown. New Republic, 242(8), 12-15.

Llanos, M., & Maia, J. (2019). Argentina 2019: Broken Economy, Strengthened

Democracy. GIGA Focus Lateinamerika(6), 1-11.

Little W., Herrera A. (1996) Political Corruption in Venezuela. In: Little W., Posada-

Carbó E.

(eds) Political Corruption in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin

American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

McCoy, J. L. (1989). Labor and the State in a Party-Mediated Democracy: Institutional

Change in Venezuela. Latin American Research Review, 24(2), 35-67. 72

McMann, K. M., Seim, B., Teorell, J., & Lindberg, S. (2019). Why Low Levels of

Democracy Promote Corruption and High Levels Diminish It. Political Research

Quarterly. 1-15.

Méndez, Capriles R., & Perdomo, R. P. (1991). Corrupción y control: una perspectiva

comparada. Ediciones Iesa.

Molina, J. E., & Pérez, C. (1998). Evolution of the party system in Venezuela, 1946–

1993. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 40(2), 1-26.

Moreno, A. (2002). Corruption and democracy: A cultural assessment. Comparative

Sociology, 1(3-4), 495-507.

Perdomo, R. P. (1990). Corruption and business in present day Venezuela. Journal of

Business Ethics, 9(7), 555-566.

Pérez-Liñán, A., Schmidt, N., & Vairo, D. (2019). Presidential hegemony and democratic

backsliding in Latin America, 1925–2016. Democratization, 26(4), 606-625.

Piccone, T. (2019). Latin America’s struggle with democratic backsliding(pp. 1–11).

Brookings Institute.

Rey, J. C. (1998). Corruption and Political Illegitimacy in Venezuelan Democracy. M.

Kulisheck, Reinventing Legitimacy: democracy and political change in Venezuela,

113-124.

Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Political corruption and democracy. Conn. J. Int'l L., 14(2),

363-378.

Ross, M. L. (2001). Does oil hinder democracy?. World politics, 53(3), 325-361.

Ross, M. L. (2013). The oil curse: How petroleum wealth shapes the development of

nations. Princeton University Press. 73

Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with democratic

backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21, 93-113.

Weyland, K. G. (1998). The politics of corruption in Latin America. Journal of

Democracy, 9(2), 108-121.

Wilkinson, D. (2004). Rigging the Rule of Law: Judicial independence Under Siege in

Venezuela. Human Rights Watch.

Varieties of Democracy (2019). Democracy facing global challenges: V-Dem annual

report 2019. Retrieved from https://www.v-

dem.net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91-44ba601b6e6b/v-

dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf.