Does Democracy Matter? Evidence on Corruption and Poverty Dynamics in ASEAN Countries

Salahudin Salahudin, Iradhad Taqwa Sihidi, Christine B. Tenorio

Abstract


The purpose of this research is to examine the interaction between democracy, corruption and poverty in ASEAN countries during the 2005 and 2025 periode. This research only emphasizes questions of whether democracy in the ASEAN countries is an effective mechanism to lower corruption and poverty rates? We use a cross-country comparative research design for this quantitative study. Finally, the data were sourced from Our World in Data, a platform that offers a variety of International databases (e.g., Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), World Bank, global governance indicators). A longitudinal data analysis using a comparative descriptive design was carried out to map the relationships between variables. This shows that the relationship between democracy, corruption and poverty of ASEAN is more complicated than linear causation. As data through October 2023 shows, countries with more democracy do not always have less corruption and poverty, as evidenced by Indonesia and the Philippines. On the other hand, Singapore has an extremely low level of corruption and poverty despite its limited electoral democracy. Institutional quality, bureaucratic capacity and the state of governance are potentially more powerful predictors in combating corruption and poverty than procedural democracy alone. The implications of this study underscore a need to reinforce institutions, bureaucratic reform and law enforcement that aid in the functionality of democracy in ASEAN. But at best, this study is only descriptive and it uses macro-level secondary data. Thus, future work should use correlations with panel data and regression methods in order to strengthen the accuracy of results.


Keywords


Democracy; corruption; poverty; governing capacity; ASEAN

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.35308/jpp.v12i4.15560

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