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Voting For Corruption: How Poverty And Inequality Undermine Democratic Accountability In Latin America, Peter Colum Casey

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Why do citizens fail to hold their elected officials democratically accountable for corruption? In this dissertation, I argue that poverty and inequality undermine democratic accountability for corruption by creating opportunities for elected officials to mobilize political support through targeted, personal exchange. I focus on two such types of exchange, clientelism and crony capitalism, and explain how corruption reinforces these two strategies of political mobilization.

I argue that the costs of corruption are very high for the poor, who often lose access to government resources they rely on to meet their basic needs. Because the cost of failing to meet their …