This study investigates how national levels of corruption are influenced by the interaction of two factors in political decentralization: the presence of local elections and the organizational structure of national parties. Previous studies have focused primarily on the role of fiscal decentralization on corruption and have mostly ignored the institutions of political decentralization. Using new data in a series of expansive models across multiple countries and years, we find that corruption will be lower when local governments are more accountable to and more transparent toward their constituents. This beneficial arrangement is most likely to occur when local elections are combined with nonintegrated political parties, meaning that party institutions themselves are decentralized from national control. Such an institutional arrangement maximizes local accountability by putting the decision to nominate and elect local leaders in the hands of those best in a position to evaluate their honesty—local electors.

中文翻译：

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政治权力下放和腐败：探索政党的条件作用

本研究调查了国家腐败水平如何受到政治分权中两个因素相互作用的影响：地方选举的存在和国家政党的组织结构。以前的研究主要集中在财政分权对腐败的作用上，而大多忽视了政治分权的制度。使用跨多个国家和年份的一系列扩展模型中的新数据，我们发现当地方政府对其选民更加负责和更加透明时，腐败将会减少。这种有益的安排最有可能发生在地方选举与非一体化政党相结合的情况下，这意味着政党机构本身不受国家控制。