If democracy curbs corruption, why is Bangladesh so corrupt? Despite the widespread perception that democracy reduced corruption, the empirical evidence on this link is not conclusive. Bangladesh is a case in point, where years of democracy do not appear to have had an impact on corruption levels.

This project will focus explicitly on the relationship between democracy and corruption, asking in particular under what conditions democracy reduces corruption. The aim is to use case study information from Bangladesh to generate new hypotheses on the democracy - corruption link, and to test these using rigorous statistical techniques based on cross country evidence.

The aim of the project is to combine the best of in-country knowledge on Bangladesh with the best of corruption expertise at CMI. In this way, we will generate insights that are both highly relevant, and that avoids too simplistic a treatment of the corruption democracy relation. The specific research objective is to use case study information from Bangladesh to generate new hypotheses on the democracy corruption link, and to test these using various methodologies including rigorous statistical techniques.

Dissemination of results through dialogue, meetings, and conferences lead to increasing awareness of the link between corruption and democracy and the fragile character of the relationship – a factor of crucial importance for a country with 150 million inhabitants located in a very unstable regional environment.