The corruption eruption in east-central Europe: The increased salience of corruption and the role of intergovernmental organizations

East European Politics and Societies

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 516-549

  Grigorescu, Alexandru ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Corruption; East Central Europe; European Union; International organizations; Press

Indexed keywords

EID: 33746101019     PISSN: 08883254     EISSN: 15338371     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0888325405276655     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. See Ivan Krastev, "A Moral Economy of Anti-corruption Sentiments in Eastern Europe," in Yahuda Elkana et al., eds., Unraveling Ties: From Social Cohesion to New Practices of Connectedness (Frankfurt, Germany: Campus Verlag, 2002), 99-116;
2. for a discussion of the use of the word corruption to describe a multitude of deficiencies of the East-Central European (ECE) political and economic systems, see Alina Munglu-Pippidi, "Culture of Corruption or Accountability Deficit?" East European Constitutional Review 12:1(2003): 80-85,
3. For a well-known discussion of the Increased global salience of corruption (which inspired die title of this article), see Moses Naim, "The Corruption Eruption," Brawn Journal of World Affairs 2 (1995): 245-61;
4. also John Brademas and Fritz Heimann, "Tackling International Corruption: No Longer Taboo," Foreign Affairs 77:5(1998): 17-22.
5. The countries were chosen because their intense Interaction with a large number of intergovernmental organizations (IDs) allows us to compare the varied success that IDs have had in raising awareness of the corruption issue, Moreover, as former states (or successors) of the Soviet Union's satellite countries, the six had relatively similar experiences both before and after their 1989 revolutions, Their similarity has been often cited as a useful tool for comparison with each other - as a "most similar systems" research design.
6. See, for example. Paulo Mauro, "Corruption and Growth," Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (1995): 681-712;
7. see also Cheryl Gray and Daniel Kaufmann, "Corruption and Development," Finance & Development 35:1(1998): 7-10.
8. See, for example, Alberto Chong and Cesar Calderon, Institutional Efficiency and Income Inequality: Cross Country Empirical Evidence (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1998);
9. also Sanjeev Gupta. Harnid Davoodl, and Rosa Alonso-Terme, "Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty?" IMF Working Paper (May 1998).
10. Paolo Mauro, "The Effects of Corruption on Growth, Investment, and Government Expenditure: A Cross Country Analysis" In Kimberly Ann Elliott, ed, Corruption and the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1996,).
11. See C. Leite and J. Weidmann, "Does Mother Nature Corrupt, Natural Resources, Corruption and Economic Growth?" IMF Working Paper 99 (1999): 85.
12. See Alan Doig and Robin Theobald, eds., Corruption and Demoralization (London: Frank Cass, 2000);
13. also UNDP Human Development Report 2002 (,New York: United Nations, 2002).
14. Luke Allnutt, Jeremy Druker, and Jen Tracy, "Central Europe, Southeast Europe and the Baltic States," In Transparency International, ed., 2001 Global Corruption Report (Berlin: Transparency International, 2001).
15. See, for example. Doig and Theobald, Corruption:
16. also William Mishler and Richard Rose, "Trust in Unworthy Institutions: Culture and Institutional Performance," in Post-communist Societies, Studies in Public Policy no, 310 (Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, 1998).
17. See Frederick Galtung and Jeremy Pope, "The Global Coalition against Coraiptlon: Evaluating Transparency International," In Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner, eds., The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener, 1999), 276.
18. See Krastev, "Moral Economy," 105.
19. Mitchell Sellgson, "Corruption and Democratlzation In Latin America," World Development (forthcoming).
20. William L. Miller, Åse B. Grødeland, and Tatyana Y. Koshechkina, A Culture of Comtption; Coping with Government in Post-communist Europe (Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press, 2001).
21. Fifty-two percent of Poles, 58 percent of Romanians, 70 percent of Czechs, 71 percent of Bulgarians, 77 percent of Hungarians, and 81 percent of Slovaks believe that corruption has increased compared to the communist regime, See Richard Rose, "New Europe Barometer," in Transparency International, ed,. Global Corruption Report 2001 (Berlin: Transparency International, 2001), 310-12.
