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Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
Research Article Open Access
Rontos et al., Social Crimonol 2013, 1:1
DOI: 10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Research Article Open Access
Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide
Kostas Rontos1*, Luca Salvati2 and Ioannis Vavouras3
1Statistics and Demography, University of Aegean, Mytilene, Greece
2Environmental Impact Assessment, University “Roma Tre”, Italy
3Economic policy, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece
*Corresponding author: Kostas Rontos, Professor of Statistics and Demography,
University of Aegean, Mytilene, Greece, E-mail: K.Rontos@soc.aegean.gr
Received June 18, 2013; Accepted August 26, 2013; Published August 28, 2013
Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political
Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi: 10.4172/2375-
4435.1000101
Copyright: © 2013 Rontos K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
Abstract
The scope of this paper is to examine the main economic, social and political dimensions of development world-
wide. More specically, our analysis focuses on the study of the links between the levels of income per capita, the lev-
el of perceived corruption, the degree of human development, the extent of government effectiveness and the quality
of the political system as the main variables describing the level of overall development in a country. As we expected,
we nd that all these factors are very important determinants of the scale of overall development, since combinations
of these factors according to their values determine clusters of countries with different patterns of overall develop-
ment. As a result, an effective policy towards development demands integrated strategies that incorporate efforts for
low corruption and high income, human development and government effectiveness levels. However, in order these
strategies to be sustainable in the long run they should be associated with democratic transformations. If democracy
is not consolidated and the political system is not characterized as free, overall development cannot be effectively
achieved and especially maintained at the long run basis, in spite of any currently prevailing high income levels.
Keywords: Corruption; Economic development; Government
eectiveness; Human development; Overall development; Political
system; Social development
Introduction
In recent empirical work development is mainly measured and
evaluated from its economic point of view, while social and political
developmental aspects are mostly underestimated for several reasons.
One of them and perhaps the most important is that the later cannot
be easily measured in comparison to the former. Actually, economic
gures as quantitative variables are measured in almost all countries
with relative simple and widely acceptable indexes, such as income
per capita, while social and political aspects of human action can only
be successfully expressed by more complicated procedures on which
generally there is no wider agreement.
is diculty however should not be the reason for countries to
reduce their concern for the social and political dimensions of overall
development, as economic growth although necessary is not a sucient
condition for the wealth of nations. Actually, in modern societies there
exist additional needs for wealth equalities and fair distribution of the
economic result, eective reduction of corruption, better social security
and what is called “social state”, health and education system of high
quality, better government eectiveness in order the state to satisfy
social needs more eciently and high standards of political rights and
democracy, so that citizens to live in a comfortable, fair, secure and
pleasant sociopolitical environment. e recent worldwide economic
crisis has proved that oen behind an economic crisis there is a hidden
social and political crisis. In other words, economic development is not
guaranteed in the long run unless it is associated with high social and
political development. e countries of the world aected more deeply
by the economic crisis and sovereign debt crisis seem to be those where
the levels of social and political development are not considered as
very high. is is not astonishing since social cohesion and democratic
institutions help to discover and implement the appropriate solutions
and to overcome economic problems.
Fortunately, widely recognized international agencies have recently
developed methodologies to measure variables that express social and
political dimensions or aspects of development, as it will be presented in
the next section of the article, which allow researchers to include them
in their works on the overall development. It must be stressed from the
outset that overall development is a multidimensional phenomenon
associated with a variety of social, economic and political factors-
variables, such as high per capita income, high human development,
large government eectiveness, signicant reduction of income and
wealth inequalities, large social transformations, reduced corruption
and democratic political system. In the following paragraphs we discuss
in some detail the variables that have been used in our analysis as the
main characteristics of the level of overall development on nations.
e variable very widely used in empirical research as the best
measure or the best indicator of the level of economic development is
real income per capita. International organizations such as the United
Nations, the World Bank and the OECD classify countries as developed
or developing according to their prevailing or average income per
capita levels. Although income per capita is criticized as inadequate
indicator of economic development, mainly because it is an inecient
measure of the average living standards and quality of life prevailing
in a country, it is still recognized as the best available measure of the
average level of economic development.
