I’ve known the difference in corruption at different levels between a country like India and a country like the US.

India hasn’t had a very long authoritarian regime since its independence. Yet, corruption has existed at every touch point with the government and shows no signs of reduction. In India, getting a driver’s license or getting a passport (for which there’s a “police verification” step) or buying/selling real estate or filing a police complaint or getting some work done in a court of law or even getting the final rites of a deceased person (burial or cremation) done require bribes in most places.

Also, paying a bribe means standing in line with the rest of the people who paid bribes. Things don’t move fast just because money exchanged hands.

All this is to say that I don’t know what to make of your statement on authoritarian vs. democratic regimes (though you mentioned “western”). The main factor seems to be the culture and what others here have described as low trust vs high trust.