Brought down by corruption

Over the last two decades, the political fallout from corruption has been an important driver – usually in combination with other economic and political concerns – in movements that have brought down eight autocrats. Consider three notable cases. Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003 was triggered by fraudulent elections, but long-held anger over rampant corruption and economic mismanagement drove citizens to take to the streets and topple the incumbent regime (Kandelaki Reference Kandelaki2006). Protest leader-turned-president Mikheil Saakashvili used the revolution's momentum to launch a sweeping anti-corruption campaign. In 2011, in the first major rupture of the Arab Spring, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia in the face of widespread protests over unemployment, corruption and cronyism, and poor economic conditions (Yerkes Reference Yerkes2017). Large-scale protests began in Algeria in 2019 with ‘one of the protestors’ main concerns’ being to catch the ‘“thieves” responsible for people's socioeconomic hardship’ (Volpi Reference Volpi2020: 161). The protests secured the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, but not the broader goal of removing the regime as a whole from power.

In addition to the eight cases listed in Table 1, there are others in which public anger over corruption played a less central but still contributing role to an autocrat's ouster from power. Economy-wrecking corruption and mismanagement were key grievances in the Arab Spring protests in Libya and Yemen, which developed into complex conflicts that ultimately toppled both countries’ governments (Levey Reference Levey2011).

Table 1.

Corruption-Driven Ousters of Autocrats, 2000–19

Note:

^a Here I make an exception to Svolik (Reference Svolik2012) by listing Armenia as an authoritarian regime. Armenia under the Republican Party was widely seen as a non-democracy. Levitsky and Way (Reference Levitsky and Way2010) labelled it a competitive authoritarian regime alongside Kyrgyzstan and Malaysia. Freedom House labelled it a ‘semi-consolidated authoritarian regime’.

Some critics might argue that autocrats should not worry too much about the political consequences of corruption because other risks to their rule are more serious. Studies show that the largest threat autocrats face is not from revolution but from other elites, especially coups (Egorov and Sonin Reference Egorov and Sonin2011; Svolik Reference Svolik2012), but I find that fewer autocrats have fallen to coups than to corruption-related protests between 2000 and 2019. This period saw only seven successful coups against autocrats, in Mauritania (2005), Togo (2005), Fiji (2006), Egypt (2011), Burkina Faso (2014), Zimbabwe (2017) and Sudan (2019).Footnote ² Moreover, the political consequences of corruption cut across the grassroots/elite divide; anti-corruption protests sometimes pressure other elites to turn against the autocrat, as in the case of Algeria above. Scholars of coups have long understood that public protests can aid or trigger coup attempts (Johnson and Thyne Reference Johnson and Thyne2018). So without disputing the literature's finding about the severity of elite threats to autocrats’ rule, I suggest that authoritarian leaders who engage in corruption or allow corrupt practices to spread unchecked are taking a serious political risk.

Corruption-related protests pose challenges

Even when autocrats have managed to hold on to power in the face of corruption-related protests, such disruptions have often shaken authoritarian regimes, sometimes impelling them to engage in violent repression. For example, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests arguably created the most acute political crisis that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had ever faced. While most famous for their demands for greater political freedoms and democracy, the Tiananmen Square protests were just as much about public anger over government corruption, especially the privileges officials enjoyed compared with ordinary people (Hsu Reference Hsu2001). Ultimately, the CCP leadership decided to quash the protests brutally, killing hundreds. Most Arab Spring protests did not succeed in unseating autocrats, but still posed serious and in some cases unprecedented challenges to their rule. In surveys conducted across the MENA region after the protests, ‘fighting corruption was mentioned as the most important reason for the Arab Spring by 64.3 percent of respondents’ (Arampatzi et al. Reference Arampatzi2018: 108).

A related problem for autocrats is that opposition figures can lead corruption-related protests and use them to build support. In recent years, the most prominent opposition figure to Putin's rule in Russia has been the law-maker and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. Navalny's exposés of alleged wrongdoing by those in Putin's inner circle helped to spark an unprecedented wave of protests in 2017, including demonstrations in at least 187 Russian cities. Juan Guaidó, Venezuela's opposition leader and the internationally recognized president, has won public support in part by leading the charge to investigate widespread embezzlement by the Nicolás Maduro government, which has contributed to nationwide food shortages in recent years. Facing mass protests and unrest, Maduro has admitted that corruption is a serious problem in his government and has vowed to catch the ‘thieves’.