Another variable that we consider to be associated with all the three
aspects or dimensions of the overall level of development is the level
of perceived public sector corruption prevailing in a country. It has
been acknowledged from the rst stages of human civilization that
whoever is in a position to exercise power may also be in the position
to use his public oce for individual benet1 . Public sector corruption
is usually dened as the abuse of public power for private benet [1]
or the abuse of public oce for private gain [2,3]. e World Bank
Sociology and Criminology-Open Access
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Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
denes public sector corruption as the abuse of public authority for
private interest [4]. OECD denes public sector corruption as the
misuse of public oce, roles or resources for private benet, material
or otherwise [5]. A denition provided by the nongovernmental
organization Transparency International that covers corruption in
both the public and the private sectors of the economy is the misuse of
trusted power for own prot [6]. Corruption can take up several facets,
such as bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion and nepotism [7]. It
should be made clear however that corruption is not always related to
personal gain. More oen than not the beneciaries are the so-called
third parties, namely the families, friends or the political party to which
the individual belongs. Corruption could be characterized as a “disease”
inherent to public power and an indication of bad governance [8].
As it has been stressed, corruption is a complex and a
multidimensional phenomenon having several causes and eects.
e factors that are associated to corruption are numerous. e most
important ones are the level of economic development, the type
of political authority, the quality of governance, the quality of the
institutional framework, the eectiveness of the justice system, the
degree of globalization, the level of competition, the structure and the
size of public sector, as well as the cultural qualities, the geographic
location and history. In summary, widespread corruption largely
unveils the existence of institutional and political weaknesses as well as
economic and social underdevelopment. It is recognized that corruption
may be the single most signicant barrier to both democratization and
economic development [9].
Corruption is associated with two basic elements, public authority
and morality. As a result the analysis of this phenomenon should
not focus exclusively on its economic, political, social and other
exogenous to the individual person or “environmental” aspects. e
general attitude towards corruption is also determined by the level of
individual morality that is by the system of individual behavioral and
moral attributes [10]. Not all people facing the same socioeconomic
environment are equally prone to corruption exhibiting identical
opportunistic behavior. Having stressed this individualistic dimension
of corruption, we should mention that it is generally accepted that
corruption is mainly considered as a social phenomenon depending
less on the individual psychological or personality characteristics of
public employees and more on the cultural, institutional and political
basis on which the specic nation is constructed [11], not ignoring of
course and the level of its economic development. Corruption therefore
is aected by and aects all the three dimensions of development.
Given these multidimensional relations of corruption and
development we discuss in some length this phenomenon. e empirical
analysis has established that the single most important factor aecting
corruption is the level of economic development. In this context,
corruption is considered to be both a cause as well as a consequence
of poverty. In a sense, corruption is a deciency that is responsible for
low levels of economic development by reducing the chances for long-
term economic growth [12-15]. Basically, corruption is detrimental to
economic growth and development by adversely aecting investment5
[16,17]. Moreover, it is accepted that corruption is a barrier to the
implementation of the reforms required for enhancing development,
either political or economic and social [18]. e extent, however, of
the consequences corruption has on economic development is largely
determined by the existing institutional framework [19]. On another
account, corruption is a “disease” which is caused by poverty, that is
controlled only when economies develop [13,20,21]6.
We argue moreover that overall development is also associated with
the degree of human development that is by the level of health, the
degree of access to knowledge and the level of well-being prevailing
in a given country, as a wider notion than economic development.
Human development refers to the expansion of people’s freedoms and
capabilities to live their lives as they choose [22]. Human development
is both a process and an outcome. It is not only concerned with the
process through which human choices are enlarged, but it also focuses
on the outcomes of the enlarged choices [23].
Moreover, we accept that overall development is also associated
with the degree of government eectiveness. An eective public sector
promotes all the three dimensions of development. Kaufmann, Kraay
and Mastruzzi dene governance as “the traditions and institutions by
which authority in a country is exercised. is includes the processes by
which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity
of the government to eectively formulate and implement sound
policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions
that govern economic and social interactions among them” [24].
It is also acknowledged that there exists a strong connection
between the level of overall development and the quality of the political
system. Underdevelopment is widely considered to be both a symptom
and a cause for the malfunctioning of democratic institutions [25].
Moreover, democracy and the consequent public accountability
reduce the costs of development. In a sense, the political system or the
“political macrostructure” is responsible for determining the political
motivation of all players in a state system and it is the very reaction of
these factors that determines the behavior of state bureaucracy [26]. As
a result, a highly developed and well-functioning democracy serves as a
tool for increasing the level of overall development [27].
