Final Report Summary - PERDEM (The Peformance of Democracies)
The main result from the project is that such “output” factors are of the outmost importance for the ability of democracies for producing human well-being and a function system of taxation. Also known as “state capacity”, these are factors relating to the competence, impartiality and honesty of the civil service and the various professions working in the public sector. A central problem for many democracies, mostly but not limited to the newer ones, is that democratization or increased local participation in public decisions does not automatically lead to higher quality for the institutions that are responsible for implementing laws and public policies for the establishment of “public goods”. On the contrary, there are features of democratization that often hinder increased quality in the public administration and that may even increase corruption. In many cases, voters do not “punish” politicians or political parties that have a record for being engaged in corruption. One central part of the project has been to analyze under what circumstances electoral-representative democracy will lead to increased control of corruption. In this, the role of gender equality in the political system has turned out to be a central factor.