2019-03-14
Institutionalization of corruption in post-Soviet public organizations
Publication
Publication
Institutionalisering van Corruptie in Post-Sovjet Publieke Organisaties
After the collapse of the USSR, post-Soviet countries experienced a
corruption boom. The following two decades demonstrated that corruption
did not decline in most post-Soviet countries. Instead, a transformation of
the corruption system changed it from chaotic to institutionalized
corruption, by which corruption becomes taken for granted way of thinking
and doing in the public organization that constitutes more or less stable
rules and routines. This study investigates and explains the emergence and
institutionalization of corruption rules and routines in post-Soviet public
organizations from the last decade of the USSR existence until the first
decade of the new millennium. It provides us with lenses to see corruption in
an entirely new light beyond mere acts of infringement of conventional
norms of public integrity.
The study infers that corruption in post-Soviet public organizations is not
merely an act of abuse of power, but a living, transforming, evolving
organizational phenomenon. It is facilitated by the political-economic system
and reproduces organizational corruption. The process of decentralization of
appropriation of power initiated after the death of Stalin lasted until the
extreme decentralization in the first decade after the collapse of the USSR.
Following the dissolution of the USSR, the ensuing corruption boom can be
understood as the result of the disintegration of the Soviet states’
appropriation system. Although contextual factors of the process differed
significantly across post-Soviet countries, overall, the appropriation system
obtained a new shape typical to all the states on the territory of the former
USSR. At the core of this newly shaped appropriation system lay the
monopolization of money-generating opportunities through taking control
over the state. Over time, the institutionalization of corruption brought
about explicit rules and procedures that restricted officials’ corrupt
behavior. In this respect, institutional instability was a pre-condition for the
institutionalization of corruption that in the final instance created a
centralized corruption system and expropriated officials from ownership of
corruption income in the discussed cases.
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S.G.J. Van de Walle (Steven) , K.H. Stapelbroek (Koen) | |
Erasmus University Rotterdam | |
hdl.handle.net/1765/110845 | |
Organisation | Department of Public Administration and Sociology (DPAS) |
Aliyev, Z. (2019, March 14). Institutionalization of corruption in post-Soviet public organizations. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/110845 |