In this paper our rst objective is to examine all the above factors,
that is income per capita, corruption, human development, government
Variable PR GNI HDI GE CL
CPI -0.66 0.75 0.75 0.92 -0.70
PR -0.46 -0.56 -0.65 0.94
GNI 0.95 0.80 -0.52
HDI 0.83 -0.61
GE -0.70
Table 1: Pair-wise Spearman non-parametric correlation analysis between the
investigated variables in each country (signicant correlations at p<0.001 after
Bonferroni’s correction for multiple comparisons are shown in bold).
1Although corruption can be observed at both the private and the public sector, the vast bulk of economic literature examines only public sector corruption, for two main
reasons. First, the associated with the phenomenon is mainly public sector and second, widely accepted private sector corruption indices have not yet been constructed,
rendering the relevant empirical research extremely difcult.
2For an analysis of the concept and the various denitions of corruption, see Johnston [3].
3For an analysis of this argument, see Tiihonen [8].
4For an analysis of the determinant factors of corruption see among others Lambsdorff and Treisman [12,13].
5It must be stressed however that some early works on the subject argued that corruption improves economic efciency and therefore promotes economic growth operating
as the necessary “grease” to lubricate the wheels of state bureaucracy. See for example Leff [16] and Huntington [17].
6Moreover, we must point out that corruption is extensive in low income countries, not because their inhabitants present a natural proclivity towards the said phenomenon,
but because the conditions of life make them prone to that Lalountas et al. [21].
Page 3 of 8
Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
eectiveness and political freedom in the forms of political rights and
civil liberties, as the main indicators of the overall development and
the ways that their combination in several levels cluster countries and
determines patterns of development. Our analysis reveals that all the
above factors are correlated and in general of crucial importance in
determining the extent of overall development worldwide. It is assumed
that political rights and civil liberties represent or measure the level of
political development of countries while the remaining variables in the
model represent the socio-economic one.
Data and Methodology
Data
Our analysis is based on six variables that have been derived for 167
countries (see list in Table 2 and full values in Appendix 1). It is the total
number of countries for which data for all these variables existed in the
year 2010. It could therefore be characterised as a worldwide analysis.
e variables have been derived from ocial statistics and other reliable
and well-known international data sources as it is explained below.
1. To express corruption, the corruption perceptions index (CPI)
was used. e CPI is an international index provided annually by the
nongovernmental organization Transparency International. It should
be acknowledged that CPI is the most extensively used index for
relevant empirical studies. It is a composite indicator, based on a variety
of data derived from 13 dierent surveys carried out by 10 independent
and reputable organizations. It measures corruption in a scale from 0
to 10, where 0 represents the highest possible corruption level, while as
the scale increases there is the perception that corruption does not exist
in a given country. Despite the fact that the index is not the outcome
of an objective quantitative measurement of corruption, it is of great
importance since it reveals how this phenomenon is being perceived.
e major strength of the CPI lies in the combination of multiple data
sources in a single index, a fact that increases the reliability of each
country’s score [12,28]7 . e data used for the CPI refer to the year
2010 and as it has already been stated are provided by Transparency
International [29] and for that year cover 178 countries or territories.
2. Gross National Income per capita in purchasing power parities
or current international dollars (GNIpc,ppp) to approximate the level
of economic development in each country. GNIpc,ppp is gross national
income (GNI) converted to international dollars using purchasing
power parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing
power over GNI as a U.S. dollar has in the United States8. GNIpc,ppp
is very useful in economic analysis when the objective is to compare
broad dierences between countries in living standards since, as we
have stated, purchasing power parities take into account the relative
cost of living in various countries, while nominal GNI (or GDP) does
not incorporate any such considerations. GNIpc,ppp is an indicator
widely used in international comparisons of economic development.
e data used refer to the year 2010 and are provided by the World
Bank [30] and for that year cover 215 economies.
3. e human development index (HDI) as a summary measure
of the level of human development based on non-income measures. It
is estimated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
and it measures the average achievements in a given country in three
relevant dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life,
access to knowledge and a decent standard of living. It is a composite
index with life expectancy in birth, mean years of schooling, expected
years of schooling and gross national income (GNI) per capita as its
main components. Despite its inherent limitations the index is a useful
comparative measure of the level of human development. According
to this index countries are classied in three categories: High human
development, if the value of the index is higher than 0.800, medium
human development, if the value of the index is between 0.500 and
0.799 and low human development, if the value of the index is lower
than 0.500. e data used refer to the year 2010. ey are provided by
the UNDP [31] and for that year cover 169 countries and 25 territories.