22. To asses the correlation, the author ran a test of the relationship between die level of corruption (as reflected in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index [CPU) and the level of press coverage of corruption, The test Included forty new democracies from all areas of the world, for the years 2002 to 2003, It indeed found a statistically significant correlation between the two variables, But the level of correlation was relatively low (28,7 percent), which implies that it is likely that there are many other factors that can explain the degree of press coverage of corruption,
23. See Kate Raworth, "Measuring Human Rights," Ethics and International Affairs 15:1(2001): 111-33.
24. Transparency International's CPI is a compilation of surveys conducted among businesspeople and country analysts, For a description of the index, see http:// www.icgg.org/downloads/FD_CPI_2003.pdf (accessed 22 October 2004).
25. The World Bank has generated a set of governance Indicators (including "Control of Corruption") for almost two hundred countries beginning in 1996, See www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/govdata2002 (accessed 22 October 2004).
26. The measures have been used by the World Bank when allocating resources from the International Development Association (IDA). U.S. agencies are also considering their use. See Daniel Kaufmann and A. Kraay, "Governance Indicators, Aid Allocation and the Millennium Challenge Account," World Bank Working Papers, 2002.
27. "Romania's Nastase; Corruption Topic Must Not Be Kept In Forefront," Rompres (Romanian National News Agency), 23 April 2003;
28. also Commission on Security and Cooperation In Europe, "Briefing: Romania: Moving Toward NATO and the EU" (Washington. DC: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 2004), 4.
29. See Jennifer McCoy and Heather Heckel, "The Emergence of a Global Anti-corruption Norm," International Politics 38 (2000): 65-90;
30. also Hongying Wang and James Rosenau, "Transparency International and Corruption as an Issue of Global Governance," Global Governance 7 (2001): 25-49.
31. See Patrick Glynn, Stephen J. Kobrin, and Moises Naim, "The Globallzation of Corruption," in Kimberly Ann Elliott, ed, Corruption and the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1996), 7-27.
32. See, for example, Joel Hellman, "Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform In Postcommunist Transitions." World Politics 50:2(1998): 203-34;
33. also Luigi Manzetri, Privatization South American Style (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999).
34. See, for example, McCoy and Heckel, "Emergence,"
35. For a discussion of the role of the nongovernmental organization Transparency International, see Wang and Rosenau. "Transparency International,"
36. McCoy and Heckel ("Emergence," 79) argue that, at that point, die Increased salience of corruption led to a global institutionalization of the norm through policy and law,
37. The test Is a form of content analysis, For a discussion of this methodology see. for example, Jarol Manheim and Richard Rich, Empirical Political Analysis: Research Methods in Political Science (New York: Longman, 1991).
38. For information on the sources used by the World News Connection (WNC), see http:// wnc.fed.world.gov/home.html. For the selected countries, the number of articles reaches levels of statistical significance beginning in 1996, There are obvious differences In the number of articles reported by the WNC for the different years and countries, Hungary has approximately four hundred articles translated for 1996 while for Poland in 2002, there are more than three thousand articles, Overall though, for any country, throughout an entire year, the proportion of articles that, include the word corruption should not be affected by cross-country collection biases and should reflect the salience of the Issue in domestic debates.
39. As this study was completed In October 2004, the data for the last year of the study covered only the period May through October 2004, die half-year that followed the expansion of the European Union to four of the countries discussed here.
40. When comparing the results of the study with those based on other possible measurements of corruption salience, I found very similar patterns, regardless of the measure used. For full results, please contact the author.
41. McCoy and Heckel, "Emergence,"
42. Only sub-Sahara n Africa, with approximately 4 percent, of its news discussing corruption (and with higher levels of corruption) even comes close to the figures for ECE. 34. See the annual press freedom reports of Freedom House at www.freedomhouse.org (accessed 15 October 2004), Countries are rated for press freedom from most free (0) to least free (100).
43. The figure includes data only up to 2003, That is because the data on corruption and press freedom published in 2004 actually refer to levels of 2003, Also, It Includes only data beginning with 1998 because Transparency International did not offer data on corruption for all six countries before that year.
