UC Riverside

What are the obstacles in the establishment of rule of law in democratizing countries? I argue that political corruption has a causal negative effect on the establishment of rule of law. I find that political and judicial corruption makes the implementation and the enforcement of the laws practically impossible. This mixed methods dissertation consists of a two-case comparative study of two new democracies, Czech Republic and Romania, with different levels of corruption and rule of law, based on field work and interviews with over 50 elites; and several cross national tests in all new democracies around the world. This dissertation makes both a theoretical contribution to the study of establishment of rule of law, by hypothesizing the negative impact of corruption on this process, and an empirical contribution by thoroughly testing the hypothesis within cases and cross-nationally.