4. To express government eectiveness the relevant World Bank
government eectiveness indicator (GE) is used. is indicator is very
useful because it aims at capturing the quality of public services provided,
the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence
from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and
implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment
to such policies [32,33]. e aim of the indicator is therefore to capture
the capacity of the public sector to implement sound policies. GE is
one of the six composite indicators of broad dimensions of governance,
the so called worldwide governance indicators (WGI) covering over
200 countries since 1996 and produced by Kaufmann et al. [32]. e
values of GE lie between -2.5 and 2.5. Actually, the variable has been
transformed to a standard normal one (with mean 0 and standard
deviation 1), so that cross-country and over time dierences in the
measurement scale are avoided. Higher values correspond to better
governance. Although this indicator measures subjective perceptions
regarding government eectiveness and it is not the outcome of a
quantitative objective measurement, it is of a great importance since it
reveals how government eectiveness is being perceived.
5. e “political rights” index (PR). e index is based on the
evaluation of three sub-indexes, namely electoral process, political
pluralism and participation and functioning of government. e index
is estimated by the Freedom House organization [34] e PR index
measures from 1, which ranks a country as very free, up to 7, which
ranks a country as not free. According to the PR index countries are
characterized as free countries (F) if they score 1.0-2.5 in the 1-7 scale,
partly free countries (PF) if they score 3.0-5.0 in the 1-7 scale and
not free countries (NF) if they score 5.5-7.0 in the 1-7 scale. e data
Cluster n CPI PR GNI HDI GE CL
Developed/consolidated countries, mainly European Union countries (1) 24 7.25 1.21 33427 0.88 1.42 1.38
Afuent countries, mainly non- European Union countries (3) 10 7.46 3.60 54718 0.86 1.35 2.90
Emerging countries (2) 43 4.21 2.93 16214 0.76 0.21 2.73
Disadvantaged countries (4) 90 2.80 4.32 3607 0.54 -0.63 4.06
Note: The number in parenthesis indicates the clusters’ number in Table 3.
Table 2: Results of cluster analysis: average value by variable and cluster.
7For an extended analysis and assessment of the various indicators of corruption, see mainly UNDP [28].
8See http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD
9For more details see Methodological Summary, Freedom House (2013).
Page 4 of 8
Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
used for the PR index refer to the year 2010 and are provided by the
organization Freedom House [35] and for that year cover 194 countries
and 14 territories.
6. e “civil liberties” index (CL). e index is based on the
evaluation of four sub-indexes, namely freedom of expression and
belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal
autonomy and individual rights. e index is estimated by the Freedom
House organization (2013)9 [34]. e CL index measures from 1, which
ranks a country as very free, up to 7, which ranks a country as not free.
According to the CL index countries are characterized as free countries
(F) if they score 1.0-2.5 in the 1-7 scale, partly free countries (PF) if they
score 3.0-5.0 in the 1-7 scale and not free countries (NF) if they score
5.5-7.0 in the 1-7 scale. e data used for the CL index refer to the year
2010 and are provided by the organization Freedom House [35] and for
that year cover 194 countries and 14 territories.
It must be stressed that the average of the PR and CL ratings is
known as the “freedom rating” index (FR) and determines the overall
status of a country as a free, partly free and not free. However, since
the two indexes focus on dierent aspects of democracy and freedom
and since there are some deviations between the PR and CL ratings for
several countries, we decided to use the two separate ratings instead of
the average FR index.
Methodology: e variables have been standardized when
appropriate. A two-step multivariate strategy has been developed in
order to characterize the socioeconomic and political system of each
country according to the selected economic and non-economic features
describing the level of economic, social and political development in
each country. Analysis steps include: (i) a pair-wise Spearman non-
parametric rank correlation analysis, and (ii) a non-hierarchical Cluster
Analysis.
A pair-wise Spearman non-parametric co-graduation analysis was
carried out separately for each variable in order to test if signicant
correlations exist over the whole number of countries examined (n = 167).
