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ПОЛИТИЧЕСКАЯ СОЦИОЛОГИЯ
CORRUPTION AND ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY PERCEPTION IN RUSSIANS' MASS CONSCIOUSNESS
Sergey M. Eliseeva, Ekaterina A. Kovtunh, Sergey D. Savinh (ssd_sav@mail.ru)
aAutonomous non-profit higher education organization «University associated with the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Eurasian Economic Community», Saint
Petersburg, Russia b Saint Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Citation: Eliseev S., Kovtun E., Savin S. (2020) Corruption and anti-corruption policy perception in Russians' mass consciousness. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii [The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology], 23(5): 178-194. https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2020.23.5.7
Abstract. The anti-corruption policy cannot be effective if a society has a high tolerance rate toward corruption, and authorities have no clear and consequent anti-corruption strategy. A systematic analysis of corruption as a social phenomenon suggests not only the study of political, legal, socio-economic, cultural and historical aspects of corruption but also the study of its perception in mass consciousness. The research on the official anti-corruption policy and evaluation of its effectiveness in mass consciousness allows for the more effective anti-corruption strategy to develop in a society. This article offers some results from the sociological research on the perception of corruption and anti-corruption policy in Russian mass consciousness. This research has been carried out by the scholars from St. Petersburg University using a telephone survey in 2014-2018. The main goal here was to describe dominant stereotypes in the corruption and anti-corruption policy perception which are typical in the Russian mass consciousness. The empirical research results are indicative of a lack of significant changes in social consciousness regarding corruption in the last decade. There is an obvious contradiction between abstract and personal levels of corruption perception. Corruption in mass consciousness has been perceived as a social evil on an abstract level, but on a personal one as a functional necessity to settle private issues.
Keywords: corruption, anti-corruption policy, mass consciousness, attitudes, behavior model.
Introduction
Corruption holds one of the central positions among different destructive phenomena in Russia. It is an important factor causing economic stagnation, also it is a severe threat to law superiority, democratic reforms and human rights. As a result, corruption has led to negative social consequences since it shakes confidence in political institutions and governmental structures, harms the image and prestige of Russia as a country.
One of the main tasks of the Russian state and society in the 21st century is to fight corruption. According to domestic and foreign evaluations Russia may be placed into the group of the most corrupt states around the world. The corruption rate in Russia has been staying considerably high for several decades. To estimate corruption in Russia, one should refer to the Corruption Perception Index statistics and its dynamics. The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is an international rating which includes different countries around the world to reflect a rate of corruption perception by experts and businessmen and to consolidate therefore a characteristic evaluation.
The international anti-corruption movement, Transparency International, has published the CPI for 2018. Russia took 138th place out of 180 and received 28 points out of 100. For the three recent years Russia has been receiving 29 points but this year, as shown above, lost one point and went down three places. Such countries as Papua-New Guinea, Lebanon, Iran, Guinea and Mexico have the same rate [CPI-2018]. In 2008, the CPI was even higher and Russia took 147th place. If we compare the amount of resources and funds allocated to implementing the state anti-corruption policy over the decade with the results that Russia has achieved in overcoming corruption, we conclude that there have been no significant positive developments. Russia still remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
It should be noted that the corruption problem is not less acute in many post-communist countries. According to research conducted with the involvement of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 45% of Western businessmen surveyed said that giving bribes is a common practice in Central and Eastern Europe, 80% indicated that bribe expenses were returned. In 2008, the political course to fight against corruption was announced in Russia. At the end of 2008, the State Duma enacted the Federal Anti-Corruption Law (Federal Law ...) which stated the main principles and legal foundations to fight corruption in the Russian state. In this law the concept of corruption was defined and the forms of its manifestation were determined.
"Corruption is abusing an official position, giving a bribe, receiving a bribe, abusing authority, commercial bribery or other illegitimate use of an official position by an individual in defiance of legitimate interests of society and state
in order to acquire benefit in the form of money, valuables, other property or property services, other property rights for him/herself or for third parties, or illegal providing of such benefit to a specified person by other individuals, as well as committing acts on behalf of or for the benefit of a legal entity".
