Corruption perception index in Russia

Criteria of presence and the level of corruption could be the main criteria for studying the quality of political structure of every state. This is not so much about economics as about politics, in result of which all social and governmental institutions deform. You can trust only one index and don’t recognize the other, but when the data of corruption perception index, set by the organization "Transparency International" and information of the World Bank on anti-corruption program coincide, after this all doubts dissolve. An interesting fact that corruption is huge, indicators of various studies converge more often than indicators for the countries where corruption is absent, could be another argument.

This year Russia on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is absolutely unaffected by corruption state of the government, got 2,4 points, which is 0,3 points higher than in a previous year. Also the country moved in the list from place 154 to 143, but it is difficult to call it a breakthrough. The reason for such a move up was high concern about corruption question, passing anti-corruption law and also readiness of Russia to join the Convention of OECD on combating bribery.

Professor at Higher school of economics, Julius Nisnevich believes that even with positive values external expert valuation doesn’t note those mutations that happen with corruption. For example, corruption raiding, which is determined by experts as economic crime and is not seen as a sophisticated type of corruption activity, doesn’t influence on the corruption index. But starting with the Khodorkovsky case, new style of power redistribution was introduced. It is necessary to mention that only 10-15% of raider seizure cases were sent to courts, just because of corruption component.

On the other hand, expert society doesn’t understand that nothing is limited only to economy; there is more dangerous type of corruption as political. Unlike typical for Arabic countries stationary top, which possesses and redistributes resources on the corruption principle, in Russia, according to Nisnevich, there is no authoritarian regime, necessary for such closed functioning of the authorities. We rather see corporate power system in which all bureaucratic body steels. «Unfortunately, our corruption took features of extortion», – says CEO of Russian department at "Transparency International", Elena Panfilova.

Because of corruption which destroys state machine there is no effective management in Russia. «Whatever government it was, it won’t cope with corruption», – believes Julius Nisnevich. According to his words, the principle of removal of the monitoring mechanism and suppression of political competition is political corruption. Elena Panfilova names three points, according to which corruption of any type is justified. First of all, it is mentality and historical roots. Then officials propose to take a closer look at the bribery system in developed countries.

Usually as an example USA is taken, because its success in coping with corruption is as noticeable as noticeable are its failures. But at the same time USA managed to cope with domestic and economic corruption and to create independent judicial system. So, says Panfilova, the only way to solve the existing problem is to apply the law in an unbiased way. «I would make courts the center of everything, – says Elena Panfilova. – This situation that happened in our economy should make people in the government to do something with corruption». Instead of the rule of concepts there should be the rule of law and the main point here is protection of property rights and protection of the applicant about corruption. Without any guarantees of protection of property and assets from capture by young and hungry, law and judicial system push corruptionists to keep their savings in other countries, where legislation takes the side of the owner.

Correlation between political power and corruption is reasonable, that is why in order to cope with corruption it is necessary to change the power. Julius Nisnevich speaks about new motive of upheaval. And this new motive is corruption which in public consciousness is associated with injustice. Arabic spring is very bright confirmation. But corruption is very difficult phenomenon, because it exists latently, and to calculate its volumes is practically impossible. Today the amount of a domestic bribery is 10 to 300 thousand, and the average amount of a political bribery is 1 million. With 2,4 points we can say that public sphere is corrupted by 76%.

However, Russia has the perspective to move upper in the list and to increase its anti-corruption index. For this it is necessary to develop competition – political and economic. Entrance of Russia to WTO will attract to the Russian market a great number of foreign producers and in the next few years we will see the effect of their arrival. Although if the political corruption is not fought, the story with Daimler, when the company pleads guilty in bribery and suffered punishment, and the party which took the bribe was not punished, will repeat as in a nightmare. «It is terrible to hear who took the bribe», – says deputy director at Transparency International Ivan Ninenko. That is why, maybe, «it is naive to believe that the situation has improved, – thinks Ivan. – We are still in the end of the list».