A non-hierarchical k-means Cluster Analysis (CA) was carried out
with the aim at separating countries in few groups with homogeneous
socioeconomic and political patterns and corruption levels. e
best partition (i.e. the optimal number of clusters in terms of group
separation) was chosen according to the Cubic Clustering Criterion
that works through the maximization of the ratio of the intra-group
variance to the inter-group variances. Outputs of the CA include the
average of each of the six considered variables by cluster, together with
cluster membership and the multivariate distance from the centroid of
each cluster by country. An ANOVA table, that was also constructed,
indicates which variables contribute mostly to the dierentiation of the
clusters. Moreover, the analysis has been extended to the indication of
the greatest similarities and dissimilarities between the clusters formed.
Results
Pair-wise Spearman co-graduation analysis indicates the existence
of important relationships among the considered variables (Table
1). e CPI has been found correlated to all the remaining variables,
signicantly increasing with GE, GNI and HDI and decreasing with
CL and PR. ese relationships between CPI on the one hand and GE,
GNI, HDI, PR and CL on the other are the expected ones. e highest
correlation coecient has been found for the relationship between
GNI and HDI possibly indicating that the gross national income can
be considered as a proxy for the level of socioeconomic development in
the countries examined in the present study. While strongly positively
correlated to CL, PR was negatively associated with GE, as it was
expected. Finally, GE was negatively correlated to CL. In general, the
relationships between the above variables are the ones postulated by the
relevant theory.
Cluster Analysis identied four homogeneous groups of countries
(Table 2). Two groups include highly developed countries. e full list
of countries according to the cluster membership is shown in Table 3.
According to Table 4, the greatest dissimilarities exist between rich
non European countries and disadvantaged countries and between the
former with emerging countries. A considerable distance exists also
between Developed European countries and disadvantaged countries,
while the greatest similarity exists between the later and emerging
countries as expected.
ANOVA (Table 5) indicates, that overall, each of the variables
used in the present clustering diers signicantly across the clusters
(p-value=0 for all the variables). However, according to F values, the
variable contributing more to cluster dierentiation is GNI, as it was
expected. Moreover, the contribution of CPI, HDI and GE is high
enough.
Firstly, the cluster with the highest number of countries (n=90)
includes mainly economically-disadvantaged and poor countries
in Africa, Asia and Latin America showing the lowest CPI score
(indicating the highest level of corruption, see ‘data and methodology’
paragraph) and the highest PR and CL scores (indicating the lowest
political rights and civil liberties levels observed in the sample). Per
capita GNI is less than 4,000 international dollars per year and the HDI
is the lowest found in the sample together with a low GE. Examples
of countries belonging to this cluster are Cape Verde, Congo, Guyana,
Honduras, Kiribati, Pakistan, Samoa and Uzbekistan.
A total of 43 countries have been classied as emerging countries
showing a considerably higher economic level and higher social and
political development in comparison to the above cluster but already
unstable political systems and the worst government eectiveness. e
CPI average score is moderately low indicating a quite high perception
in the level of corruption together with relatively high PR and CL
scores indicating a modest level of political rights and civil liberties. On
average, per-capita GNI is higher than 15,000 international dollars per
year with an intermediate score for the level of human development.
Examples of countries belonging to this cluster are Argentina, Bahrein,
Chile, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Only 10 countries have been classied as auent countries
showing very high levels of economic development (the highest GNI
per-capita, on average, that is 54,718 international dollars) relatively
high government eectiveness and fairly good human development.
However, in some of these countries both PR and CL show relatively
high scores suggesting heterogeneity in the political systems of the two
sub-classes participating to the cluster, i.e., (i) high-income and rmly
democratic countries (United States, Luxemburg, Switzerland and
Norway) and (ii) high-income and partly free (Hong Kong, Kuwait and
Singapore) or even not free countries (United Arab Emirates, Brunei
and Qatar). Interestingly, CPI average score is the highest observed in
the rst sub-class (8.0) indicating low or very-low levels of corruption.
In the second sub-class, the countries included are associated with
higher levels of corruption (6.5) than the rst, with the astonishing
exception of Singapore (9.3) that is considered as one of the least
corrupted countries of the world.
