IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/reggov/v6y2012i1p66-82.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why do anti‐corruption laws fail in Central Eastern Europe? A target compliance perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Agnes Batory

Abstract

The Central Eastern European member states of the European Union have introduced a host of anti‐corruption measures in the past two decades, yet corruption is still prevalent. Rather than asking what is wrong with the letter of the law, which has traditionally been the focus of analysis, this article identifies some of the reasons why those whose behavior the law seeks to change fail to act as expected. Drawing on theoretical insights from implementation studies and using Hungary as an illustrative example, the article finds that both incentives and normative judgments are skewed towards non‐compliance with anti‐bribery laws. The main policy implications are that anti‐corruption interventions should pay more attention to raising awareness among target groups, take existing social norms into account, and rely on positive incentives as well as, or rather than, increasing penalties.

Suggested Citation

  • Agnes Batory, 2012. "Why do anti‐corruption laws fail in Central Eastern Europe? A target compliance perspective," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 66-82, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:66-82
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01125.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01125.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2011.01125.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Haughton, 2011. "Half Full but also Half Empty: Conditionality, Compliance and the Quality of Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe," Political Studies Review, Political Studies Association, vol. 9(3), pages 323-333, September.
    2. Steunenberg, Bernard & Dimitrova, Antoaneta, 2007. "Compliance in the EU enlargement process: The limits of conditionality," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 11, June.
    3. Levin, Mark & Satarov, Georgy, 2000. "Corruption and institutions in Russia," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 113-132, March.
    4. Gerda Falkner & Oliver Treib, 2008. "Three Worlds of Compliance or Four? The EU-15 Compared to New Member States," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46, pages 293-313, March.
    5. Gerda Falkner & Oliver Treib, 2008. "Three Worlds of Compliance or Four? The EU‐15 Compared to New Member States," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(2), pages 293-313, March.
    6. Treib, Oliver, . "Implementing and complying with EU governance outputs," Living Reviews in European Governance (LREG), Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    7. Sebastian Wolf, 2010. "Assessing Eastern Europe's anti-corruption performance: views from the Council of Europe, OECD, and Transparency International," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 99-121, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Buntaine, Mark T & Bagabo, Alex & Bangerter, Tanner & Bukuluki, Paul & Daniels, Brigham, 2022. "Recognizing Local Leaders as an Anti-Corruption Strategy: Experimental and Ethnographic Evidence from Uganda," OSF Preprints x86q3, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Egert Juuse & Rainer Kattel, 2014. "Financial Regulation in Estonia," Working papers wpaper57, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    2. Nikitas Konstantinidis & Yannis Karagiannis, 2020. "Intrinsic vs. extrinsic incentives for reform: An informational mechanism of E(M)U conditionality," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 601-632, July.
    3. Gerda Falkner, 2010. "Compliance with EU Social Policies in Old and New Member States: Different Worlds, Different Remedies," Working Papers of the Vienna Institute for European integration research (EIF) 6, Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    4. Jean-Claude Barbier & Fabrice Colomb, 2011. "The unbearable foreignness of EU law in social policy, a sociological approach to law-making," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00639906, HAL.
    5. James P. Cross, 2012. "Interventions and negotiation in the Council of Ministers of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 47-69, March.
    6. Jean-Claude Barbier & Fabrice Colomb, 2011. "The unbearable foreignness of EU law in social policy, a sociological approach to law-making," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 11065, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    7. Jean-Claude Barbier & Fabrice Colomb, 2011. "The unbearable foreignness of EU law in social policy, a sociological approach to law-making," Post-Print halshs-00639906, HAL.
    8. Carlos Mendez & John Bachtler, 2017. "Financial Compliance in the European Union: A Cross-National Assessment of Financial Correction Patterns and Causes in Cohesion Policy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 569-592, May.
    9. Jean-Claude Barbier & Arnaud Lechevalier, 2015. "La crise de la zone Euro : quels enseignements pour l’Europe sociale ?," Post-Print halshs-01254229, HAL.
    10. Jan Drahokoupil & Martin Myant, 2015. "Labour’s legal resources after 2004," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 21(3), pages 327-341, August.
    11. Karamti, Chiraz, 2019. "Lopsided effects of telecom reforms on mobile markets in the enlarged EU: Evidence from dynamic quantile model," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 238-261.
    12. Metodi Sotirov & Marko Lovric & Georg Winkel, 2015. "Symbolic transformation of environmental governance: implementation of EU biodiversity policy in Bulgaria and Croatia between Europeanization and domestic politics," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(5), pages 986-1004, October.
    13. Magda, Iga & Marsden, David & Moriconi, Simone, 2016. "Lower coverage but stronger unions? Institutional changes and union wage premia in Central Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 638-656.
    14. Sascha Zirra, 2010. "The Bounded Creativity of Domestic Appropriation Explaining Selective Flexicurity in Continental Countries," Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po 2, Centre d'études européennes (CEE) at Sciences Po, Paris.
    15. Francesco Paolone & Matteo Pozzoli & Nicola Cucari & Rosario Bianco, 2023. "Longer board tenure and audit committee tenure. How do they impact environmental performance? A European study," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 358-368, January.
    16. Knill, Christoph & Heichel, Stephan & Arndt, Daniel, 2012. "Really a front-runner, really a Straggler? Of environmental leaders and laggards in the European Union and beyond — A quantitative policy perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 36-45.
    17. Staroňová Katarína & Gajduschek Gyorgy, 2019. "Guy Peters – Institutional Theory in Political Science: The New Institutionalism. Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 12(2), pages 281-285, December.
    18. Sedlačko Michal & Staroňová Katarína, 2018. "Internal ministerial advisory bodies: An attempt to transform governing in the Slovak Republic," Central European Journal of Public Policy, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, June.
    19. Schreinermacher, Björn, 2014. "Vom EuGH-Urteil zur Richtlinie: Wie die EU-Mitgliedstaaten über die Kodifizierung europäischer Rechtsprechung entscheiden," TranState Working Papers 184, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    20. Marcin DÄ…browski, 2012. "Shallow or Deep Europeanisation? The Uneven Impact of EU Cohesion Policy on the Regional and Local Authorities in Poland," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(4), pages 730-745, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:reggov:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:66-82. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-5991 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.