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Refereed Articles

“Can Norm-Based Information Campaigns Reduce Corruption?”  (with Aaron Erlich).  American Journal of Political Science (2025). OnlineFirst.

Can norm-based information campaigns reduce corruption? Such campaigns use messaging about how people typically behave (descriptive norms) or ought to behave (injunctive norms). Drawing on survey and lab experiments in Ukraine, we unpack and evaluate the distinct effects of these two types of social norms. Four findings emerge: First, injunctive-norm messaging produces consistent but relatively small and temporary effects. These may serve as moderately effective, low-cost anti-corruption tools but are unlikely to inspire large-scale norm transformations. Second, contrary to recent studies, we find no evidence that either type of norm-based messaging “backfires” by inadvertently encouraging corruption. Third, descriptive-norm messages emphasizing corruption’s decline produce relatively large and long-lasting effects — but only among subjects who find messages credible. Fourth, both types of norm-based messaging have a substantially larger effect on younger citizens. These findings have broader implications for messaging campaigns, especially those targeting social problems that, like corruption, require mitigation of collective action dilemmas.

“What Corruption is Most Harmful? Unbundling Citizen Perspectives” (with Aaron Erlich, Simeon Nichter, and Arne Holverscheid). World Development 194 (2025): 107001.

To combat corruption, many countries employ information campaigns aimed at citizens. When designing such campaigns, practitioners often consider citizen perceptions of corruption’s harms, but typically lack data about two key questions. Which forms of corruption do citizens deem especially pernicious? And how do citizens’ perceptions differ when considering distinct types of harms? This article introduces a diagnostic approach to investigate these questions, drawing on a conjoint experiment conducted in collaboration with Armenia’s Corruption Prevention Commission. This approach maps citizen perceptions of corruption’s consequences across four distinct types of harms: economic, political, moral, and personal. It not only identifies forms of corruption viewed as particularly damaging, but also reveals how findings may diverge across harms. For example, our findings suggest that Armenians perceive high-level embezzlement as especially harmful for all four types of harms we examined. By contrast, they deem healthcare corruption to inflict more personal and moral harm — but less economic and political harm — than corruption in other sectors. While citizens’ perceptions of corruption harms are context specific, our approach has broad applicability both for practitioners designing campaigns, and for scholars seeking to conceptualize corruption and its consequences.

“Selective Bribery: When Do Citizens Engage in Corruption?”  (with Aaron Erlich and Simeon Nichter). Comparative Political Studies 58, 5 (2025): 996-1036.

Corruption often persists not only because public officials take bribes, but also because many citizens are willing to pay them. Yet even in countries with endemic corruption, few people always pay bribes. Why do citizens bribe in some situations but not in others? Integrating insights from both principal-agent and collective action approaches to the study of corruption, we develop and empirically evaluate an analytical framework for understanding selective bribery. Our framework reveals how citizens’ motivations, costs, and risks influence their willingness to engage in corruption. A conjoint experiment conducted in Ukraine in 2020 predominantly corroborates our pre-registered predictions. By shedding light on conditions that dampen citizens’ readiness to pay bribes, our findings offer insights into the types of institutional reforms that may reduce corruption and ultimately help countries to escape self-reinforcing corruption cycles.

“Self-Selection into Corrupt Judiciaries.”  Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 38, 2 (2022): 386-421.

Drawing on experimental games and a survey conducted with university students at an elite legal academy in Ukraine, this study compares the behavioral, attitudinal, and demographic traits of students aspiring to public sector legal careers as judges, prosecutors, and investigators with their counterparts aiming to pursue private sector legal careers as defense attorneys and commercial lawyers. I find evidence that students pursuing public sector legal careers display more willingness to cheat or bribe in experimental games as well as lower levels of altruism. These findings indicate that corruption in some societies may persist in part from the self-selection into government institutions of citizens with a higher propensity to seek profit from illicit activities. Moreover, the findings suggest that such corrupt self-selection can infect a country’s judicial and law enforcement apparatus, with potentially dire implications for the rule of law.

“Public Service Motivation as a Predictor of Corruption, Dishonesty, and Altruism” (with Alexander Kalgin, Andrei Klimenko, Dmitriy Vorobyev, and Andrei Yakovlev).  Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 32, 2 (2022): 287-309. 

