I was particularly interested in his suggested five steps to help combat global corruption, as he has highlighted several that need to be applied to our own government. These include creating a special category of countries that encourage corruption, enforced transparency, combating corrupt individuals and enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. So until all four of these steps are applied to the UK government, it can hardly begin to tackle corruption in other countries.
But it seems unlikely that there is any realistic hope of tackling homegrown corruption, let alone that happening elsewhere. David Felton Wistaston, Cheshire. The problem confronting Alexei Navalny is where does he go from here? When he looks at the west with rose-tinted glasses, he may find they are constantly fogged up by the very things that he thinks only happen in one-party states.
Lack of professional ethics and deficient laws regulating corruption as a criminal offense, and the prosecution and sanctioning of it are also an important cause for the emergence and spread of corruption.
A great influence comes also from the ineffective sanctioning of corruption, which only increases the possibility of continuing the corruptive actions of those involved, creating at the same time a strong likelihood that others will join in the corruption due to this inefficient sanctioning. The sole lack of professional ethics is a particular issue, as the administration requires different amounts of time to develop or change its ethics and professional standards, which is well known in transition countries in some, ethics and professional standards changed overnight and approached the equivalents in the developed democracies, and in some, they remained the same as in socialism.
Therefore, due to lack of professional ethics in some countries that otherwise manage illegal corruption well, there is nevertheless a widespread form of legal corruption. Corruption also generates a lack of transparency and a lack of control by supervisory institutions. Therefore, where there is insufficient legal basis or sufficient political will to control, which enables a non-transparent functioning of both politics and the economy, corruption flourishes. Corruption is also affected by the extensive, non-transparent or incomplete legislation, where laws can be interpreted in different ways for the benefit of the one who pays.
Different countries have different attitudes to corruption. In Europe alone, we can find two extremes; from completely corruption intolerant North to the warm South, where corruption is an almost normal, socially acceptable phenomenon. Or the difference between countries with a democratic past, which traditionally prosecute corruption, and former socialist countries, where the corruption in the state apparatus was a part of folklore tradition.
Everything is only a matter of ethics and morality; however, they can be very different in different areas and different countries. Some forms of corruption also relate to an informal form of social security, where the family or the immediate community takes care of its members.
Such forms of informal social security prevail in less developed countries, where there is no legal regulation of formal social security and in the countries of Southern Europe where the influence of the broader family patriarchate 5 is still very strong, like for example in Italy, Greece, Albania, Bosnia, etc. These countries are known for nepotism, cronyism and patronage, since the family as well as the wider community provide social security. The family or community takes care of their members, who, in return, must be loyal and in a way also repay the benefits they receive from it.
The same is true of faith. While the southern, predominantly Catholic, very hierarchically organized part of Europe, encourages the cult of the family also joint and several community and several liability, the northern, mainly Protestant part, emphasizes individualism and individual responsibility which means less forms of corruption.
The corruption also prospers better in countries where Islam and Orthodoxy are the main religion. The influence of the dominant religion in the country is thus important. The influence of majority Protestantism has been tested several times and has proven to be an important factor for the low level of corruption in a country.
Today, there are many nominally Protestant countries that are de facto secular, while also many non-Protestant countries fight effectively against corruption.
Thus, the influence of Protestantism appears to emerge from its egalitarian ethos, which could indirectly function as a support to the general orientation toward ethical universalism, literacy and the promotion of individualism. Its role is therefore important, as it at certain stages of the development explains why the first countries that were well managed were predominantly Protestant. This does not mean that other religious traditions are incompatible with good governance, but only that they have not succeeded in compiling this particular array of factors at the right moment [ 16 ].
Similarly, the research by North et al. The results of their research have shown that there is a link between religion and corruption on one hand, and respect for the rule of law on the other, but not that the link is causative.
The questions therefore arise: Why do some religions respect the rule of law more than others and control corruption? Do the characteristics of a particular religion themselves lead to the results? Are there any differences in religious doctrines, practices or cultures that lead to such results?
Are there other links that are not rooted in the religious culture, but are related to religious affiliation? A study titled Perception of corruption by authors Melgar et al. They found that those who think that there is a lot of corruption also perceive it so and are consequently more willing to pay for it as they think or expect the society to function that way. By using a wide and very heterogeneous set of data and econometrics, it has been shown that the social status and personal characteristics also play an important role in the shaping of corruption perception at the micro level.
While divorced women, unemployed persons, persons working in the private sector or the self-employed are considered to be in positive correlation with the perception of corruption corruption is perceived more and they are more willing to pay bribes , the opposite applies to married persons, full-time employees, people who frequently attend religious ceremonies and people with at least secondary education they perceive less corruption and are also unwilling to pay.
According to the classification of countries, they find that it can be proved that all African and Asian countries are in the upper half of the table, and the same applies to the former socialist countries and most of the East Asian countries. People living in these countries perceive more corruption than others. On the contrary, most European countries and some of the former English colonies show lower perceptions than the average there are also exceptions and rank in the lower half, the same as half of the richest countries.
They also added that the geographical classification of countries has been strongly correlated with the corruption perception index CPI , which shows that individual characteristics and social conditions are specific factors that influence the perception of corruption. However, they have also found that better economic results reduce the perception of corruption, while the macroeconomic instability and income inequalities have precisely the opposite effect.
