MERITOCRACY AND CORRUPTION, THROUGH THE LENS OF ADMINISTRATIVE TRADITIONS The moderating effect of administrative traditions on the relationship between meritocracy and corruption

Abstract

The research on the relationship between meritocracy and corruption has been widely studied and has shown that higher levels of meritocracy is associated with lower levels of corruption (Rauch & Evans, 2000; Dahlström et.al, 2012; Charron et.al, 2017). What this thesis aims to do is to see if this corruption curbing effect is prevalent in every setting. More specifically, it tries to investigate if administrative traditions moderates the association between meritocracy and corruption. Administrative traditions captures inherited values and structures from the past (Peters, 2021a), where the component of focus is the historical relationship between politics and administration. This historical relationship can either be separate with clear boundaries and separation between the two entities or fused with vague boundaries and with little to no separation. The main argument deployed is that civil servants within the separate tradition have better conditions to counteract political interference and face a smaller risk of reprisals. This thesis uses OLS regressions analysis at the country and regional level, where the administrative traditions function as an interaction term. To complement the statistical analysis two informant interviews were conducted with high-ranking civil servants in Spain and Sweden. The main result is that it is only the fused tradition that moderates the relationship between meritocracy and corruption. The separate tradition does not have a significant moderating effect. The findings run opposite of what was theoretically argued and the thesis concludes by paving the way for a new theoretical framework.