Political corruption during presidential elections in the South Caucasus

Abstract

Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, former members of the Soviet Union, are in transition period and are going through a difficult transformation process which hinders the stability and prosperity of the region. Political corruption has been persistent for decades in the South Caucasus, and the governments of the three countries still have governance and democracy shortcomings, lack transparency, accountability in electoral processes requiring further reforms and improvements. This study is an effort to illustrate and compare the cases of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan in terms of political corruption and democracy level, to measure the level of corruption-related violations during elections in the three countries and to highlight the influence of the level of democracy on the level of political corruption during elections in the SC. Mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research method is used to demonstrate that democracy is related to corruption during elections. The major findings indicate that Georgia has the highest level of democracy and the lowest level of political corruption during elections, Azerbaijan has the lowest level of democracy and the highest level of political corruption and Armenia is in between with significant shortcomings in democratic values and with notable concerns of political corruption during elections.