Corporate Corruption in Russian Regions

To understand corporate corruption in Russia and to develop both effective anti-corruption policies at the macro level and anti-corruption strategies at the firm level one has to move beyond the predominant paradigm and to disaggregate its measurement. This article outlines the results of a pilot survey of CEOs of leading companies operating in the Russian regions with regard to their use of informal practices

Russia's Practical Norms and Informal Governance: The Origins of Endemic Corruption

Corruption in Russia is of endemic nature. This article traces its roots to traditional practices that formed a foundation of the present-day system of governance, often referred to as ‘sistema’. It demonstrates how the logic of ‘feeding,’ ‘joint responsibility’ and ‘Potemkin villages’ is reproduced in the reliance of Putin’s network-based governance system on such instruments as undeclared incentives, informal affiliations, hidden agendas and warning signals. Putin’s sistema gives dynamism to government’s economic and political projects by engaging personalized influence, but at the same time its informal and non-transparent nature creates a fertile ground for corruption and makes its mitigation difficult. I argue that corruption in Russia could not be effectively managed unless its leaders understand the system of governance they operate in and articulate its consequences, of which endemic corruption is one of the most devastating for the country

Future Challenges of Corruption Studies

Despite decades of international efforts against it, corruption continues to present multiple challenges to governments, businesses, academics, and the public. This article highlights the importance of complexity, ambivalence and context-sensitive approach to understanding and tackling corruption, and suggests an agenda for future anti-corruption research and policy

Modelling the costs of informal networking: Evidence from the Western Balkans region

This is the first study to explore costs of informal networking in the Western Balkans. In a comparative survey, we find that informal networking, or use of personal contacts for getting things done, is common in the region while the economic cost of informal networking is substantial (100 euros against average monthly income of 250 Euros). In the structure of networking costs, the estimated costs of invested time, a proxy for sociability, dominate over money. Higher costs are associated with larger networks built on strong ties. Respondents who perceive networking as important tend to invest more time and money. The informal networking costs are also higher for those with more education and income, and for entrepreneurs. Individuals bear the high costs of informal networking not only for social and culturally determined reasons, but also with an instrumental purpose. Our evidence suggests that both sociability and instrumentality drive informal networking

The Ambivalence of Blurred Boundaries: Where Informality stops and corruption begins?

For years, I have been working on issues of informality. Yet these issues are often also branded as corruption. The research question whether the boundaries between the two can be drawn cannot be answered with help of definitions. Analytical distinctions prove useless in the face of practices emb edded in particular sets of constraints, practical norms and ‘moral economies’ (Olivier de Sardan 1999, 2008). If I am asked to give a one-word clue to identify the missing bit in the puzzle of crossing boundaries between informality and corruption, I would say—ambivalence. In its sociological sense, ambivalence, in the definition of Robert Merton, refers to incompatible normative expectations of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour. The incompatibility is assigned to a status and the social structures that generate the circumstances in which ambivalence is embedded (Merton 1976: 6-7). The core type of sociological ambivalence puts contradictory demands upon the occupants of a status in a particular social relation. Since these norms cannot be simultaneously expressed in behaviour, they come to be expressed in an oscillation of behaviours: of detachment and compassion, of discipline and permissiveness, of personal and impersonal treatment (Merton 1976: 8)

Beyond Russia's Economy of Favours: The Role of Ambivalence

In this paper I suggest a network-based typology of favours that seeks to reflect their substantive ambivalence. I argue that a common exchange of favours differs from an ‘economy of favours’ in a number of ways. An economy of favours operates on the basis of favours of access, originating in the re-distribution of public resources. It can also be differentiated by its scale and the magnitude of ambivalence: substantive, functional and attitudinal. Firstly, I distinguish substantive ambivalence of favours, determined by the degree of uncertainty of obligation in social relations and intermittent display of features of gift and commodity exchanges, as well as features of benefiting from and investing into creation and maintenance of networks. Secondly, there is functional ambivalence, whereby favours originate from certain structural conditions and contradictory demands – they play supportive but also subversive roles for the formal and informal constraints that frame them. Thirdly, there is attitudinal ambivalence on the part of both individuals and governments, relying on economies of favours, but also denying engagement, criticizing economies of favours but also accepting them. I suggest a research agenda for the study of economies of favours on the basis of three propositions: conceptual innovation, methodological experimentation, and challenge of comparison. Yet these novel research agendas stumble upon the conceptual issues of ambivalence; methodological difficulties of dealing with open secrets in the field; and challenges of comparison of societies’ know-hows. Overcoming these requires some radical re-thinking in conceptual, measurement-based and policy-oriented approaches

