nEUrosis

Is Russia less corrupt than people think?

July 6th, 2007 by Laura Citron

It’s common knowledge that Russia is rife with corruption and
cronyism. Rare is the Western tourist who returns from St Petersburg
without a dinner-party tale about ‘The Terrible Traffic Policeman’ or
some other familiar Russian character. Surveys such as Transparency
International’s Corruptions Perceptions Index support this image -
Russia ranks 127 out of 142 countries, just one place above Rwanda.
But after three months of living and working in Moscow, no-one had
asked me to pay a bribe. I hadn’t even seen anyone pay a bribe. I
started to worry that I was living an excessively sheltered life and
missing out on the ‘real Russian experience.’ Actually, it turned out
that my experience is quite normal.
When asked the question (for TI’s Global Corruption Barometer) “In the
past 12 months, have you or anyone in your household paid a bribe in
any form?” only 8% of Russians answered “Yes.” Compare that to 17% in
Greece and the Czech Republic, or 20% in Romania. When asked to rate
the extent to which “corruption affects family and personal life,”
Russia scored just 1.9 out of 5. Compare that to an average 2.6 for
North America and 2.8 for South East Europe and things in Russia look
quite rosy.
What can explain the huge disparity between the results of the
Corruptions Perceptions Index and the Global Corruption Barometer?
Simple: the CPI is a survey of experts such as businessmen and policy
analysts, whereas the Barometer is a survey of general public opinion.
The experts in the CPI survey see the rampant corruption in the sphere
of political parties, arms deals, oligarchs and oil – but the vast
majority of Russians do not live in that world. The level of petty
corruption - everyday, street-level bribery - is actually slightly
lower in Russia than the global average and significantly lower than
in South East European countries such as Greece or Romania.
How can corruption be so rife in the elite spheres, but relatively
modest at the grassroots?
The economist Pranab Bardhan offers one interesting explanation: in
countries with a strong central state, corruption is centralised to
the single source of power. You only have to pay once – he calls it
‘one–stop-shopping.’ In a decentralised system, you have to pay bribes
all over the place to get the same job done. Perhaps Putin’s policy of
strong central government has succeeded in centralising corruption?
An alternative explanation could be the lack of media reporting of
cases of corruption in the Russian media. Research in Ukraine showed
that the more cases of corruption are reported in the mass media, the
more the public thinks that institutions are bribeable, so they offer
more bribes and thus perpetuate the corruption.
So why are Westerners so convinced of Russia’s rampant corruption problem?
Probably because they pay a lot more bribes than Russians. The “I
think you will take a bribe so I will offer you one” mentality may
have something to do with it. The more scare-stories they read about
Russian corruption, the more Westerners come here expecting to bribe
everyone from the passport official to the ice-cream vendor. As soon
as they encounter a touch of halting Russian bureaucracy, their first
response is to wave a 100 ruble note. What’s more, they don’t speak
the language so they can’t argue their way out of the situation; and
anyhow 100 rubles [about 4 USD] is nothing to most Westerners here.
(Incidentally, the latter also applies to rich Russians who are quite
happy to pay a petty sum to oil the wheels…) So Westerners pay more
bribes, and everybody knows it. Result? Westerners (and rich Russians)
get asked for more bribes than anybody else, and the vicious circle
continues.
Corruption is ultimately all about perceptions, and perceptions are
based on personal experience. But perhaps Westerners should be a
little less hasty in assuming that their experiences in Russia are
typical – the evidence suggests otherwise.

Bookmark to: