As one theory goes, better quality of democracy means lower levels of corruption. The story, then, should fit in just fine with the transition of Eastern European countries from Communism to full membership in the European Union. Does it?
This week the Economist takes a closer look at Eastern European transitions and the problem of corruption, concluding that
[f]or corrupt officials in central and eastern Europe, life has seldom been better. Joining the European Union has produced temptingly large puddles of public money to steal. And the region’s anti-corruption outfits are proving toothless, sidelined or simply embattled.
The reality is, of course, that anti-corruption successes have not been uniform across the region. Simply looking at TI CPI rankings, one can conclude that Slovenia, Estonia, and Czech Republic really did see improvements in the anti-corruption climate while countries like Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania have remained where they were before.
What the story underscores, however, is not the failure of better quality of democracy to control corruption – the quality of democracy does matter – but that corruption has many different faces and that perceptions of corruption do not always correspond to reality.
The article highlights the ineffectiveness of anti-corruption commissions – but such commissions have always been a target of jokes, criticized in many transitioning economies because the decisions they make are often political in nature (for example, anti-corruption commissions are often used to punish the opposition, not launch unbiased corruption investigations).
The broader point is that there is a wealth of many other anti-corruption tools – some on the company level, some on the institutional level. Reducing the anti-corruption potential of legislation or reforming public agencies are just two examples. The Center for the Study of Democracy, for instance, detailed extensively many anti-corruption reforms that have been implemented in Bulgaria as part of the country’s EU accession process.
The reality is that with accession to the EU, many Eastern European countries have gone a long way in reducing corruption, but that doesn’t mean all corruption challenges have been resolved. It is still a huge issue on the agenda for policymakers, business people, and society broadly. The real question is – are those countries moving in the right direction?
Published Date: May 27, 2008