Corruption and Female Official Representation in Developing States - do women counteract political corruption?

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay is to investigate the validity of the hypothesis that there is a negative relationship between female official representation and the level of corruption in developing states. The possibility of a reversed causality is also considered. This is done through statistical analysis combined with a theoretical framework. The results show a weak relationship between the level of women in parliament and the level of corruption, although other factors seem to have a stronger explanatory force. From the analysis of the results it is indicated that it is a case of a circular relationship between a multitude of factors where an augmentation in one sector creates favourable conditions for the other factors and thus creating a cycle of effects that can be both positive and negative. It is also argued that previous studies on this issue have not taken into consideration the different societal and political conditions that developing states face compared to highly developed states and that the conclusions drawn from these studies might not be fully applicable on this set of countries.