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Political structure, legislative process, and corruption: comparing Taiwan and South Korea

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Abstract

Taiwan and South Korea have the same constitutional system, approximate economic scale, and similar cultural backgrounds, yet they differ in degree of corruption. What political structures and legislative processes cause this outcome is the major question posed in this paper. The political structure in South Korea is a centralization-of-power model, while that in Taiwan is a separation-of-powers model. This paper proposes that Taiwan and South Korea have different types of corruption and different political structures, and the legislative process in South Korea is more compromising than that in Taiwan. These factors contribute to greater corruption in South Korea than in Taiwan. This study clarifies how particular institutional dynamics reduce or enhance the prospects for democratic governance and help to better understand how political structure and legislative process channel different types of corruption into different degrees of corruption. Studies on the relationship between constitutional structure and corruption have concluded that parliamentarism can help reduce corruption more than presidentialism. This thesis argues that a country with centralized power tends to be less corrupt than a country with separation of powers. If this argument and the rationale behind it hold true for countries with both parliamentary and presidential systems, we can expect that semi-presidential countries with a centralized system are less corrupt than those with a decentralized system, all else being equal. However, by comparing these two semi-presidential countries, we find that South Korea, with its centralized model, was more corrupt than Taiwan, with its decentralized model. This comparative case study provides a counterargument to the conventional wisdom of constitutional structure and governance.

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Notes

  1. Both Taiwan and South Korea are semi-presidential countries. See Elgie [8].

  2. The most similar systems design has two theoretical implications: (1) the common factors in the cases are irrelevant in explaining different outcomes; (2) different factors in the cases are related to different outcomes. In terms of our concern here, this paper seeks to explain why different political structures and processes can affect different degrees of corruption by using the most similar systems design. Please see Przeworski and Teune [42].

  3. This classification is for the purpose of literature review.

  4. Supplier means that the person or organization dispenses corrupt benefits. Stake indicates corrupt benefits.

  5. The DPP attacked the KMT over the corruption issue and made significant strides in electoral competition before the transfer of power. It forced the KMT to fight corruption, but in the meantime had to depend on corruption in order to survive in the electoral competition. See Fell [9, 10] and Göbel [13].

  6. From 1995 to 2003 there were only two cases of bill reconsideration. Please see Statistics Yearbook of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (Taiwan: The Accounting Agency of the Legislative Yuan Press, 2003).

  7. See Statistics Yearbook of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (Taiwan: The Accounting Agency of the Legislative Yuan Press, 2003).

  8. See Statistics Yearbook of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan (Taiwan: The Accounting Agency of the Legislative Yuan Press, 2003).

  9. Regarding the powers of the National Assembly, they are enumerated in the constitution of South Korea and can also be found on the website of the National Assembly of South Korea: http://www.eng.assembly.go.kr.

  10. According to the National Assembly Act (Article 127), the standing committees of the National Assembly shall perform an annual inspection of the state administration for 20 days from the day after the commencement of the regular session; however, the date may be changed by a resolution of the plenary session.

  11. Universalism states that reelected officials’ incentive and uncertainty over being included in minimum-winning coalitions have contributed to legislators’ distributing benefits universally in Congress. Please see Weingast [53]. Distributing benefits for local electoral districts is called pork-barrel legislation.

  12. In Taiwan, there are four major parties: the Kuomintang (KMT), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the People First Party (PFP), and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). The opposition parties are the KMT and the PFP. The DPP is the ruling party and TSU is its ally.

  13. The DPP opposed the KMT, the PFP, and the NP 47.5% of the time; it opposed the KMT and the PFP 5.1% of the time; it opposed the PFP and the NP 11.1% of the time, and it opposed the NP 7.1% of the time. Thus, total party polarization mode was 60.8%. Related discussions see Lee [28, 29].

  14. Before 1995, Kim Young-sam’s party was the Democratic Liberal Party (DLP). In order to push the policy of generation change, he changed the party name to the New Korea Party (NKP). It caused some leaders to leave the DLP, such as Kim Jong-pil.

  15. The percentage of office-holders sharing their birthplace with the incumbent president relative to the total number of office-holders during each regime was 23.4 (Kyoung-nam) under Kim Young-sam (1993–1997) and 15.8% (Jeon-nam (Kwang-ju) under Kim Dae-jung (1998–2000)). See Jang [16].

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    Jung-hsiang Tsai

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Tsai, Jh. Political structure, legislative process, and corruption: comparing Taiwan and South Korea. Crime Law Soc Change 52, 365–383 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-009-9188-y

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