44. From the 1998 survey to the 2004 one, only Slovakia has transitloned from one Freedom House category of press freedom to another (from a "partially free press" to a "free press"). Overall, as Figure 3 suggests, the measure of press freedom in ECE has only Increased slightly (by about, 14 percent) over the past years.
45. See, for example, Transparency International, Global Corruption Report 2004 (Berlin: Transparency International, 2004);
46. also Freedom House, Media Responses to Corruption in the Emerging Democracies; Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine (New York: Freedom House, 2000).
47. See, for example, Quentin Reed, "Corruption in Privatization: The Dangers of 'Neo-Liberal' Privatization," in Stephen Kotkin and András Sajó, eds., Political Corruption in Transition (Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press, 2002), 261-85.
48. Miller et al,. Culture of Corruption, especially 42-58.
49. See, for example, Krastev, "Moral Economy," especially 101 and 115.
50. See European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1989-2004; 15 Years On . . . (London: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2004), 3.
51. For a comprehensive collection of discussions on the role of international Institutions on developments in ECE, see Ronald Linden, ed., Norms and Nannies; The Impact of International Organizations on the Central and East European States (Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
52. McCoy and Heckel, "Emergence";
53. also Stephen Kotkin, "Liberalism, Geopolitics and Justice," In Stephen Kotkin and András Sajó, eds., Political Corruption in Transition (Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press, 2002). 387-412.
54. Two representatives of the World Bank (one In the Washington headquarters and another In an ECE capital) mentioned this fact during personal Interviews in May and June 2003, To discuss freely the policies of their institutions, many IOs and government officials I Interviewed preferred that their names not be made public.
55. There are several other IOs that have become Involved In anticorruption in ECE, such as the United Nations Development Programme and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Yet several tests Indicated that these IDs were hardly ever mentioned by the press In the context of corruption efforts, Thus, even though other IOs may have an Important anticorruption role in ECE, the press (and Implicitly the public) Is not aware of, or does not emphasize, their role.
56. See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), "Outreach Anti-corruption Activities In Central and Eastern Europe and die MS," www.oecd.org/oecd/ pages/home/disp]aygeneral/0,3380,EN-document-87-3- no-no-30584-0,00.html (accessed 10 May 2003).
57. Sahr John Kpundeh, senior public sector specialist, World Bank Institute, Interview by author, Washington, DC, 5 May 2003.
58. See http://wwwl.worldbank.org/publicsector/anticorrupt/efforts.htm (accessed October 12, 2004).
59. McCoy and Heckel, "Emergence," 83.
60. World Bank. Anticorruption in Transition: A Contribution to the Policy Debate (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000).
61. George Abed and Sanjeev Gupta, "The Economics of Corruption: An Overview," In George Abed and Sanjeev Gupta, eds., Governance, Corruption, & Economic Performance (Washington. DC: International Monetary Rind. 2002)
62. McCoy and Heckel, "Emergence," 83.
63. Statement by Henri Ghesquiere, senior IMF resident representative at Conference of Political Leaders on Combating Corruption, organized by Transparency International, Islamabad, Pakistan, 19 September 2002.
64. See http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web/sddchome/ (accessed 12 December 2003).
65. Council of Europe, The Council of Europe: Achievements and Activities (Strasbourg, Germany; Council of Europe, 1995), 3.
66. Council of Europe, "How Greco Was Set Up," http://www.greco. coe.int/(accessed 12 October 2004).
67. How Greco Was Set Up, Ibid.
68. See http://www.greco.coe.Int/(accessed 12 October 2004).
69. See EU Official Journal C 251. 15 August 1997.
70. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this argument to my attention.
71. Quentin Reed, "On the Fiddle: Clean-up Should Begin at Home: Some Member States 'Worse' Than Least-Corrupt Candidates," European Voice (November 2002).
72. One European Union official compared awareness raising In the corruption realm to the first step an alcoholic needs to take, He argued that In both cases, "acknowledging the problem is a necessary condition for dealing with It." Personal interview, Bucharest, June 2003.
73. Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, Implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Paris: OECD, 2002) 8.
74. OECD, "Outreach Anti-corruption activities In Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS," www.oecd.org/EN/docutnent/0.,EN-docutnent-87-3-no-21- 30584-87,00.httnl (accessed 7 June 2003).