Figure 1 shows that corruption-related protests against authoritarian regimes increased in the 2010s compared with the 2000s, though this is true of other forms of protest as well (Carothers and Youngs Reference Carothers and Youngs2015). These protests have affected regimes in every major region, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1.

Corruption-Related Protests in Authoritarian Regimes, 2000–19

Source: Clark and Regan's (Reference Clark and Regan2016) mass mobilization protest data set (V4).

Note: A protest is ‘corruption-related’ if corruption is mentioned in the data set's short description of the case as a reason for the protest. I do not count multiple corruption-related protests in the same country in the same year.

Figure 2.

Corruption-Related Protests in Authoritarian Regimes by Region

Source: Clark and Regan's (Reference Clark and Regan2016) mass mobilization protest data set (V4).

Note: A protest is ‘corruption-related’ if corruption is mentioned in the data set's short description of the case as a reason for the protest. I do not count multiple corruption-related protests in the same country in the same year.

Autocrats recognize corruption's risks

Beyond authoritarian leadership ousters and corruption-related protests, evidence that corruption is costly also comes from how autocrats have expended considerable effort to deter public mobilization over the issue. Autocrats’ first line of defence is censoring or spinning unflattering news stories that reveal their corruption. A complete information blockade has become less feasible in the digital age, so some regimes launch sophisticated disinformation campaigns. If the public still protests corruption, autocrats are faced with a choice: repress the protests, which may trigger a backlash, or make concessions, such as promising to enact anti-corruption reforms. There is some evidence that smart autocrats will do both simultaneously, an approach which stops protests while also soothing public discontent (Elfstrom Reference Elfstrom2019). Certainly, this requires authoritarian regimes to monitor public opinion carefully and to have built up institutions that can deliver targeted coercion and propaganda.

Rather than simply responding to public mobilization over corruption, some autocrats attempt to pre-empt it by launching anti-corruption reforms themselves. Autocrat-led corruption control is often dismissed as an excuse to purge rivals, but recent research shows that substantive reforms are more common than is widely assumed (Carothers Reference Carothers2020a). The most well-known case is probably Singapore under the long rule of Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew; keeping corruption low helped make Singapore an attractive international business hub and burnished Lee's reputation at home and abroad as a pragmatic and capable leader, despite his rejection of Western-style democracy. But there are also other significant cases. Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro saw eliminating the corruption of the hated Batista regime as a critical step to legitimizing his revolution and building a new state apparatus (Domínguez Reference Domínguez1978: 230; Thomas Reference Thomas1971: 1344). More recently, President Paul Kagame's anti-corruption reforms in Rwanda earned him widespread praise from international aid and development organizations in the 2000s, despite his authoritarian methods. In sum, some autocrats, including globally prominent figures, have rejected the logic that engaging in corruption is uniformly beneficial to their hold on power.

When tolerance is low

How tolerant citizens are of corruption is, commonsensically, a key determinant of how risky it is for leaders to engage in it. People tolerate government corruption for various reasons, such as believing that it does not matter as long as officials do their jobs, that corruption is an inevitable or natural state of affairs, or that corruption is beneficial because it allows people to avoid burdensome government regulations. Though public attitudes towards officials have changed in recent decades, a common saying in Brazil for much of the 20th century was ‘he steals, but he gets things done’ (Senters et al. Reference Senters and Ames2018). In countries where state power is harsh and arbitrary, citizens may routinely rely on paying bribes to protect their livelihoods or even their lives. In North Korea, ordinary citizens engaged in semi-legal or illegal commerce complain about constantly having to bribe government officials, but much prefer this system to the government actually enforcing its nominal bans on capitalist activity (Lankov Reference Lankov2015).