Two years later, the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (National Strategy ...) was approved by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of April 13, 2010 No. 460, and in 2012, the National Anti-Corruption Plan was adopted by the presidential Decree of March 13, 2012. The aim of this plan is to implement strategy measures in scope of the national security policy of the Russian Federation and to fulfill necessary actions for preventing and fighting corruption in Russia. The National Plan is corrected every two years. The documents currently in force provide for extensive measures on anti-corruption education of the population and formation of intolerance in the society toward corrupt behavior. Corruption is a complex socio-historical phenomenon which may be studied using a systemic analysis. The systemic approach to corruption as a social phenomenon expects studying not only any political, legal, social, economic, cultural and historical issues, but also some socio-psychological and axiological aspects concerning the corruption perception in society.
Ten years after adopting an anti-corruption state program it is possible and necessary to sum up some interim results of its implementation, especially in the scope of the corruption and anti-corruption policy perception by Russians mass consciousness. As Karl Marx stated, theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. To paraphrase Marx, we ask, why the idea of fighting corruption has not seized Russians. What has changed in Russians mass consciousness since the start of the anti-corruption campaign? What attitude is dominant in their minds toward corruption and anti-corruption policy? Here are the main issues that we want to discuss in this article.
Literature review
The first theoretical inquiries about the corruption and anti-corruption policy in modern Russia have appeared in the middle of 1990s (Kirpitchnikov 1997; Analytical Report 1998; Rose-Ackerman 2003). These and other inquiries have compelled the Russian government to pay attention to corruption problems and to initiate development of a plan for the state anti-corruption policy. Simultaneously with these processes in 2001-2008, empirical data on the scale, structure and factors which influence spreading of the corruption in the sphere of public administration, politics, and business, have been collected and analyzed.
Among series of corruption studies in later 1990s and early 2000s, these under the guidance of G.A. Satarov (Satarov 1998), which focus on so called "state" corruption, should be singled out.
The advantage of Satarov's research is that corruption is analyzed as a systemic social phenomenon to be studied as an issue of deviant behavior and social control. The main line of his works is measuring the corruption rate using mass sociological surveys. The results of many surveys conducted in 2001-2010 were represented in the book "Corruption in Russia: rate, structure, dynamics" (in Russian), thus the information on corrupt markets was summarized and the risk groups were determined (Satarov 2013).
Some features of corruption perception have been discussed in the article by Martynov and Gaberkorn (Martynov, Gaberkorn 2017). When evaluating corruption, as the authors have argued, respondents' attitudes are contradictory and ambivalent. They have also noted that a significant part of citizens are not ready to give up corruption as a way to settle their issues, though the conviction that the measures against corruption are necessary is declared. While studying stereotypes and prejudices toward how corruption has been treated in mass consciousness, Russian scholars emphasize social and psychological features in corruption perception, inconsistency and contradictoriness in Russians' attitudes to corruption. Such an approach can also be met in Western research. H. Park and J. Lee show that the perception of corruption by society and the scale of real corruption can vary using the example of South Korea. They define a number of prejudices and some factors which form them, namely mass media, Internet, social networks as a tool to generate specific attitudes to civil servants and to corruption level in the country (Park, Lee 2017). Using a deliberative opinion poll Russian scholars study how these factors influence public opinion (Zadorin, Matskevitch 2017).
Exploring the role of participation of civil society members K. Gadowska analyzes the results of previous studies of post-Soviet societies and proposes two models of civic engagement in the anti-corruption practices: false collaboration and a non-collaborative presence (Solomon, Gadowska).
In the middle of 1990s, the first questions on corruption and its prevalence rate in society appeared in the mass surveys conducted by Russian centers for public opinion research. The database of Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) (Database of Russian Public Opinion Research Center), for example, contains the information from many polls devoted to some notorious corruption and anti-corruption processes since 1994. FOM (Public opinion foundation), another research center, has such data since 2002 (Database of FOM).
It should be noted that in social sciences there is neither a common definition of corruption nor a concept of its origin despite the long history of studying this phenomenon. Besides, there are several complementary concepts on corruption origins and there are many definitions of "corruption" which are used depending on certain methodological approaches, goals and objectives of
research (Rose-Ackerman 2003; Satarov 1998; Nisnevich 2016). Such diverse treatments of corruption on theoretical and empirical levels in modern social sciences as well as in public discourse could be explained by the complexity and dynamism inherent in this phenomenon. In our research, as a basic definition for corruption, in view of its universality, we use the one given by "Transparency International": corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain (How do you define corruption?). At the same time, we consider that not every abuse can be treated as corruption, but only those acts which violate laws and administrative norms of an institutional activity.
