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In the face of massive street demonstrations, the Czech prime minister must be hoping that the holidays bring the warm winds of apathy.
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In the face of massive street demonstrations, the Czech prime minister must be hoping that the holidays bring the warm winds of apathy.
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Despite the existence of valuable literature on political and corporate corruption, there have been only a limited number of papers examining the determinants of administrative corruption. A thorough search of the relevant literature shows there has been no examination of the multivariate impact of corrupt culture, the weakness of organizational culture, the political instability, and the institutional weakness on administrative corruption and the interplay among these constructs has yet to be studied. By testing a sample of 677 responses that reflect the perspective of the general public in Basra, Iraq, this current study attempts to fill these gaps by proposing and testing a model using the partial least squares structural equation modeling method. Overall, weak organizational culture mediates the effect of corrupt culture on corruption; institutional weakness mediates the effect of political instability on corruption; and institutional weakness mediates the effect of weak organizational culture on corruption. Finally, through theoretical contributions, managerial implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research, this study brings presents insights on how weak organizational culture and institutional weakness mediate the effect of corrupt culture on corruption.
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Today’s headlines: Russia and Georgia; bribes in Romania; journalism training in Crimea; a murder in Bulgaria; and the upcoming Polish elections.
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News: Kovesi’s EU job; a new art space in Tallinn; Georgian presidential pardons; the Moldovan laundromat; and anti-LGBT violence in Ukraine.
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Professional ethics has becoming more and more important in management, business activity and functioning of many institutions. This situation results from a general tendency which is observed in growing humanization of economic and business life. Professional ethical codes which are more and more often implemented in companies and institutions prove the great role of ethics. Organization of professional life indicates that not all problems related to professional life can be solved with the application of legal provisions. The examined codes of the Szczecinek District and the smaller communities located in this area show that increased confidence in employees of the local government units and elimination of corruption and nepotism are priorities. The mentioned ethical values, if adopted by the employees, will help to deal with negligence and create a positive image of the institutions, which are not always perceived by public opinion as prestigious.
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The issue of the impact of corruption on the functioning of the economy is undeniably confirmed in the literature. Negotiations are under consideration on the characteristics of this relationship, or corruption conducive to economic growth, or maybe it inhibits. This paper examines the possibility of a non-zero level of corruption, which optimize size GDP pc and investments in gross fixed capital formation. Analysis of the literature indicated the possibility of such a magnitude of corruption. However, so far there have been no econometric analysis of this issue. Based on panel data for 14 European countries conducted a statistical analysis. Econometric studies have confirmed that the amount of corruption that optimizes investments ranges from 72.5 points to 76.5 points the index of perception of corruption. And the models describing the influence of corruption on GDP pc showed the optimum value of the index of corruption at the level of 62.6 points and 68.2 points. These results should be confirmed in subsequent studies.
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Addis Ababa has experienced a rapid rate of physical expansion. This trend is partly influenced by spontaneous growth, which has resulted in the emergence and development of squatter settlements. As new houses are being built in the existing squatter settlements and unoccupied areas, the number and size of illegal settlements in Addis Ababa has been increasing over time. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent of squatter settlements, its challenges and the measures taken to mitigate the problem. In order to achieve the objective of this study, secondary data sources were mainly used to analyze the subject. The findings indicate that though the city administration attempted to prevent the construction of illegal settlements by issuing various regulations, the proliferation of illegal settlements has continued unabated. Thus, demolitions had taken place in parts of the city where preventive measures failed. Both in the implementations of the regulations and demolitions, the city administration faced many problems such as high temptation for illegal construction, population pressure, weak law enforcement and inefficient institutions. The success of squatting tempts more squatting. When squatting exists widely, orderly development and expansion are hindered.
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The implementation of an efficient management in the Romanian public administration is one of the most important objectives of the Strengthening Public Administration Strategy (SCAP) for 2014-2020, a strategic document that represents anex-ante conditionality for absorption of European funds related to the Multiannual Financial Framework for the years 2014-2020. Despite the financial support provided by the European Union to increase Romania's administrative capacity, the positive results obtained from the implementation of two successive strategies on Public Administration reform initiated by the Romanian Government during the pre-accession period to the EU, as well as its subsequent reforms in key areas, sustained efforts are still needed by Romanian decision - makers to optimize decision-making processes, as well as to develop public services and their quality. In this context, the paper highlights the progress made and the obstacles known by the Romanian central administration on improving its performance in the context of the implementation of SCAP2014-2020. The methodology used is mainly qualitative and is based on the analysis of official documents.
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Though it is an ancient phenomenon, which is present in all legal systems from the earliest times to the present, the international community, in addition to national criminal legislation, has also dealt with the problem of corruption. Thus, in the last decades, more universal (within the United Nations) and regional (within the European Union and Council of Europe) international documents establishing a system of international standards for the prevention and fighting the corruption at all levels, including the application of criminal sanctions, have been passed. By signing the international documents, certain national legislations, including, amongst others, the legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have undertaken to prescribe, inter alia, criminal liability and criminal sanctions system for perpetrators of criminal offences of corruption. This paper deals with the system of international standards for the prevention and fight against the corruption.
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The aim of this article is to compare the values and attitudes relating to corruption as a kind of white-collar crime and its control in the Russian and Western legal cultures. The analysis is focusing on the definitions of corruption, corruptive practices and corruption control in order to answer the question whether or not the corruption as crime coincides in the Western and Russian cultural background, and whether or not it can be assessed with the same yardstick. The hypothesis proposed and corroborated is as follows: the meaning of corruption and the attitudes to corruption in those two legal traditions are strikingly different. It thence follows that the corruption as a phenomenon in the Russian governing tradition is tackled differently from that in the Western world.
