Study Correlates FOI Laws, Lower Level of Corruption

3 July 2013

A new study finds that nations with long-standing freedom of information laws tend to have a lower incidence of corruption than those without FOI laws.

Edson Tandoc, Jr., a doctoral candidate in the Missouri School of Journalism in the United States, also found that the corruption is not reduced by having a good FOI law.

“Because it takes years for these laws to become fully effective, FOI laws should not be considered only as a corrective measure,” Tandoc said.

He compared 2010 data from the United Nations Human Development Index, Transparency International‘s corruption perception index, and the Center for Law and Democracy‘s FOI ratings. The later index ranks countries on the strength of their FOI law, not on implementation.

Tandoc’s conclusion:

In conclusion, the study found that having an FOI law and effectively implementing it have different effects on development. Having an FOI law leads to lower corruption levels and higher human development.

The effective implementation of an FOI law, however, is related to higher corruption levels. As argued above, this points not only to the argued difference of having the law and implementing it but also to how countries and their citizens conceive right of access to information—as an assurance of some sorts, a right invoked only when it is needed. The pattern that this current study found is at best descriptive: This is how countries have employed FOI legislation. But this runs counter to the normative idea of guaranteeing access to information, that FOIAs provide an avenue for citizens to regularly check on their governments, the idea being that a government subjected to regular monitoring by the people it serves will be a government that works for public interest. For example, FOIAs should be used to ensure that corruption will not be tolerated to begin with, instead of only using it to fix a problem.

Two Main Findings

In correspondence with FreedomInfo.org, the author elaborated on his main results.

Result: Number of years of having an FOI law is a positive predictor of having lower levels of corruption, ? = .355, t = 3.54, p < .001.

 

Interpretation: This means that based on the regression equation, having an FOI law for a long period of time (meaning a long established FOI system) predicts lower corruption levels. We can consider this regression coefficient as moderate in magnitude.

 

Result: While higher rankings in the effective implementation of FOI significantly predicted corruption ratings, the relationship was negative, ? = -.243, t = -2.43, p < .05. 

 

Interpretation: Countries rated to have an effective implementation of their right to information laws tend to have worse corruption problems. Thus, being rated as effectively implementing FOI is linked to being perceived as having corruption problems. This is where I draw my argument from, that many countries still consider FOI as a reactive recourse, something to be implemented to combat a problem, instead of being considered as a form of prevention.

 

The same pattern is true with predicting levels of human development. 

 

A few caveats: I was interested in the link between FOI and corruption, and so I deliberately left out other possible social factors that could account for corruption levels of a country (which can be the subject of a follow up study). Also, the data came from available indices, such as Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index and UN’s Human Development Index. These measures are based on perceptions (e.g. Transparency International’s corruption rankings are based on surveys of businessmen and citizens) and it is possible that perceptions are different from actual conditions. However, the indices I used are considered the best in measuring the social factors they are measuring. 
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