In scientific literature there are several key approaches to how corruption has to be described: normative-value, legal, economic and functional one (Nisnevich 2016).
In Russians mass consciousness the normative-value and functional interpretation of corruption are associated with various forms of public authority. Within the normative-value approach, corruption is defined conceptually as "the use of public power for private profit, preferment, or prestige, or for the benefit of a group or class, in a way that constitutes a breach of law or of standards of high moral conduct; for while such breaches constitute some sort of damage, they are not necessarily involved. But there is typically gain for the corrupter and corrupted, and loss for others, involved in such a situation" (Friedrich 2005: 16).
According to the functional approach, corruption is not always meant to be an unquestionably negative deed. Under certain circumstances it plays a positive role as an unofficial way to overcome some bureaucracy barriers in the train of economic and political development. Thus corruption assists to effectively settle some issues which impede the social progress. Rationally, corrupt methods are often a short cut to achieving goals. It should be noted that fighting corruption is an urgent matter not only for Russia but also for the majority of post-communist states.
In the context of current policy norms Russians most often consider corruption as one of the types of deviant social behavior. It is generally recognized that power is a source, breeding ground and at the same time the main area where corruption is spreading in the state. The authorities tend to vastly regulate different spheres of public life and public services. When the private sector of the economy, citizens and organizations interact with administrative services, power holders and officials, corrupt relations that deform political, economic, social orders arise. Corruption is a dynamic phenomenon. It is like a virus that mimics and adapts to changes in political, economic and social conditions, as well as to measures to prevent and fight it. Therefore, each study of corruption is useful, as it describes the state and level of its development in a certain period.
Methodology and methods
The main research question of this study is how corruption is perceived in Russians mass consciousness after 10 years of declaring the anti-corruption policy. At the beginning of the 21st century corruption was treated as one of the principal problems for Russian society. Its scale and spreading tempo were impressive. The Russian government could not avoid these dangerous processes any longer. It has designed an anti-corruption plan and introduced a normative-value base for the anti-corruption policy.
The theoretical and methodological fundamentals for empirical research on perceiving the corruption and anti-corruption policy in Russian Federation are the theory of social attitudes by W. Thomas and F. Znaniecki (Thomas, Znaniecki 1927), La Piere (La Piere 1934), and the concept of a relationship between value orientations and real conduct of an individual by V. Yadov (Yadov 1979). The theory of social attitudes emphasizes that attitudes are connected with specific (social) needs and conditions for an individual activity to satisfy these needs.
The basic definition of a social attitude refers to the correlation between an individual consciousness and individual social action. Therefore, a social attitude is "a process of an individual consciousness; it determines the real and potential activity of an individual in the social world. Thus, a social attitude is a peculiar double of social value in an individual perspective, and an activity in any form is always a link between them. The classical model of attitudes contains three elements: affective (orientation), cognitive (awareness, stereotypes, convictions), connotative (behavioral)" (Devyatkin 1999). The social attitude characterizes an integral state of personality, capacity of an individual to act in a specific situation in a proper manner in order to satisfy own needs.
The social attitudes direct an individual to act in a certain way, but, as V. Yadov showed, it does not preclude the conflict (contradiction) between value orientations and real behavior of individuals (Yadov 1979).
The previous studies of social and psychological attitudes confirm that the decision to engage in corrupt behavior is not just a choice between right and wrong, but a certain compromise between two competing attitudes. The distinction between attitudes reflects tension between group-based norms (for example, loyalty) and norms that apply universally, independent of a group membership (Dungan, Waytz 2014).
In the situation of a social choice, the "demand for corruption" attitude forms a response, namely corruption breeds corruption (Ghatak 2014). Corruption as a social practice is very persistent. That can be explained by the lack of true and complete information about corruption among citizens. It is not allowed to monitor corruption on local levels and to encourage politicians to limit corruption (Olken 2009).
Also, data from existing research (Menshenina 2014) indicate that in the perception of society personal types of corruption increase and social ones decrease. This trend is explained by the sensitivity of public opinion to corruption and increasing attention to the regulation of corruption in legislation.
At the beginning of our research we have put forward two hypotheses. The first one was that the attitude toward corruption in Russians mass consciousness had to change under the influence of anti-corruption policy. The second one was that this basic attitude did not change significantly despite of all anticorruption measures. Quite the contrary, they continue to have a negative impact on the effectiveness of anti-corruption policy. We should say that the first hypothesis was not confirmed empirically, and the second one was generally supported by the data collected.
