IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id102.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Do Governments Lack “Political Will†? An Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Ajit Karnik

Abstract

This paper proposes “lack of political will†as the most important reason why a ruling political party is unable to commit itself to economically efficient choices or policies. The notion of political will is explicated using concepts from the transactioncosts perspective. The paper models the interactions between an interest group and the ruling party on the one hand and between general electorate and the ruling party on the other as quid pro quo relationships or transactions. In the first type of transaction, the ruling party offers the interest group of favourable policy (say, subsidised public sector output) in exchange for political support. In the second transaction, the ruling party offers the general electorate subsidised welfare amenities (say, basic health care) in exchange for political support. The analysis in the paper shows that the transaction-costs associated with the interest group-ruling party exchange will be lower than the transaction-costs in the case of the general electorate-ruling party exchange. Consequently, the ruling party will implement policies which are inefficient for the point of view of the economy but which work to the benefit of the interest group.

Suggested Citation

  • Ajit Karnik, 2005. "Why Do Governments Lack “Political Will†? An Explanation," Working Papers id:102, eSocialSciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eSocialSciences.com/data/articles/Document11982005100.5943872.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    2. Ajit Karnik, 2005. "Economic Reforms, Electrol Politics A Welfare," Working Papers id:103, eSocialSciences.
    3. Moore, Mick, 1997. "Leading the left to the right: Populist coalitions and economic reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1009-1028, July.
    4. Pursell, Garry & Gulati, Ashok, 1993. "Liberalizing Indian agriculture : an agenda for reform," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1172, The World Bank.
    5. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Kimberly Ann Elliott, 1994. "Measuring the Costs of Protection in the United States," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 77, April.
    6. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    7. Vito Tanzi, 1998. "Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scope, and Cures," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(4), pages 559-594, December.
    8. Moe, Terry M, 1990. "Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(0), pages 213-253.
    9. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    10. William M. Dugger, 1996. "The Mechanisms of Governance," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 1212-1216, December.
    11. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    12. Mr. Vito Tanzi, 1998. "Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scope, and Cures," IMF Working Papers 1998/063, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Buchanan, James M, 1988. "Contractarian Political Economy and Constitutional Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 135-139, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders, 2012. "Corruption, institutions and regulation," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 263-285, September.
    2. Ram Mudambi & Pietro Navarra & Andrew Delios, 2013. "Government regulation, corruption, and FDI," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 487-511, June.
    3. Maria Kravtsova & Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2019. "Market And Network Corruption," HSE Working papers WP BRP 209/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    4. Ghulam Shabbir & Mumtaz Anwar & Shahid Adil, 2016. "Corruption, Political Stability and Economic Growth," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 689-702.
    5. Guriev, Sergei, 2004. "Red tape and corruption," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 489-504, April.
    6. Luca Correani, 2005. "Preferences, Development and Corruption Trap," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 177-200.
    7. Wolfgang Maennig, 2004. "Korruption im internationalen Sport: ökonomische Analyse und Lösungsansätze," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 73(2), pages 263-291.
    8. Arminen, Heli & Menegaki, Angeliki N., 2019. "Corruption, climate and the energy-environment-growth nexus," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 621-634.
    9. Gabriel Caldas Montes & Paulo Henrique Luna, 2021. "Fiscal transparency, legal system and perception of the control on corruption: empirical evidence from panel data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 2005-2037, April.
    10. Dreher, Axel & Kotsogiannis, Christos & McCorriston, Steve, 2007. "Corruption around the world: Evidence from a structural model," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 443-466, September.
    11. Wolfgang Maennig, 2002. "On the Economics of Doping and Corruption in International Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(1), pages 61-89, February.
    12. Keith Blackburn & Niloy Bose & M. Emranul Haque, 2011. "Public Expenditures, Bureaucratic Corruption And Economic Development," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 79(3), pages 405-428, June.
    13. Lindsey Carson & Mariana Mota Prado, 2014. "Mapping Corruption and its Institutional Determinants in Brazil," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series iriba_wp08, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    14. Jiang, Liangliang & Wang, Chong, 2024. "Lending corruption and bank loan contracting: Cross-Country evidence," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2).
    15. Angelino Viceisza, 2007. "An experimental inquiry into the effect of yardstick competition on corruption," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2007-09, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    16. Alexander Stoecker, 2021. "Partisan Alignment and Political Corruption: Evidence from a New Democracy," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 192-21, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.
    17. Gupta, Sanjeev & de Mello, Luiz & Sharan, Raju, 2001. "Corruption and military spending," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 749-777, November.
    18. Fredriksson, Anders, 2014. "Bureaucracy intermediaries, corruption and red tape," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 256-273.
    19. Oluremi Ogun, 2018. "Corruption And Growth: The Productivity Growth Nexus," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(05), pages 1227-1244, December.
    20. Roberta Gatti & Stefano Paternostro & Jamele Rigolini, 2003. "Individual attitudes toward corruption: do social effects matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3122, The World Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.