Accountability, Corruption, and Opposition Groups: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract

Under democratic regimes, accountability discourages the existence of corruption, because constituents typically constantly observe public servants. Although every citizen can drive accountability, only a few sectors actively engage in it, such as opposition groups, to a greater extent and for different reasons. Through a comprehensive measure of accountability developed by Varieties of Democracy, which includes vertical, horizontal, and diagonal accountability, this study aims to explore the relationship among the type of opposition in government, level of accountability, and level of corruption, to unravel the relevance of the characteristics of opposition groups when holding a government accountable. Are governments less corrupt when opposition groups from civil society exercise accountability? This study employs latent Markov class analysis applied to Latin America (1980–2020) and concludes that high levels of accountability are achieved and low levels of corruption are evidenced with the existence of opposition groups from civil society.

Keywords

• corruption
• accountability
• Latin America
• democracy
• opposition groups
• social movements