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Although corruption poses fundamental challenges to both democratic governance and market economies, surprisingly little political science research addresses corruption in a comparative context. In this article we explain variation in the perceived level of corruption (defined as the misuse of public office for private gain) across fifty countries. We propose a set of hypotheses that explain variation in corruption levels in terms of domestic political-economic structures, democratic norms, and integration into the international economy. Levels of corruption, we propose, are higher: 1) the greater the extent of state control of the economy, 2) the weaker the democratic norms and values, and 3) the lower the degree of integration into the world economy. The multivariate data analysis broadly confirms our predictions, each of the independent variables is significant in the direction we expected.

Research findings refute the common view that the media set election agendas. Researchers examined the issues which candidates in the 1992 presidential election wanted to raise, and they looked at how public interests affected this planned agenda. Newspapers are important intermediaries in this process, but analysis of US newspapers from the time of the election indicated that the messages of all the candidates were well-represented, and that coverage was not dictated by editorial endorsements. Election agenda-setting may, instead, be a process involving transaction between all interested parties.

Examines the impact of diversity in constituency on electoral competitiveness in the U.S. Characteristic of constituency diversity; Implication for the characteristics associated with one or another party for the distribution of political opinion within a constituency; Level of electoral competition exhibited within a district.