Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: ABSTRACT. Although socio-legal scholars have established that in some countries bureaucratic corruption is more common than in others, little is known about the variation in bribery practices within the pervasively corrupt societies. Based on sixty-three interviews with Ukrainian university professors, students, and their parents, this paper documents and explores the systematic differences in the bribery habits of ordinary Ukrainians. The findings suggest that this variation is associated with the organizational contexts of corrupt transactions, rather than fixed characteristics of the participating actors, as the prevailing theories of corruption would suggest. Using the notion of organizational coupling, this paper argues that the incidence of university bribery is determined by the distribution of discretion and resources between different organizational actors within universities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explains why, among a group of relatively similar states, certain states but not others would comply with the same international legal commitment. Drawing on concepts from the ‘ideas’ literature in comparative politics, the literature on global norms in IR, and analyses of reasoning and adjudication in legal philosophy, the paper develops a theoretical framework with which to explain variations in compliance by the US, Germany, France, and the UK with the 1997 OECD anti-bribery Convention. The central argument is that state compliance with an international commitment is a function of the effectiveness with which the global norm at stake in that commitment is articulated in a state’s domestic politics. Effective norm articulation can create the conditions under which a state is unable to produce justifiable reasons for non-compliance, and can provoke compliance despite important countervailing material interests. In the case of the OECD Convention, both powerful strategic trade interests and a powerful international anti-corruption norm are at stake. An analysis of state compliance with the OECD Convention in light of strategic trade theory, however, reveals the limitations of a materialist explanation based on the rationalist framework. Instead, an analysis of norm articulation in the four cases shows the importance of non-materialist variables, having to do with features of the actor that is doing the norm articulation in the domestic political context – the norm entrepreneur – and of the domestic political and normative context into which the global norm is introduced. These features generate four key variables: the legitimacy of the domestic norm entrepreneur; whether the norm entrepreneur enjoys access to the relevant political institutions and policy makers; whether the norm is framed as an element of a high priority policy area, with this framing the result of strategic, instrumental rationality on the part of the norm entrepreneur; and whether the norm resonates in the domestic public policy context, with this resonance a function of public sentiment.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Based upon on-site field study in the southern Philippines, this report asked why bribery and extortion appears to be approaching the norm in daily, routine activities. An integrated approach considers "neutralization" "routine activities," and "chaos," along with several of Donald Black's propositions.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the last twenty-five years, Russia has transformed itself from a totalitarian society into open society and an incipient democracy. However, over the last decade Russia has become a criminal state as illustrated by rampant organized crime and corruption. This research illustrates the findings from eleven qualitative interviews conducted in the Russian Far East using a convenience sampling methodology. Open-ended questions focused on asking respondents to reveal their experiences or participation in organized crime, bribery, and or corruption. Constraints on the sampling techniques resulted in limited findings with regard to actual participation in bribery or crime. Although limited evidence reveals institutionalized bribery has become a way of life and a form of economic survival, all Russians are clearly not involved in deviant behavior. The results also illustrate that conscience and social altruism pushes people to become social activists struggling to resolve numerous social problems inside a failing democratic state.

Publication Type: Roundtable
Abstract: Paper IV
“Filipino Bribery in the Mindanao Grassroots”
Author: Timothy Austin
Department of Criminology
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana, PA 15705
Abstract
Building on multiple field ventures, this paper explores how bribery and its counterpart of extortion emerge and operate in economically conflict-ridden communities of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines. This study helps to fill a research void by generating a typology of styles of bribery and extortion with accompanying case studies. Attention is given to how several theoretical models help to explain the different styles of corruption. Discussion addresses how illegal forms of bribery and extortion delay economic recovery and confound efforts of law and justice?