Telephone Justice in Russia: An Update

This report continues our investigation into the predicament of the Russian legal system when faced by telephone justice‘ (telefonnoye pravo), various types of informal influence and pressure on the judiciary. The data were obtained from a nationwide survey conducted jointly in 2010 by the author, the Levada Research Centre and the EU-Russia Centre. Those findings were complemented by in-depth interviews with experts. The questions of the 2010 Survey repeat those asked in 2007 (Ledeneva 2008) in a survey aimed at monitoring public perceptions of ‗telephone justice‘

Chronies, economic crime and capitalism in Putin's sistema

The books included in this review article are essential for the understanding of what I call Putin's sistema—the governance model that originated in the Soviet system but has transformed and adapted to global change. Each book tackles, from a different angle, the issues of Russia's transition and suggests ways to describe its political consequences. The books all attempt to identify some underlying logic or organizing force in a Russian society that has emerged through weak institutions. Although I join the authors in their criticisms of the ‘transition paradigm’ and its ‘opening-breakthrough-consolidation of democracy’ formula, transformations of the Soviet sistema seem to resonate with the ‘opening-breakthrough-consolidation of capitalism’. Perestroika can be seen as an ‘opening’ in shaking the foundations of sistema; Yeltsin's era as a ‘breakthrough’; and Putin's regime as the ‘consolidation’ of capitalism but with its distinct characteristics

From global corruption paradigm to the study of informal practices: outsiders vs. insiders/ От глобальной коррупционной парадигмы к изучению неформальных практик: различие в подходах аутсайдеров и инсайдеров

В статье представлен сравнительный анализ двух подходов: коррупционной парадигмы как взгляда аутсайдеров, применяющих универсальные суждения к разным обществам, и анализа неформальных практик, реконструирующего взгляд инсайдеров, их понимание мотивов и смыслов коррупционных практик. Коррупционная парадигма, получившая широкое распространение в 1990-е годы, базируется на трех предположениях: коррупцию можно четко определить, измерить и преодолеть. Такой подход лежит в основе международных мониторингов и стимулирует активную антикоррупционную политику. В статье систематизирована критика коррупционной парадигмы. Сделан вывод о том, что провалы антикоррупционных кампаний связаны не столько с дефицитом политической воли, сколько с недостаточностью знаний о социокультурной укорененности коррупции, предложены пути интеграции коррупционной парадигмы с традицией изучения неформальных практик. The article compares two approaches to the analysis of corruption: the global corruption paradigm - a downstream view on corruption promoted by international organisations and policy makers, the so-called outsiders, and the analysis of informal practices - an upstream, or bottom-up, perspective of insiders, which contextualises motives and meaning of corrupt practices. The global corruption paradigm rests on the premises that corruption can be defined, measured and controlled. Since the 1990s, data on corruption have been systematically collected and monitored, yet there has been little progress in combatting the phenomenon across the globe. Success cases are rare, and policy makers are increasingly dissatisfied with existing indicators and approaches to anti-corruption policies. On the one hand, the paper articulates the critique of assumptions, preconceptions and methodology implicit in the prevailing corruption paradigm. We question the cultural and historical neutrality of the definition of corruption, problems with its measurement, and implications for policy-making. On the other hand, the paper argues for the 'disaggregation' of the corruption paradigm and the necessity to integrate local knowledge and insiders' perspectives into corruption studies. The combination of the two approaches will provide for more effective ways of tackling the challenges of corruption, especially in endemically corrupt systems