Understanding how Public Service Motivation (PSM) is tied to ethical or unethical conduct is critically important, given that civil servants and other public-sector employees throughout the world have been shown to exhibit high PSM levels. However, empirical evidence about the relationship between PSM and ethical or unethical behavior remains limited, due in part to the challenges of observing unethical conduct and overcoming social desirability bias in self-reported measures. We address these challenges by employing incentivized experimental games to study the relationships between PSM and two types of unethical behavior — corruption and dishonesty — as well as one type of ethical behavior: altruism. Based on data from approximately 1,870 university students at three research sites in Russia and Ukraine, we find evidence of a robust negative association between PSM and willingness to engage in corruption and a positive association between PSM and altruistic behavior. Results concerning dishonesty are more mixed. Our findings indicate that corruption and dishonesty are related yet fundamentally distinct concepts, particularly with respect to their compatibility with PSM. The findings additionally demonstrate that hypotheses about PSM and behavioral ethics generated in the Western context generalize well to the starkly different institutional context of the former Soviet Union.

“Public Service Motivation and Sectoral Employment in Russia: New Perspectives on the Attraction vs. Socialization Debate” (with Alexander Kalgin, Andrei Klimenko, Dmitriy Vorobyev, and Andrei Yakovlev).  International Public Management Journal 25, 4 (2022): 497–516.  

Numerous studies have shown that public service motivation (PSM) is higher among public sector employees, particularly in western countries. But whether these trends result from high-PSM individuals selecting into public sector employment or from on-the-job socialization remains subject to debate. We address this question utilizing novel panel data on Russian university students. Examining the relationships between PSM and sectoral employment both before and after students enter the labor force, we find that: (1) high-PSM students are more likely to prefer public sector employment; (2) high-PSM students are more likely to be employed in the public sector following graduation; and (3) PSM increases upon entry into the workplace at approximately the same rate in both the public and private sectors. These findings suggest that at least during early career stages, the association between PSM and public sector employment results largely from an attraction-selection process, rather than a socialization process. Our analyses additionally provide evidence that theories of PSM based on the western experience may generalize to the context of developing or post-communist countries, despite the prevalence of corruption and a less pronounced public service ethos in many of these countries.

“Self-Selection into Public Service When Corruption is Widespread: The Anomalous Russian Case” (with Alexander Kalgin, Andrei Klimenko, Dmitriy Vorobyev, and Andrei Yakovlev).  Comparative Political Studies 54, 6 (2021): 1086-1128.  

Drawing on experimental games and surveys conducted with students at two universities in Russia, we compare the behavioral, attitudinal, and demographic traits of students seeking public sector employment to the traits of their peers seeking jobs in the private sector. Contrary to similar studies conducted in other high-corruption contexts, such as India, we find evidence that students who prefer a public sector career display less willingness to cheat or bribe in experimental games as well as higher levels of altruism. However, disaggregating public sector career paths reveals distinctions between the federal civil service and other types of public sector employment, with federal government positions attracting students who exhibit some similarities with their peers aspiring to private sector careers. We discuss multiple interpretations consistent with our findings, each of which has implications for the creation of effective anti-corruption policies and for understanding of state capacity in contexts where corruption is widespread.

“Would You Sell Your Vote?” (with Simeon Nichter).  American Politics Research 49, 5 (2021): 452–463.  

Prominent scholars in recent years have expressed alarm about political polarization, weakened civil liberties, and growing support for authoritarianism in the United States. But discussions of democratic backsliding pay short shrift to the value citizens place on one of the most fundamental democratic institutions: the act of voting. Drawing on nationally representative survey data, we show that despite traditional portrayals of the U.S. as the embodiment of a democratic “civic culture,” a substantial share of Americans express readiness to sell their votes for cash: 12% of respondents would do so for just $25, as would nearly 20% for $100. Citizens who place low importance on living in a democracy are significantly more willing to sell their votes. We argue that heightened attention to US voters’ attitudes toward clientelism would provide an additional barometer of democratic skepticism, help to integrate the study of American and comparative politics, and stimulate novel research agendas about the historic decline of vote buying in the United States.

“Taxes, Banking, and Legal Development in Russia: Lessons about Institutional Complementarities and the Rule of Law.” Demokratizatsiya 28, 1 (2020): 47-75 (Special Issue on Law & Society in the Former Soviet Union). 

