Memerangi Korupsi dalam Pemilu

Pemerasan sumbangan untuk dana kampanye terhadap sektor swasta kemungkinan adanya jika dalam kontestasi salah satu kandidat pemilu adalah "petahana".  Calon Petahana membangun dan mengubah dari semua lapisan sektor swasta menjadi klien mereka yang sepenuhnya mengasuransikan diri mereka terhadap petahana di era pemerintahannya. Kandidat petahana menggunakan kantor mereka untuk bernegosiasi, meminta atau memeras kepada kontraktor untuk proyek pemerintahan yang diloloskan dan kemudian digunakan kembali untuk biaya kampanye.

This paper extends political budget cycles theory to corruption, where an incumbent government considers controlling corruption based purely on political considerations. Using panel data on 30 Indian states during the 1988--2009 period, I investigate whether the timing of elections affects the incumbent government's efforts to control corruption. Consistent with the idea that an incumbent politician might exert greater effort to control corruption during election years, I find that scheduled elections (as opposed to unscheduled elections) are associated with an increase in the number of corruption cases registered by the respective state's anti-corruption agencies, although the substantive impact is small. Furthermore, I find this effect in 'swing states' where margin of victory for the incumbent in previous elections has been narrow. On the other hand, there is no effect of scheduled elections on corruption cases being investigated by anti-corruption agencies. Thus, the argument that Indian politicians engage in 'cheap talk' on controlling corruption, especially during election periods is suggestive at best.