Korupce a postkomunismus

After the fall of communist regimes at the turn of the 1990s, a new era of development began in many countries. The transformation from communism wasn’t always successful. It is this unfinished transformation which is, as many authors argue, one of the characteristics of post-communism. Post-communist political culture struggles with a number of problems originating in the institutional structure of collapsed regimes. One of them is the high level of corruption. Corruption is not, of course, specific only to post-communist countries. However, as statistical data provided by various organizations show, corruption flourishes in these countries. Moreover, post-communist corruption takes certain forms which are absent in other countries. We may, therefore, classify these forms as the institutional and cultural heritage of communist regimes. The goal of this paper is to introduce the nature of corruption and the causes behind the high level of corruption in post-communist countries; to identify changes which have taken place since the demise of communist regimes; and to present some of the measures employed to fight corruption, as well as the difficulties related to these measures.