The Causes and Consequences of Corruption Perceptions in Post-Communist Societies.

Despite the myriad ways in which political corruption is antithetical to democracy, incidences of such corruption, or at least the perception that this corruption exists, has been on the rise throughout the formerly communist states of East-Central Europe over the last decade. Given the continued process of democratic consolidation in the region, how might we explain this growing perception that political systems are corrupt? Beyond the determinants of perceptions of corruption, the consequences these perceptions hold for new democracies may be equally, if not more, important. Do these perceptions influence an individual’s attitudes toward the political system? Furthermore, does perceiving the system to be corrupt hold consequences for the behavior of these individuals? This paper contributes to the extant literature, in which corruption perceptions are largely overlooked, by utilizing survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to examine both the causes and consequences of perceived corruption in eight post-communist states: Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovenia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]