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Corruption has existed since ancient times, the proof being the term’s Latin origins (corruptio-onis). It was assimilated in Romanian through French, basically expressing inappropriate, immoral behaviour of public servants. Throughout centuries, an unstable geographic and historical environment, as well as violent and inefficient political systems generated acts and deeds of corruption that lead to initiatives, concerns and prevention actions and countermeasures, including means of legal regulations. Periods of crisis have especially experienced a weaker state authority, a degraded standard of living, altering of moral judgement, lack of efficient control leverages, lesser confidence in social institutions and values, a lack of cohesion between the law and the economic and social realities. Acts of corruption, that have been a part of public servants’ activity, result from violating human rights, freedom of speech and action, depending on social need.
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The purpose of this article is to explain what a digital formof journalism, called data journalism, is and how it is applied in practicerelated to politics. Definitions and various aspects of data journalism (i.a.exemplary variables, most common in data journalism in general, waysof presenting data, factors that data journalists focus on in their worketc.) appear in the first part of article. Politics, as the title of this workindicates, is one of the areas in which this type of journalism is used.In this article, three projects related to data journalism are described.The first example of a tool, based on American politics, used to visualizeand obtain data on congressmen and elections in general, is ElectionDataBot. This paper provides a description of this tool, as well as informationabout organizations that launched it. The next two initiativesrelated to data journalism are: European Data Journalism Network(as the name suggests, it refers to European politics) and Media 3.0Foundation (related to Polish politics). They offer many practical optionsto observe, analyze and show political data. The research method used in the study is the analysis of thematic online sources. The hypothesisis that data journalism is still a growing branch of journalism that hasits adhibition in politics, thus supporting journalists, researchers andothers interested in obtaining and visualizing data.
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The collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 has led to meaningful social, political and economic transformations. The destabilization of polish country, during changes in political system, started the development of the organized crime, abusing the authority and investigative authorities’ weakness. The 90’s are the greatest time of two, coming from Warsaw, groups, which managed to subordinate the whole criminal country – Pruszkow and Wolomin. The “mafi a decade” of Pruszkow and Wolomin is the time of: earning enormous fortune, spectacular events and extremely bloody war, carrying a huge number of victims. 90’s is also the time of using experience in creating eff ective system of fi ghting against organized crime. Introducing in 1997 the term of crown witness – “apologetic criminal” became the decisive moment. Spectacular end of Pruszkow was the eff ect of the statement of crown witness – gangsters aggravating their cooperatives. It is all mostly about Jaroslaw Sokolowski, nickname “Masa”. His statement appeared crucial during investigations at the most important members of Pruszkow’s group. Sokolowski`s “fl awlessness” as a crown witness, is not clear, in spite 20 years lasted from mentioned incident. The case of Pruszkow and Wolomin presents the danger for country`s safety, what comes from the side of organized crime, during political transformation.
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Even though the relevance of corruption is very high in all fields of activity, the specialized literature in the field of public procurement has paid very little or even no attention to this crucial phenomenon. The field of public procurement presents a high risk of corruption, the evidence being the large number of high-level corruption cases in several Member States of the European Union. The study presents the specialized literature related to corruption in public procurement in the European Union and United States of America, analyzes the level of corruption in public procurement in Romania, the causes that generate corruption and the main measures to combat it. The article also presents the results of a survey realized among the purchasers from Romania which addresses the main elements of corruption in the field of public procurement. The survey analyzes issues related to corruption in public procurement in Romania, such as: level of corruption, control over corruption, frequency of occurrence of corruption acts, procurement procedures most prone to corruption, characteristics of the procurement procedures that favors the occurrence of corruption, most widespread way of manifesting corruption, most important consequence of corruption, percentage of increasing contract costs due to corruption, most effective anti-corruption measure.
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This paper addresses the question of the major challenges for the regulation of lobbying in the European Economic Area countries. It attempts to disentangle this complex question by focusing, step by step, on three specific issues. First, the problem of the definition of lobbying, or the lack of one, is considered. The paper argues that even though European countries started to regulate lobbying already two decades ago, they have still not managed to arrive at a useful definition of the field and activity of lobbying itself, which considerably hinders their pro-transparency regulatory efforts. Second, the paper looks at other anti-corruption legislation in Europe and its links with lobbying rules. The evidence is inconclusive as to whether the level of corruption is significantly affected by the presence or lack of lobbying regulation. Finally, the paper shows that there is a noticeable weakness in the existing lobbying regulations in European countries in terms of enforcement. Without strengthening the enforcement mechanisms of lobbying laws, there will be no significant shift towards a better-regulated and more transparent lobbying environment in Europe.
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This paper explores corruption patterns and networks in Malang City, Malang Regency, and Batu City, Indonesia. It applies a qualitative approach to analyze secondary data regarding corruption from the Supreme Court of Indonesia, as well as data from five popular and trusted media sources. Nvivo 12 Plus was used to analyze data. The Ncapture feature was used to explore case directories and online media websites. Crosstab analysis was then used to analyze and tabulate the nodes, while group analysis was used to map corruption patterns and networks. This study finds that budget corruption in Malang City, Malang Regency, and Batu City has occurred in the planning and execution of budget policy through abuse of power, bribery, negotiations, project fees, and fundraising activities. Corruption in these three regions has involved elite groups: regional leaders, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and political communities. Further research should apply both mixed methods and a political network approach.
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