Political Corruption in Mixed Electoral Systems:
Do Types of Party-List Proportional Representation Matter?
Bon Sang Koo
March 28, 2009
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I attempt to analyze levels of corruption under different types of party list
proportional representation (PR) in a cross-national setting. Employing more robust statis-
tical methods and Monte Carlo simulations, I demonstrate that Chang and Golden’s (2007)
hypothesis concerning the positive association of open-list PR with political corruption after
controlling for district magnitude is not robust to new datasets including the mixed-member
systems. Despite weak statistical evidence in the pooled dataset, I show that closed-list PR
combined with the plurality rule can induce more corrupt behavior in presidential systems
with weak party organizations, such as South Korea and Ukraine.