75. See http://www1.worldbunk.org/publicsector/antlcorrupt/Supporting.htm (accessed 21 October 2004).
76. See, for example, Delia Meth-Cohn, "Corruption in Poland Is Growing," Business Central Europe (May 2000): 44;
77. also, Interview with Adrian Baboi, executive director of Transparency International Romania, 22 December 2000.
78. Abed and Gupta, "Economics of Corruption."
79. See http://www.greco.coe.int/ (accessed 12 October 2004).
80. See http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link-http%3A%2F%2Fassembly.coe .int%2Fdocuments %2Fworkingdocs%2Fdoc97%2Fedoc7971.htm (accessed 12 October 2004).
81. A 2003 document noted that "the Commission has frequently recommended . . . further campaigns to raise public awareness to prevent corruption." See Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 28.05.2003, COM (2003) 317 Final, "Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee on a Comprehensive EU Policy against Corruption."
82. Ibid., 26.
83. For example in the first (1998) progress report on Bulgaria - of the six countries discussed here, the one with the highest level of corruption at the time-the topic of corruption was confined to less than half a page (fifteen lines), By 2002, the report for Bulgaria Included more than two pages (eighty-eight lines) on the issue of corruption. The progress reports of the other ECE countries reflect similar Increased emphasis of the issue.
84. See http://www.eu.int/comm/enlargement/report_10_99/pdf/en/czech_en.pdf (accessed 1 November 2004).
85. The simple appearance of the word corruption and of the name of an IO does not Imply that the organization has contributed to raising awareness of corruption, One hundred random article samples were extracted from the ones that were counted, Of these, eighty-nine were articles mentioning an IO as either criticizing the level of corruption in a country, praising the efforts of some actors In the fight against corruption, mentioning the negative effects of corruption, or discussing a specific case of corrupt practices in a country, Two more articles Included the word corruption to describe the role of IOs in states outside of ECE. In the other nine articles, the two words were used in sections of the articles that had no direct bearing to each other, Overall, the fact that approximately 90 percent of the scrutinized articles were indeed related to the "awareness-raising" function of IDs suggests that this test captures relatively well the frequency with which IOs contribute to this process, 75, A similar test was ran for Transparency International, While it is true that the nongovernmental organization has been increasingly present In discussions dealing with corruption in the ECE press, overall, the frequency with which it is mentioned (~5 percent of all articles mentioning corruption,) is far surpassed by the European Union,
86. Elemer Hankiss, "Games of Corruption: East Central Europe. 1945-1999," in Stephen Kotkln and András Sajó, eds., Political Corruption in Transition (Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press, 2002), 243-59.
87. These are averages for the six countries, See European Commission, "Candidate Countries Eurobarometer 2001" http://europa.eu.int/comm/ public_opinion/archives/cceb/2001/cceb20011_en.pdf (accessed 22 October 2004), 24, 52.
88. EU official at the Enlargement DG, interview by author, Brussels, May 2001, The official offered an example of a meeting she had with a top ECE governmental representative, When she brought up the issue of corruption In the ECE country, the government represen-tative told her that the European Union is not really in a position to tell others how to fight corruption and reminded her of the Commission's own corruption scandal.
89. For an official recognition of this fact see, for example, Commission, "Communication," 80. World Bank official, interview by author, Washington, DC, 5 May 2003.
90. See Commission, "Communication," Also, Jonathan Scheele. EU Ambassador to Romania, interview by author, Bucharest, Romania, 27 June 2003.
91. Calo K, Koch-Weser, "World Bank Support to the EU Accession Process," (Paper presented at the World Economic Forum. Salzburg, Germany, 22 June 1998).
92. See Reed, "On the Fiddle."
93. For an emphasis on the lag between the creation of Institutions and the emergence of practices supporting such institutions In ECE, see, for example, Mary Kaldor and Ivan Vejvoda, "Democratization in Central and East European Countries," International Affairs 73:1(1997): 59-82.
94. See, for example, "Poles Doubt in Corruption-Fighting Efficiency of State, Opinion Survey Shows," Warsaw PAP, 28 March 2003; translated in the WNC.