A significant challenge faced by rule-of-law reformers is that newly created legal institutions frequently remain divorced from the de facto rules governing economic transactions. Firms instead rely on informal, and sometimes illegal, means of enforcing contracts, protecting property, and resolving disputes. This article proposes that one key to overcoming the chasm between formal legal institutions and on-the-ground practices is to adopt a broader understanding of legal development. Legal development projects usual focus on improvements to the judiciary, law enforcement agencies, the penal system, and the legal profession, all of which are undeniably critical for a legal system to function effectively. But in many cases developments in spheres that are only indirectly related to formal legal institutions may be equally important, particularly if these developments either (1) increase the costs of illicit alternatives to reliance on law or (2) reduce barriers to firms’ use of formal legal institutions. Drawing on a case study of post-Soviet Russia, this article illustrates the argument with two key examples: banking sector development and improved tax compliance. Insights about the complementarities between taxation, banking, and legal development may allow rule-of-law reformers to effectively leverage these linkages across institutional spheres, particularly when direct reforms of the legal sector are technically infeasible or politically untenable.

“Reducing Bureaucratic Corruption: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on What Work” (with Mariana Borges, Alexey Makarin, Theresa Mannah-Blankson, Andre Nickow, and Dong Zhang). World Development 105 (2018): 171-188.

This article offers the first comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary state of knowledge regarding anti-corruption policies, with a particular focus on reducing corruption among civil servants.  Drawing on the work of economists, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, we examine seven categories of anti-corruption strategies: (1) rewards and penalties; (2) monitoring; (3) restructuring bureaucracies; (4) screening and recruiting; (5) anti-corruption agencies; (6) educational campaigns; and (7) international agreements. Notably, rigorous empirical evaluation is lacking for the majority of commonly prescribed anti-corruption strategies. Nevertheless, we find growing evidence of the effectiveness of anti-corruption audits and e-governance.  In addition, adequate civil service wages seem to be a necessary but insufficient condition for control of corruption. An emerging skepticism regarding the effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies also is apparent in the literature. We conclude with broader lessons drawn from our review, such as the recognition that when corruption is a systemic problem, it cannot be treated in the long-term with individual-level solutions.

“Demand for Law and the Security of Property Rights: The Case of Post-Soviet Russia.” The American Political Science Review 111,2 (2017): 338-359.

– Honorable Mention, 2018 Best Journal Article Award, APSA Law and Courts Section

Studies of property rights overwhelmingly focus on whether states expropriate or protect property, overlooking the crucial issue of whether private sector actors will use state institutions. By contrast, I argue that the “supply” of formal legal institutions often fails to ensure firms will rely on the state for property rights protection. Instead, firms frequently avoid formal legal institutions and turn to illegal strategies based on violence or corruption. Whether firms adopt legal strategies depends on: (1) firm-level practices and beliefs that impede the use of law, (2) the effectiveness of illegal strategies, and (3) coordination problems resulting from firms’ expectations about each other’s strategies. Drawing on interviews with firms, lawyers, and private security agencies, as well as an original survey of Russian enterprises, I illustrate how “demand-side” factors led to a surprising increase in Russian firms’ reliance on formal legal institutions over the past two decades. The findings suggest that comprehensive understanding of property rights and the rule of law requires not only attention to state institutions’ effectiveness, but also to private actors’ strategies.

“Putin’s Crackdown on Mortality: Rethinking Legal Nihilism and State Capacity in Light of Russia’s Surprising Public Health Campaigns” (with Henry St. George Brooke). Problems of Post-Communism 63,1 (2016): 1-14.

Facing a demographic crisis, the Russian government recently introduced public health measures to reduce alcohol consumption, traffic fatalities, and tobacco use. The relative success of these measures challenges common assumptions about Russia’s culture of “legal nihilism” and lack of state capacity. Drawing on two original surveys of smokers at Russian universities, we provide evidence that low legal compliance results from expectations about low enforcement, not from a unique legal culture. To account for unexpectedly stringent enforcement of public health laws, we offer a theory of selective state capacity. In contemporary Russia, the top leadership’s personal endorsements of policy initiatives make clear to lower-level officials which rules must be enforced.

“Varieties of Clientelism: Machine Politics During Elections” (with Sebastian Mazzuca and Simeon Nichter). The American Journal of Political Science 58,2 (2014): 415-432.  