Meanwhile the conflict between value-normative attitudes and functional ones was revealed in the mass perception of corruption. According to the normative-value approach corruption is identified as a kind of behavior which deviates from prevalent or treated as prevalent norms in the given context. According to the functional approach corrupt behavior is justified when it allows resolving some issues positively. In the situation of a social choice the conflict between normative-value and functional attitudes toward corruption most often is settled in favor of the latter. Hence, a corrupt activity has been supported on a group level and justified on an interpersonal one.
Results and discussion
The empirical research on the perception of corruption and anti-corruption policy in Russians mass consciousness was performed at the faculty of sociology in Saint-Petersburg University in 2014-2018. The empirical research was focused on the corruption and anti-corruption policy in Russian Federation at the beginning of the 21st century. The topic was the attitudes in Russians mass consciousness toward the corruption and anti-corruption policy. The data was collected by the telephone survey of Russian population. The advantage of a telephone survey is that it allows organizing two-way communication with the respondent and controlling the completeness of received information.
First of all, it appeared that the Russians social mood is generally positive, the overall situation in Russia arouses some moderate optimism and individual situation is perceived by the overwhelming majority of respondents as normal in spite of the sanctions against Russia. As a background to this picture, the significant part of respondents have found intolerable such kind of social inequality like poverty as well as super-profits which are distributed among a narrow group of the rich, whose high positions are largely secured by a corrupt network. This social perception is not fully actualized, and that is why it is more
of an evaluation of the situation causing discontent without personal involving. When answering the question, what social groups are most often involved in corrupt activities, 38.2% of respondents indicated that the rich were; 38.5% said that the officials and local government employees were. In 2017, 47.7% of St. Petersburg inhabitants surveyed believed officials to be a corrupt group, 44.6% said that the majority of Russian businessmen were (see Table 1).
Table 1
Public perception of involving officials and businessmen in corruption
Yes, almost all are honest Not all, but the greater part are honest About a half are honest No, only smaller part are honest Almost all are corrup-tionists and bribe-takers I find difficulty in replying
Are there many or not many honest and not corrupt officials in Russia? 0.7 1.,5 29.7 34.0 13.7 5.4
Are there many or not many honest and not corrupt businessmen in Russia? 0.8 17.4 29.7 27.3 17.3 7.4
Saint-Petersburg inhabitants' telephone survey, October of 2017, N is 1100.
During research a curious fact was revealed. The anti-corruption measures realized by authorities are not enough known and hardly noticeable by the majority of the population. Only 5.3% of respondents constantly monitor them, and 39.5% have only heard about them, but do not really know anything.
Table 2
Are you informed on anti-corruption measures realized by the federal authorities?
Answer option %
Yes, I always keep up with this topic 5.3
Yes, but I do not follow this topic specifically 20.7
I have heard something, but I really do not know 39.5
I do not know anything about it 30.7
I find difficulty in replying 3.7
Russian population's telephone survey, Center for Sociological and Internet Research in SPSU, 2014, N is 1611.
The data from the Table 2 suggests that anti-corruption measures are not enough known on a national level and do not evoke much trust and optimism among the population. However, the significance of corruption as a social problem has increased in the eyes of Russians.
In 2006-2009, public opinion polls recorded that the level of danger of corruption was still underestimated in Russians mass consciousness. In terms of social issue significance for a person corruption was among second tens of problems which do not touch him/her personally.
In 2012, the corruption issue in mass consciousness already was among ten of the most important social issues in Russian society. After estimations by Levada Center, in 2013 this issue rose from 11th position in 2006 to 3rd one among the most acute ones for Russians behind only the rise of prices and poverty. In 2012, Levada Center recorded the maximal corruption discontent rate in Russian public opinion since 1999.
Our data from the all-Russian survey conducted by Center for Sociological and Internet Research in 2014 have confirmed it. Thus, 25% of respondents have supported the fight against corruption and considered it a primary problem to be resolved by the Russian government. In the North West Region including St. Petersburg this result has already been 31%. After surveying the public opinion in St. Petersburg in 2017, part of those who consider anti-corruption measures as a primary task for state has grown again (see Table 3).