Since the 1990s, several global factors have made publics generally less accepting of corruption (Carothers Reference Carothers2020b). First, the end of the Cold War brought a rapid decline in the importance of ideological battles and the fear of foreign invasion (Cockcroft Reference Cockcroft2012: 8). Many corrupt regimes that had won support at home and abroad for being anti-communist and being tough on national security came under new pressure by citizens to focus on providing good governance and economic growth (Pharr and Putnam Reference Pharr and Putnam2000). Second, global levels of wealth and education have risen substantially, though unevenly. Studies show that wealthier and better-educated populations have become less accepting of a wide range of corrupt practices and less susceptible to politicians’ attempts at vote-buying (Carrasco et al. Reference Carrasco2020; Jensen and Justesen Reference Jensen and Justesen2014; Truex Reference Truex2011). Educated, middle-class youth played a leading role in the Arab Spring protests in several countries. Third, the spread of new technologies, such as the internet and cell phones, has allowed citizens to learn more about government corruption and organize more easily against it. For example, the Russian activist Navalny has used his popular blog to disseminate videos revealing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's immense wealth, including mansions, yachts and a Tuscan vineyard. And fourth, international media and aid and development organizations such as the World Bank began in the 1990s to focus on corruption and highlight its dangers for growth in the developing world. Foreign reporting about corruption can sometimes get around domestic censorship. Autocrats in many countries scrambled to suppress the news that their family members and close associates had been named in the 2016 Panama Papers revelations, for example. All of these global trends have affected authoritarian regimes but are not limited to them; in fact, public anger over corruption has triggered the resignation or ousting of more democratic leaders than authoritarian ones in recent years (Carothers Reference Carothers2020b).

Citizens are the main audience that leaders face, but of course not the only one; in some cases, foreign allies become disillusioned with an autocrat's corruption and withdraw military or economic backing. Corruption may signal that an ally will waste foreign aid or is simply a bad bet who will not be ruling for long. During the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s, US intelligence assessments suggested that the Nationalist Party's unchecked corruption was losing it the support of the Chinese people and losing it the war to the more disciplined Communist Party (see, for example, Sprouse Reference Sprouse1947). These assessments contributed to the US urging the Nationalist Party to replace Chiang Kai-shek as its leader and temporarily suspending military aid to the Nationalist regime.Footnote ⁴

When there are quasi-democratic institutions

In addition to citizens’ tolerance or intolerance of corruption, a second important factor is whether autocrats face QDIs, such as semi-competitive elections and legislatures that allow opposition parties. QDIs raise the political costs of corruption, making it more of a dilemma, because they strengthen the public's ability to challenge the autocrat over corruption. Where there are semi-competitive elections, public discontent over corruption may contribute to opposition gains in elections, which the autocrat then has to either suppress – which is costly – or accept. In Georgia in 2003 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005, autocrats were forced to cover up embarrassing election results, which in both cases fuelled protests and united opposition parties against them, leading to their ousters (Fairbanks Reference Fairbanks2004; Kupatadze Reference Kupatadze2008). In Malaysia in 2018, a newly formed opposition coalition took power through elections, despite the ruling coalition having successfully manipulated elections many times in the past. This argument follows from scholarship that shows that authoritarian elections, even if unfair, can pose serious risks to autocrats (e.g. Treisman Reference Treisman2017). A multiparty legislature can also pose problems, especially if public anger over corruption unifies usually fragmented opposition parties. In Iraq, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned in late 2019 after failing to address massive anti-corruption protests and related violence that claimed over 400 lives; he was facing a no-confidence vote by a parliament made up of rival political blocs.

A counter-example might be Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which has transitioned from democracy to authoritarianism with QDIs. Orban is involved in large-scale corruption – ‘us[ing] European subsidies as a patronage system that enriches his friends and family, protects his political interests and punishes his rivals’ – but does not seem to pay political costs for this behaviour (Gebrekidan et al. Reference Gebrekidan2019). Numerous corruption scandals have hardly dented Orban's high approval ratings. However, some downsides of his corruption are emerging. Orban's misuse of European tax dollars has angered European governments and publics and complicated Hungary's foreign relations. At home, anti-corruption activism, though still limited, is on the rise (Pirro and Della Porta Reference Pirro and Della Porta2020). Moreover, studies show that when exposed to information about political corruption, Hungarian voters are ‘more likely to abstain from voting, less likely to support the incumbent party, and more likely to expect the anti-establishment party to win’ (Snegovaya Reference Snegovaya2020).

Notably, the countries that international indices rank as among the most corrupt tend to have fully authoritarian regimes, such as Tajikistan or Zimbabwe, not regimes with QDIs. This is not a coincidence; closed and highly repressive regimes make it exceedingly difficult for citizens to hold their leaders accountable for any wrongdoing, including corruption. Anti-corruption protests have sometimes emerged in highly authoritarian contexts, as with the nationwide strike in Guinea in early 2007, but they face harsh repression and a steep road to effect political change.