Page 5 of 8
Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
Country Cluster Country Cluster Country Cluster
# Distance # Distance # Distance
Afghanistan 4 1.1 Germany 1 1.8 Nigeria 4 0.6
Albania 4 2.0 Ghana 4 0.8 Norway 3 1.3
Algeria 4 1.8 Greece 1 2.5 Oman 1 3.3
Angola 4 0.6 Guatemala 4 0.4 Pakis ta n 4 0.3
Argentina 2 0.4 Guinea 4 1.1 Panama 2 1.4
Armenia 4 0.8 Guinea–Bissau 4 1.0 Papua New Guinea 4 0.5
Australia 1 1.3 Guyana 4 0.1 Paraguay 4 0.6
Austria 1 2.4 Haiti 4 1.0 Peru 4 2.3
Azerbaijan 4 2.3 Honduras 4 0.1 Philippines 2 0.1
Bahrain 2 2.0 Hong Kong 3 3.0 Poland 2 1.1
Bangladesh 4 0.7 Hungary 2 1.3 Portugal 1 3.3
Barbados 2 1.0 Iceland 1 1.8 Qatar 3 8.9
Belarus 2 1.2 India 2 0.1 Romania 2 0.9
Belgium 1 1.8 Indonesia 4 0.2 Russia 2 1.1
Benin 4 0.8 Iran 2 2.0 Rwanda 4 1.0
Bhutan 4 0.6 Iraq 4 0.1 Samoa 4 0.3
Bolivia 4 0.4 Ireland 1 0.1 Sao Tome Principe 4 0.7
Bosnia Herzegovina 4 2.1 Israel 1 3.3 Saudi Arabia 2 2.7
Botswana 2 1.1 Italy 1 0.8 Senegal 4 0.7
Brazil 2 2.2 Jamaica 4 1.6 Serbia 2 2.2
Brunei 3 2.0 Japan 1 0.4 Seychelles 2 2.5
Bulgaria 2 1.2 Jordan 4 0.9 Sierra Leone 4 1.1
Burkina Faso 4 1.0 K a z ak hs ta n 2 2.4 Singapore 3 0.9
Burundi 4 1.2 Kenya 4 0.8 Slov ak ia 2 2.2
Cambodia 4 0.6 Kiribati 4 0.0 Slovenia 1 3.0
Cameroon 4 0.5 Korea (South) 1 2.0 Solomon Islands 4 0.6
Canada 1 1.9 Kuwait 3 0.6 South Africa 2 2.5
Cape Verde 4 0.0 Kyrgystan 4 0.6 Spain 1 1.0
Cent. African Republic 4 1.2 Laos 4 0.5 Sri La nk a 4 0.6
Chad 4 0.9 Latvia 2 0.1 Sudan 4 0.6
Chile 2 0.6 Lebanon 2 1.1 Swaziland 4 0.8
China 2 1.6 Lesotho 4 0.7 Sweden 1 2.6
Colombia 4 2.2 Liberia 4 1.3 Switzerland 3 1.9
Comoros 4 1.0 Libya 2 0.1 Syria 4 0.6
Congo – Brazzaville 4 0.2 Lithuania 2 0.6 Tajiki sta n 4 0.6
Costa Rica 2 2.1 Luxembourg 3 2.7 Tanzania 4 0.9
Cote d’Ivoire 4 0.7 Madagascar 4 1.1 Thailand 4 1.9
Croatia 2 0.9 Malawi 4 1.1 Togo 4 1.1
Cyprus 1 1.2 Malaysia 2 0.9 Tonga 4 0.4
Czech Republic 2 2.9 Maldives 4 1.7 Trinidad Tobago 2 3.3
Denmark 1 3.0 Mali 4 1.1 Tunisia 4 2.2
Djibouti 4 0.5 Malta 2 3.2 Tur ke y 2 0.4
Dominica 2 1.8 Mauritania 4 0.5 Turkm en i st an 4 1.6
Dominican Republic 4 2.2 Mauritius 2 1.1 Uganda 4 1.0
Ecuador 4 1.7 Mexico 2 0.8 U kraine 4 1.2
Egypt 4 1.0 Moldova 4 0.1 United Arab Emir. 3 3.2
El Salvador 4 1.2 Mongolia 4 0.0 United Kingdom 1 0.8
Equatorial Guinea 2 2.3 Montenegro 2 1.5 United States 3 3.0
Eritrea 4 1.3 Morocco 4 0.4 Uruguay 2 1.2
Estonia 2 1.2 Mozambique 4 1.1 U zb ek is tan 4 0.2
Ethiopia 4 1.1 Namimbia 4 1.1 Vanuatu 4 0.3
Findland 1 1.3 Nepal 4 1.0 Venezuela 2 1.8
France 1 0.4 Netherlands 1 3.3 Vietnam 4 0.2
Gabon 2 1.4 New Zealand 1 1.9 Yemen 4 0.5
Gambia 4 0.7 Nicaragua 4 0.4 Zambia 4 0.9
Georgia 4 0.5 Niger 4 1.2
Developed/consolidated countries EU Code 1 Afuent countries mainly non-EU Code 3
Emerging countries Code 2 Disadvantaged countries Code 4
Table 3: Cluster membership by country and distance from the cluster’s centroid.
