Exploring the Relationship between Informed Understanding of Democracy and Corruption Permissiveness in India: An Explanatory Research

While existing studies have focused on the role of democracy in controlling citizens’ permissiveness toward corruption, they often fail to answer two critical questions: (1) why do democracies with strong institutions and a long history of democratic practices still exhibit high levels of citizen permissiveness toward corruption?; and (2) why is there variability in permissiveness among individuals in democracies with similar democratic commitments, including within the same country? This article addresses these gaps by examining whether citizens’ informed understanding of democracy is significantly correlated with their permissiveness toward corruption in India—a country that experiences the paradox of established democratic institutions alongside high levels of corruption permissiveness. Using ordinal/ordered logistic regression and conducting several robustness checks, the article found a significant negative correlation between informed understanding of democracy and corruption permissiveness among Indian citizens. Based on these findings, it recommends developing and implementing long-term national plans to promote democratic citizenship education through a participant-centric approach.