Corruption and Religion: Can the Religious Practices Increase Anti-Corruption Sentiments in the Country?

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ARMENIA

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Corruption and Religion: Can the religious practices increase anti-corruption sentiments in the country?

Course: BUS288 Business Analytics

Instructor: Hrant Davtyan

Students: Ani Mkhitaryan
Arman Khachatryan

Yerevan

2019

Introduction

“Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective” (P. Patil,2012). Being an old phenomenon, corruption directly or indirectly results in the development of economic inefficiency in the country (World Bank, 1997).  Even though governments try to implement anti-corruption policies in different sectors with good intend, many scholars argue that these excessive interventions of the government create limitations and barriers for the development of that specific sector (World Bank, 1997). One of the main sector of intervention is obviously the economic sector. However, as long as these interventions do not provide the desired outcome and even result in criticism from the sector, governments try to drive anti-corruption sentiments through socio-cultural impact. Due to its overwhelming influence on shaping the socio-cultural characteristics of a nation, religion is regarded as one of the main alternatives of anti-corrupt moral development. However, as long as socio-cultural aspects, including religion, are considered as an intersubjective matter, the weight of correlation of religion and corruption differ from one country to another.

Literature review

The omnipresent essence of corruption became a main topic of discussion among scholars worldwide. Even though the fundamental topic is the same, i.e. relationship between corruption and religion, empirical studies of many scholars approached to this relationship from different perspectives. As an illustration, La Porta argued that the positive correlation of the relationship between corruption and religion is a result of hierarchical religions (e.g. Christianity, Islam), which create an obstacle for formation of trust between citizens and government, consequently resulting in development of corruption in public sector (La Porta, 1997). Furthermore, some scholars argue that, from historical perspective, the statistically significant relationship between corruption and religion is not affected by religion directly, but as an indirect impact of certain political or institutional traditions’ legacy (Sandholtz, Gray, 2003; Treisman, 2000). As was suggested by Treisman, Protestantism’s empirically proven positive impact on the democracy and economic development of the country are the true causations of a negative relationship, but not the religion itself (Treisman, 2000).