When autocrats cannot claim to be reformers

Finally, in some cases, autocrats can forestall the criticism that they are ruling over a corrupt regime by launching an anti-corruption campaign and presenting themselves as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. This is difficult to achieve due to widespread scepticism about autocrats’ motives; autocrats often claim that they are dedicated to curbing corruption but then only make superficial reforms and prosecute cases selectively. And if there are already anti-corruption protests in the streets, then an autocrat's promises to clean the house are naturally seen as motivated by self-preservation. In the 1970s, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, faced rising public anger over his family's extensive corruption, among other issues. The Shah tried to regain the public's trust by launching a ‘panicked’ anti-corruption campaign in 1977, but it was too little and too late (Gillespie and Okruhlik Reference Gillespie and Okruhlik1991: 89). Similarly, South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu fired dozens of generals and officials in response to a popular anti-corruption movement headed by Catholic priests in 1974, but succeeded in changing few minds (Goodman Reference Goodman1975). But if an autocrat acts preemptively and demonstrates a sustained commitment to curbing corruption, they may be able to establish a positive reputation, as in the case of Lee Kwan Yew, mentioned earlier. To give another example, Chiang Ching-kuo became premier of Taiwan in 1972 and immediately cracked down on bribe-taking and promoted reforms to curb official privileges. There was soon ‘widespread recognition’ of the positive effect of Chiang's reforms, even among the budding political opposition to the Nationalist Party, known as Tangwai (Newell Reference Newell1994: 324). Corruption only returned as a major political issue in Taiwan under Chiang's successor in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Fell Reference Fell2005: 55).

The UMNO and corruption

The UMNO remained in power uninterrupted from Malaysia's independence in 1957 to 2018, regularly holding and winning semi-competitive elections. The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, of which the UMNO is the leading party, was born out of a conservative mobilization against the threat of communist revolution in pre-independence Malaysia. This threat brought together a broad alliance that crossed communal divisions among ethnic Malays, ethnic Chinese and other minorities into an ‘exceedingly durable’ political order (Slater and Smith Reference Slater and Smith2016). The coalition won sweeping electoral victories in the early 1950s and through Malaysia's independence in 1957.Footnote ⁵ A combination of successful economic policies and manipulation of the electoral system secured the UMNO and its allies continued victories. But the BN coalition did not use its dominance to quash all opposition; Malaysia had relative political openness compared with fully authoritarian regimes. While there are other long-lived authoritarian regimes, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way (Reference Levitsky and Way2010: 21) identified it as the longest-lived competitive authoritarian regime.

The BN coalition's strategic use of corruption increased from one decade to the next. In the late 1950s, UMNO leaders established ‘covert “special funds” to which firms could make regular contributions’ in part to reduce the party's financial dependence on the Malaysian Chinese Association (Gomez Reference Gomez2012: 1382). Further enhancements to party financing became necessary when the coalition almost lost the 1969 general election. The UMNO increasingly supported itself by engaging in illegal business ventures and through patronage networks among politicians and the wealthy, especially after the launch of the New Economic Policy in 1971 (Gomez and Jomo Reference Gomez and Jomo1997: 25–27). Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad allowed corruption to spread exponentially in the 1980s, including the ‘rampant use of cold hard cash’ to buy election results (Wain Reference Wain2009: 142, 326). While campaigning for the 1982 general election, Mahathir repeatedly promised to combat corruption. He announced that he would lead a movement for ‘clean and efficient government’, and that there would be ‘leadership by example’ to curb the practice of bribe-taking among civil servants (Kapeli and Mohamed Reference Kapeli and Mohamed2015: 527; Wain Reference Wain2009: 142). Instead, the mid-1980s saw a campaign finance arms race, and several high-profile corruption scandals embarrassed UMNO politicians (Reuters 1985).