A very important factor that affects corruption is also demographics. A number of studies have shown that patriarchal society is more prone to corruption. This is confirmed by several researches that actually explore to what extent are men women corrupt. Several earlier, especially econometric contributions to the debate on who is more corrupt, men or women, argued that there is a link between a higher representation of women in government and lower levels of corruption.
An influential study of countries in Europe, Africa and Asia by the World Bank [ 20 ] confirmed this and concluded that women are more reliable and less prone to corruption. The subsequent findings were later reinforced by further research.
Rivas [ 21 ] also affirms this in his research and notes that, according to the results of the survey, the conclusion could be that women are less corrupt than men and that the increase in the number of women on the labor market and in politics would help fight corruption.
Lee and Guven [ 22 ] in the survey: Engaging in corruption—the influence of cultural values and the contagion effects at the micro-level also raised the question of whether men are more corrupt than women. The findings of the research support the thesis that women are less susceptible to corruption than men, especially in cultures that require men to be ambitious, competitive and materially successful, as these factors significantly contribute to unethical behavior.
This was surprisingly well shown also in practice [ 23 ] when, due to gender equality, the Peruvian government a decade ago decided to involve more women in the police units. When the 2, female police officers were joined as traffic police officers, something unexpected happened; bribery was drastically reduced, and people welcomed the female police officers on the streets. In , Tanzi and Davoodi [ 2 ] conducted a systematic study of the impact of corruption on public finances.
Several important findings came to light:. Corruption increases the volume of public investments at the expense of private investments , as there are many options that allow for public expenditure manipulation and are carried out by high-level officials so as to get bribes which means that more general government expenditures or a large budget offer more opportunities for corruption.
Corruption redirects the composition of public expenditure from the expenditure necessary for basic functioning and maintenance to expenditure on new equipment. Corruption tends to pull away the composition of public expenditure from the necessary fixed assets for health and education, as there is less chance of getting commissions than from other, perhaps unnecessary projects. Corruption reduces the effectiveness of public investments and the infrastructure of a country. Corruption can reduce tax revenues by compromising the ability of the state administration to collect taxes and fees, although the net effect depends on how the nominal tax and other regulatory burdens were selected by the officials, exposed to corruption.
The influence of corruption on the economy was studied by the same authors [ 3 ] through several factors:.
Through the impact of corruption on businesses : The impact of corruption on a business is largely depend on the size of the company. Large companies are better protected in an environment that is prone to corruption, they avoid taxes more easily and their size protects them from petty corruption, while they are often also politically protected, which is why the survival of small especially start-up companies and middle-sized companies, regardless of their importance for the growth of the economy and the development, is much more difficult than the survival of large companies.
Through the impact of corruption on investments : Corruption affects a total investments, b the size and form of investments by foreign direct investors, c the size of public investments and d the quality of investment decisions and investment projects. Through the influence of corruption on the allocation of talents : Indirectly, corruption has a negative impact on economic growth through the allocation of talents, since gifted and prospective students are driven, due to the influence of the environment and the situation in the country, for example, to study law rather than engineering, which would add value to the country.
Through the impact of corruption on public spending : Corruption has a negative impact on public spending and has an especially strong impact on education and health. There are also indications of the correlation between corruption and military expenditure, which means that high level of corruption reduces economic growth due to high military expenditure. Through the impact of corruption on taxes : Because of corruption, less taxes are levied than would otherwise be, as some of the taxes end up in the pockets of corrupt tax officials.
Smarzynska and Wei [ 5 ] came to similar conclusions regarding the effects of corruption on the size and composition of investments.
Corrupt countries are less attractive for investors, and if they do opt for an investment, due to non-transparent bureaucracy, they often enter the market with a joint venture, as they usually understand or control matters of the home country better. The local partner can also help foreign companies with the acquisition of local licenses and permits or can otherwise negotiate with the bureaucratic labyrinths at lower costs.
Generally inclined as investors to the joint venture in the corrupt countries are especially the US investors; however, even investors from those European countries, which are among the highest ranked on the CPI, quickly adapt to local conditions. Employment, because the job does not go to the most suitable or qualified person, but the one who is ready to pay for it or in any other way return the favor.
Also affects total investments [ 24 ]. The effectiveness of investment decisions and projects. In the presence of corruption, the investments are smaller, as entrepreneurs are aware that they will have to bribe the officials or even give them a profit share for a successful implementation of a business. Due to these increased costs, the entrepreneurs are not interested in investing.
Wei [ 25 ] even made a projection which predicted that in the case of reduction in corruption in Bangladesh to the level of corruption in Singapore, the growth rate of GDP per capita would increase by 1. He therefore asks himself whether this would even be possible. However, he notes that in the event of a large increase in salaries, a new form of corruption would likely arise when everyone would be prepared to pay a bribe for a well-paid official job.
The state is thus also losing part of the income from the taxes due to corruption, while the public spending, resulting from corruption or narrow private interests leads to negative effects on the budget.
In the study Corruption and the Shadow Economy [ 31 ], the same authors explore the relationship between the degree of corruption and the emergence of the shadow economy, and their findings are that the high level of shadow economy and the high degree of corruption are strongly linked to one another. One of the hypotheses in this survey which has been confirmed is also: the higher the degree of corruption, the lower the economic development measured by GDP per capita.
True, but Schulz only ever worked with students who were too young to have been involved in political corruption, fraud, or tax evasion themselves. Causality could eventually flow in the other direction. For example, through travel, entertainment, and migration, people are exposed to the social norms of other societies.
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