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Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
Finally, 24 countries have been classied as developed and
consolidated democracies placed mainly in the European Union with
high economic and social development (the highest HDI on average).
PR and CL scores both reach the highest score in the sample indicating
the highest level of political rights and civil liberties observed. e
CPI average score is similar to that observed for the auent, mainly
non-European Union countries and indicates a low corruption level.
Government eectiveness here is the highest among the clusters.
Examples of countries belonging to this cluster are Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Canada, Finland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands,
New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Germany and
Denmark.
Discussion and Conclusions
e above analysis has highlighted that the level of economic
development, the perception in the level of corruption, the degree of
human development, the extent of government eectiveness and the
quality of the existing political system, are very important dimensions
that determine the overall developmental patterns worldwide. Generally
speaking, the above analysis is compatible to the relevant theory and
previous research as corruption seems to be low where all other factors
in concern are high, i.e. the level of economic development, the degree
of government eectiveness, the quality of human development and
political democracy. e outcome of our empirical analysis suggests that
in order to increase the level of overall development, not only economic
but also social and political eorts should be undertaken. We should
also mention the very strong correlation of governance eectiveness
with the CPI, a nding that may indicate the role of the state in the
creation of a “fair” society. Improving the quality of public services,
increasing the independence of state bureaucracy and politicians
from political pressures, as well as improving the eectiveness of the
processes of policy formulation and implementation and the credibility
of government’s commitment to such policies, reduces the motives of
voters, state ocials and politicians to resort to corruption and as a
result increases the overall development.
Cluster 1 2 3 4
1 17567,858 20141,334 30898,370
2 37709,191 13330,512
3 51039,702
According to Table 4, the greatest dissimilarities exist between rich non European
countries and disadvantaged countries and between the former with emerging
countries. A considerable distance exists also between Developed European
countries and disadvantaged countries, while the greatest similarity exists between
the later and emerging countries as expected.
Table 4: Distances between nal cluster centers.
Cluster Error F Sig.
Mean Square df Mean Square df
168,862 3 1,411 163 119,645 000
68,301 3 3,281 163 20,816 000
1,196E10 3 16814602,422 163 711,000 000
1,130 3 ,011 163 101,643 000
34,604 3 ,324 163 106,695 000
53,372 3 2,160 163 24,709 000
ANOVA Table 5 indicates, that overall, each of the variables used in the present
clustering differs signicantly across the clusters (p-value=0 for all the variables).
However, according to F values, the variable contributing more to cluster
differentiation is GNI, as it was expected. Moreover, the contribution of CPI, HDI
and GE is high enough.
Table 5: ANOVA analysis.
We also realize that income per capita is strongly correlated to
the degree of corruption in the world. e two variables CPI and
GNIpc,ppp are positively related: higher values of GNIpc,ppp are
associated with higher values of CPI that is lower perceived levels of
corruption. However, the eective control of corruption should not be
misinterpreted and considered as a “luxury good” that people demand
once their incomes increase to a certain level. It is achieved only
through the adoption and eective implementation of the appropriate
long-run economic, social and political processes, a point to which we
will return in the end. It has been shown that the level of corruption is
an extensive one in the low income countries. And this is because in low
income economies, corruption is to some extent a “survival strategy”.
In these countries, increasing personal income is a strong motive and
is becoming stronger due to conditions of utter deprivation and low
public sector salaries in several countries of the region. In order to
survive and support their families, low paid public sector employees
may need to moonlight or take small bribes, especially when their jobs
are associated with high degree of uncertainty, mainly due to political
instability, that reduces the probability of future wages appropriation.
According to this line of thought, corruption is a “disease” caused
by poverty, or a by-product of poverty that only diminishes when
economies develop.
High Human development is positively correlated with all remaining
factors (except corruption) in concern and especially with Income.