As in many developing countries, the Malaysian public's tolerance for rampant government corruption declined in the 1990s, especially after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. The financial crisis and the government's struggle to respond to it exposed to the public a great deal of economic mismanagement connected to corruption and nepotism (Saw and Kesavapany Reference Saw and Kesavapany2006: 202). By the late 1990s, the BN coalition's image was ‘deeply tainted by its association with corrupt practices’ (Hilley Reference Hilley2001: 97–99). Collusive links between party figures and businesses, privatization that transferred massive wealth to political insiders and now post-crisis bailouts were all targets for criticism, including from within the UMNO. William Case notes that ‘in the 1999 elections, waged in the aftermath of economic crisis, social grievances over the UMNO's corruption helped weaken its electoral appeal’ and fuelled a new rise in support for opposition parties (Case Reference Case2004: 92; see also Martinez Reference Martinez2001: 483).

Autocrat-led reform?

Seeing this trend in public opinion, Mahathir and his close ally and successor Abdullah Badawi confronted the autocrat's corruption dilemma. Their response was to present themselves as reformers. Speaking to UMNO colleagues in 1996, Mahathir tearily implored them ‘not to let bribery destroy the Malay race, religion and nation’ (quoted in Wain Reference Wain2009: 143). He sounded a similar note in in 2001, saying, ‘I have tried asking nicely, begged and even cried … money politics is the worst kind of disease which can cause UMNO to rot from within’ (quoted in Case Reference Case2004: 92). The administration enacted an Anti-Corruption Act in 1997, which greatly improved the investigatory powers of the country's Anti-Corruption Agency and allowed for the prosecution of officials even after they left office. Abdullah took over as prime minister in 2003 while promising to make corruption control his top priority (Saw and Kesavapany Reference Saw and Kesavapany2006: 204). The Abdullah administration continued Mahathir's reform push by overseeing the passage of the National Integrity Plan (2004), as well as the establishment of the Integrity Institute of Malaysia and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

But these anti-corruption efforts proved largely ineffective – they did not address the core corrupt practices common throughout the regime. After more than a decade in office, Mahathir's credibility as a reformer was questionable. His political motives were nakedly obvious in the administration's prosecution of reform advocate and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim for alleged corruption and other crimes. Despite making high-minded speeches about the need for clean government, Abdullah increased the use of patronage to win ‘loyalties’ within the UMNO's ranks, including arranging favourable business contracts and direct payments for numerous mid-level politicians (Case Reference Case2008: 48). Malaysia specialists assessed that anti-corruption efforts under Mahathir and Abdullah largely failed and noted that existing patterns of corruption continued throughout the 2000s (Case Reference Case2017: 639; Kapeli and Mohamed Reference Kapeli and Mohamed2015; Siddiquee Reference Siddiquee2010; Wain Reference Wain2009: 311). International organizations and foreign media monitoring Malaysian politics came to the same conclusion.Footnote ⁶

The electoral challenge

Although far from the only factor, corruption played a critical role in the UMNO's eventual ouster from power in 2018. Prime Minister Najib Razak, Abdullah's successor since 2009, had continued his party's traditional patronage practices and ‘the excessive use of state resources for campaigning and vote-buying’ (Welsh Reference Welsh2013: 1). However, Najib's popularity was fatally weakened by revelations of large-scale personal corruption. Najib had allegedly siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) into his personal account. Around 7.5 billion dollars went missing from the fund in total. The public was incensed by the lurid details: ‘a 22-carat pink diamond necklace … for his wife’, ‘paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Warhol’, a ‘megayacht for a family friend’ and so on (Beech et al. Reference Beech2018). Many citizens saw the 1MDB scandal as representative of the broader corruption and neopatrimonialism that had come to ‘pervade the polity’ (Weiss Reference Weiss2019).

Malaysia's electoral system, though unfairly tilted towards the incumbent coalition through malapportionment, gerrymandering and more direct election manipulation, gave opposition parties the chance they needed to pull off a surprise win. Opposition parties capitalized on the 1MDB scandal. The opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) helped keep the scandal in the news after it first broke and made corruption control and good governance the core messages of their campaign (and roughly a third of their book-length election manifesto) (Weiss Reference Weiss2019: 43). Citing Najib's corruption, former prime minister Mahathir joined the opposition coalition in 2017, dramatically strengthening PH's chances of forming a non-BN government acceptable to the public. The recently fractured opposition unified around the theme of corruption and the goal of throwing Najib out. The UMNO still went into the 2018 elections with confidence and its time-tested strategy of handing out money (hundreds of millions of dollars) to secure the necessary political support. But this time, the political minuses of corruption outweighed the pluses.