Faculty Seminar | The Search for a Link between Electoral Expenses, Regulation, and Corruption

This week’s faculty seminar will be held on 23rd August, 2023.  Prof.. Jasmine Joseph will be discussing on a working paper  titled “The search for a link between electoral expenses, regulation and corruption”.   Prof. Sanjay  Jain will be the discussant.

Abstract

The representative democracy of India is currently experiencing a rapid decline in both its substantive and procedural components. This paper focuses on analysing one specific procedural element: the electoral process. Electoral corruption is a significant factor contributing to India’s appalling position in the corruption perception index. This paper aims to explore how inadequately regulated electoral expenses can fuel electoral corruption, subsequently leading to widespread corruption.

A cursory examination is conducted to evaluate the regulatory framework governing election expenses in India and to identify its shortcomings. Additionally, the paper examines how the mismanagement of election expenditures could pave the way for corruption and highlights two crucial factors, apart from legislation, that play a role: transparency norms and public funding. However, these two factors are not extensively practiced in India.

This working paper primarily serves as a hypothesis development for a more extensive investigation into how the implementation of public funding can positively influence the corruption landscape.