DOES DEMOCRACY DELIVER CLEAN, ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT? — CPI 2023 vs democracy & income, 167 countries
(corrects two errors in the original idea: (1) the "India 1-5% tax accounted for" is a garbled memory of Rajiv Gandhi's
1985 "15 paise reaches the poor" WELFARE-leakage estimate (an off-the-cuff guess, later ~50%); (2) "electorate size"
is a population/development confound, not a democracy test.)

CORRELATIONS with CPI cleanliness: democracy(FH) +0.73 | income(logGDP/cap) +0.72 | electorate-size(log pop) -0.20 | V-Dem +0.77
M1  cpi ~ dem:                 dem +0.40***  R2=0.53
M2  cpi ~ dem + dem^2:         dem -0.22*, dem^2 +0.0059***  R2=0.62   <- significant U-shape (clean at BOTH ends)
M3  cpi ~ dem + income:        dem +0.27***, income +7.4***  R2=0.69   <- democracy shrinks when income added
M4  cpi ~ dem + dem^2 + income: dem -0.07 (n.s. p=.45), dem^2 +0.0034***, income +6.3***  R2=0.72
        => the LINEAR "more democracy -> cleaner" effect VANISHES once income + the U-shape are accounted for.
M5  cpi ~ logpop + income:     logpop -1.35* (tiny), income +11.0***   <- electorate-size is NOT the driver (your IV was wrong)
Standardized betas (dem+income): democracy +0.49, income +0.47 (roughly EQUAL).
Clean autocracies (democracy<40 & CPI>=55): UAE(68), Qatar(58). Also Singapore(CPI 83, FH~58 partly-free), Rwanda(53).
India: FH democracy 67, CPI 39, log GDP/cap 9.1 (lower-middle income).

VERDICT (de-biased, both ways):
- REFUTES "democracy is the prerequisite for clean/accountable government": its independent linear effect vanishes under
  income control; the relationship is U-shaped; clean non-democracies exist (UAE, Qatar, Singapore). => supports the Ch 11 rebuttal.
- The electorate-accountability theory is weak: voters don't reliably translate the vote into clean government.
- BUT does NOT show "democracy causes corruption": full democracies are clean (Nordics top CPI); the clean autocracies are
  RARE outliers in a mostly-filthy autocratic field (Eq.Guinea 17, Venezuela 13, Syria 13, N.Korea 17). Clean autocracy is rare.
- THE REAL DRIVER is income / state capacity. Democracy is NEITHER necessary NOR sufficient for clean government; capacity is.
- India's leakage is an income/capacity story, not "democracy caused it."