Improving the quality of life and increasing the level of education, apart
from rising incomes, increases the level of overall development since
it aects positively all the three dimensions of development, that is the
economic, social and political. Investment therefore on human capital
should be considered as the most productive investment associated to
overall development.
e political system seems to be another critical factor that
aects the level of overall development worldwide. A strong negative
correlation is present between PR and CL on the one hand and CPI
and GE on the other. e higher the PR and CL (that is the country is
associated with reduced freedom), the higher the corruption and the
lower the government eectiveness. e political system seems to be
less associated with economic development as expressed with GNI in
the present study.
Consequently, it is only the long lasting and true democratic form
of government and the establishment of a genuine democratic tradition
that prove to be factors of critical importance to guarantee a high
overall development level and especially the social aspects of it as they
are expressed by the level of corruption and government eectiveness.
Only when democracy has been consolidated we can accept
unambiguously that it reduces corruption and increase government
eectiveness and through these it increases the level of development.
It could be argued therefore that an important guarantee for achieving
and maintaining high levels of development is through the smooth
functioning of democratic institutions and civil liberties. Notions
such as transparency, collectivism, rule of law, freedom of expression,
association and organization etc., constitute but a few of the ingredients
to a successful recipe of a smooth operation of a lawful state. Western
type democracies owe their prosperity and overall development to a
great extent exactly to these factors.
According to the mean value of the above variables examined that
represent the several aspects of overall development the countries of
the world are clustered in four categories with specic characteristics.
e rst cluster represents the developed/consolidated countries
Page 7 of 8
Citation: Rontos K, Salvati L, Vavouras I (2013) Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions of Development Worldwide. Social Crimonol 1: 101. doi:
10.4172/2375-4435.1000101
Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
Social Crimonol
ISSN:2375-4435 SCOA, an open access journal
mostly in Europe that has achieved high enough (not the highest
among the clusters) economic performance accompanied by the
highest scores in political and social development as expressed by
the very low corruption, the highest political rights, civil liberties,
human development and government eectiveness. Achieving this
combination we could say that Europe is the region with the highest
overall development in the world, that present a balanced development
with strong concern to the society and the political system. Otherwise
this is a region where economic development is partly sacriced in
order social and political institutions to be maintained and improved.
e second cluster (cluster 3 in Table 3) represents very rich
countries of North America (USA), Upper and Middle East with
the lowest corruption and high government eectiveness but also
with problems in political development in a part of them. e
aforementioned countries seem to give priority to the economic and
social development but present a handicap in political development, a
fact that reduces the overall development level.
A third cluster (cluster 2 in Table 3) containing many emerging
countries that are not only associated with half the income of the
European countries and the 30% of the very rich countries but they
present relatively higher perceived corruption levels and low political
development and government eectiveness. Human development is
not far from the score of the aforementioned clusters. Political problems
and a government with very low eectiveness in these countries seem
to be serious than the handicaps for the achievement of higher overall
development as described in the present article.
e last category that contains more than 50% (actually 53,9%) of
the countries examined in our analysis, are the most disadvantageous
with very poor economic performance (with GNI just equal to the 22
% of that of the emerging countries) and very low scores in all indexes
of social and political development. e existence of numerous clusters
with low performance in all dimensions of development is additional
evidence that social, political and economic aspects of development are
interrelated and no one of them can be omitted from the developmental
design. High values of these three dimensions create “virtuous cycles”
for development, while low values of them create “vicious cycles” of
development.
e main conclusion of the above analysis is that the main
instruments to increase the level of overall development of countries
is to follow integrated strategies aiming at reducing corruption and
increasing income, human development and government eectiveness
levels. However, in order to be eective, these strategies should be
associated with the necessary democratic transformations. If the political
system is considered as not free, a high overall level of development
cannot be achieved and maintained, mainly because corruption cannot
be eectively reduced in spite of the prevailing high income levels. e
examples of Brunei, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates conrm this
conclusion, with the astonishing however exemption of Singapore that,
although it is considered as high income and partly free country, it is
one of the least corrupted countries in the world. is outcome could be
attributed to cultural factors not examined in the present study.
On line of the above analysis we argue that a high overall level of
development is achieved and maintained in the long run only when
socioeconomic development is associated with the consolidation of
democracy. Increasing incomes is a necessary but not a sucient
condition to increase overall development, unless it is associated with
the other factors outlined above.
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Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000101
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