– Winner, 2015 Best Article Award, APSA Comparative Democratization Section

Although many studies of clientelism focus exclusively on vote buying, political machines often employ diverse portfolios of strategies. We provide a theoretical framework and formal model to explain how and why machines mix four clientelist strategies during elections: vote buying, turnout buying, abstention buying, and double persuasion. Machines tailor their portfolios to the political preferences and voting costs of the electorate. They also adapt their mix to at least five contextual factors: compulsory voting, ballot secrecy, political salience, machine support, and political polarization. Our analysis yields numerous insights, such as why the introduction of compulsory voting may increase vote buying, and why enhanced ballot secrecy may increase turnout buying and abstention buying. Evidence from various countries is consistent with our predictions and suggests the need for empirical studies to pay closer attention to the ways in which machines combine clientelist strategies.

“Threats to Property Rights in Russia: From Private Coercion to State Aggression.” Post-Soviet Affairs 28,3 (2012): 263-295.

This article explores a fundamental shift in threats to property rights in Russia. Whereas extortion rackets and other forms of physical intimidation once posed the gravest threat to property rights, state actors are now the primary aggressors. Based on in-depth interviews and an original survey of Russian firms, the article demonstrates a dramatic decline in threats related to private coercion, due partly to firms’ increased reliance on formal legal institutions. By contrast, state threats to property rights have increased sharply. Key threats include seizing firms’ assets, illegal corporate raiding, extortion, illicit fines, and unlawful arrests of businesspeople.

“Neoliberalism: From New Liberal Philosophy to Anti-Liberal Slogan” (with Taylor C. Boas). Studies in Comparative International Development 44,2 (2009): 137-161.

In recent years, neoliberalism has become an academic catchphrase. Yet, in contrast to other prominent social science concepts such as democracy, the meaning and proper usage of neoliberalism curiously have elicited little scholarly debate. Based on a content analysis of 148 journal articles published from 1990 to 2004, we document three potentially problematic aspects of neoliberalism’s use: the term is often undefined; it is employed unevenly across ideological divides; and it is used to characterize an excessively broad variety of phenomena. To explain these characteristics, we trace the genesis and evolution of the term neoliberalism throughout several decades of political economy debates. We show that neoliberalism has undergone a striking transformation, from a positive label coined by the German Freiberg School to denote a moderate renovation of classical liberalism, to a normatively negative term associated with radical economic reforms in Pinochet’s Chile. We then present an extension of W. B. Gallie’s framework for analyzing essentially contested concepts to explain why the meaning of neoliberalism is so rarely debated, in contrast to other normatively and politically charged social science terms. We conclude by proposing several ways that the term can regain substantive meaning as a “new liberalism” and be transformed into a more useful analytic tool.

“Economic Reforms and Democracy: Evidence of a J-Curve in Latin America” (with Simeon Nichter). Comparative Political Studies 41,10 (2008): 1398-1426.

This article explores the relationship between economic reforms and democracy in Latin America between 1970 and 1995. Existing theories suggest divergent effects across time horizons. The implementation of reforms — economic liberalization — may initially destabilize democracy due to popular backlash or overzealous reformers’ usurpation of democratic institutions. However, the potential outcome of reforms — greater economic liberalism — may later foster or reinforce democracy by dispersing economic assets, making rulers more susceptible to international constraints, or demobilizing social groups that may otherwise make politically destabilizing redistributive demands. Time-series cross-section analyses using an error correction model provide evidence of this J-curve relationship. Although countries engaging in economic reforms may experience a temporary deterioration of democracy, they tend to become more democratic in the long run. Findings are robust to numerous control variables, country and time fixed effects, and specifications using either Polity IV or Freedom House democracy indicators.

“Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist Transitions and the Myth of a Dominant Paradigm.” Post-Soviet Affairs 20,4 (2004): 320-349.

This article investigates the claim that the field of post-communist studies is and has been dominated by a transitology paradigm whose teleological biases lead to faulty analysis. Based on a comprehensive analysis of post-communist regime change studies published in 10 leading area studies and comparative politics journals between 1991 and 2003, as well as a broader review of the post-communist transition literature, the study seeks to clarify the terminological confusion that is a prominent feature of critiques of transitology. It also examines the claim that a single mode of analysis dominates the study of post-communism.