The fight against corruption has been declared as one of the topical priorities of the Russian government. Recently the President signed a law stipulating that banks should check government officials’ expenditure declarations and, if necessary, present data on financial operations made by bureaucrats. Nevertheless, corruption still hampers the state’s healthy development.
Recently, a video-link between Moscow and Brussels, entitled ‘Corruption: fighting methods. Russian and EU experience” was held. According to the head of the Regional Problems Institute, Dmitry Zhuravlev, “corruption is a sort of rent for state authority. Our state power has remained almost unchanged in its essence since feudal times. The authorities still believe power and its assets to be their property, while the actual social status of the bureaucrats has changed – now they are just employees.” According to Zhuravlev, this contradiction is being smoothed over by corrupt practices. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the state shouldn’t fight corruption. However, the expert doesn’t believe that it is possible to eliminate it once and for all as long as the above-mentioned contradiction exists.
When Russia turned to a capitalist economy in the 1990s, political and economic assets started concentrating in the hands of the same people, which led to the proverbial situation: a rich person is always backed by the law. The expert stressed the necessity of public control over government officials and pointed out that the very notion of public control should be specified. It should not be a simple duplication of government authority. Besides, no force could resolve corruption problems unless the importance of reputation capital is realized by our bureaucrats. According to Zhuravlev, the current atmosphere in Russian bureaucratic institutions is such that any given person who gets involved with it finally starts to feel himself distant from all other citizens.
Zhuravlev believes that the only way to fight corruption is to make it generally unprofitable. Such a strategy would include new strict anti-corruption measures combined with heightened attention to bureaucrat’s social wealth. “We need honest government employees, but we can’t expect them all to be heroes,” Zhuravlev said, pointing out the ultimate failure of the Soviet state system that was build on the principle of personal ‘deeds’ and ‘heroism’.
As for the notion of ‘reputation capital’, it has much more weight in western countries than in Russia, and that explains the lower level of corruption there. And until Russia adapts this value, corruption here will be invincible.
Answering a VK correspondent’s question on a possible connection between the spoiled reputation of certain officials and the results of the recent parliamentary elections, Kirill Kabanov, the chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, said that the Russian government elite has a general reputation of a corrupt institution. “Why is the ruling party called “the party of thieves and cheats” in society? Because power is associated in people’s minds with cheating and corruption. Society doesn’t understand that it is its own client. People complain quietly in their kitchens, on the internet. Even when many people hold demonstrations, they stand against the results of voting and so on. However, unfair elections are a private case of corruption. The bureaucracy, which tries to hold on to power and considers corruption to be a business, establishes certain conditions, which irritate society and destroy the state structure. Of course, this influences the results of the elections. Even without full legal appraisal we can see that the materials prove political corruption. A great many people are involved in corruption,” the expert said.
Commenting on Georgia’s ‘miraculous victory’ over corrupt practices, the expert pointed out that only low-level corruption was tidied up there: the police system was reformed by 90% and it became transparent, because a control system over it was established. “I think political corruption still exists in Georgia. However, political competition is developed. A citizen has a choice: to join the opposition or to understand that the current power has some advantages. The Georgian authorities try to please their citizens, so that they don't take to the streets,” the expert concluded.
By VK