Table 3
Priority of the fight against corruption in society
Answers to question: Is the fight against corruption a primary task for progress in Russia or are there more important issues to be solved? 2014 (%) 2017 (%)
Primary task 30.9 36.6
Important task, but not outstanding among other ones 49.0 45.0
Secondary task, as there are more important ones 17.1 16.0
I find difficulty in replying 3.0 2.4
Russian population's telephone survey, September of 2014, N = 1611, North West Region data. Saint-Petersburg inhabitants' telephone survey, October of 2017, N = 1100.
The corruption rate which characterizes Federal officials is evaluated by the population as sufficiently high. It is a common assumption for public opinion that elite groups have significant resources and as a consequence, additional
opportunities to promote their own interests without any fear to be punished. Thus, if 40.6% of respondents in St. Petersburg have considered the corruption rate as high, then, in Russia as a whole, this has already done 64.4% of respondents. At the same time, among them there are two times more those respondents who consider the rate of corruption in Russia to be extremely high and there are practically no people who would see it as low (0.8%). This also accords with earlier observations conducted in Vladivostok (2004, 2008), which showed that a high percentage of respondents perceive bribery as an ordinary attribute of social life (about 60 %) or quite frequent (about 25 %) (Menshenina 2014).
The majority of respondents think that corruption is the most prevailing within the following groups of officials: law enforcement agencies (42.3%), highest state authorities (38.7%), municipal (local) authorities (36.8%), and inspection and control state organizations (32.2%). According to respondents' opinions, corruption itself deeply affects the population living standard, especially through increasing prices (60.3%). Corruption is perceived as a mass phenomenon, so far as the majority of officials having a high rank in the power hierarchy are considered to be involved in different corrupt deals.
The high prevalence rate of corruption in Russian society might be illustrated with the fact that every fourth respondent affirmed to be involved in corrupt situations last year. The most of them (61%) knew what should be done in such a situation and how to give bribes. Moreover, 68% of respondents declared it was an ordinary situation to give bribes and does not cause any fears. Meanwhile 10% of respondents stated they did not give any bribes and could resist an official being involved in a corrupt situation and find another way to solve their problems. However, there are 7% of respondents who used to give bribes and other gifts in different organization if it was a usual way of doing things there. Police (including Department of Motor Vehicles and Traffic Control), health-care agencies, educational institutions, public and municipal bodies, courts (see Figure 1) are considered to be the most corrupt organizations of everyday life level from respondents' own experience.
It should be noted that the positive tendencies in anti-corruption struggle and policy are hardly observed even in those Russian regions where social and economic problems are being successfully solved. When comparing the situation with the prevalence of corruption in St. Petersburg in the recent 3 years to respondents' opinion gathered after the poll of 2018, we have following answers: 2.4% believed the situation with corruption became much better, 7.1% believed it became much worse, 41.6% did not see any changes. The fact that the prevalence rate of corruption in 2018 remains very high was considered by 20.3% of respondents, rather high — 30.0%, medium — 27.1%.
Figure 1. Institutions considered to be the most corrupt from respondents' own experience
The following questions disclose the subjective perception of whether the corruption rate became lower or not within the recent years as well as the perceived efficiency of anti-corruption measures of.
We observe some paradox in the answers of Saint-Petersburg inhabitants. On the one hand, 42.7% of respondents (which is high enough) believe that anti-corruption measures have been intensified for the recent years, or at least they did not change as 24.1% think. But on the other hand, 34% mention that the corruption rate is increasing, and 36.3% believe it stayed without changes. Thereby, according to citizens the state is not to be accused of inactivity but the measures undertaken have been not effective or failed. When evaluating the corruption rate by using public opinion, there is a difference among Russian regions. According to the survey data of 2014, the population of the North West region has the most negative perception of what the authorities do to fight corruption. Thus, 26.3% of respondents stated that "authorities of our region do not want to and cannot fight corruption effectively".
Civil and legal methods among all methods to fight corruption are prevalent in mass consciousness. As answer distribution shows at Figure 2, the significant
Establishing hot lines for citizens on regional and local levels
Anti-corruprion activity of political parties and public organizations
Social anti-corruption advertising
Protest meeting, mass actions
Educational activity
Intensifying control of law enforcement agencies
Investigative journalism
Law improvement and enforcement norms
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Figure 2. Effective anti-corruption measures in opinions of Saint-Petersburg inhabitants (Saint-Petersburg inhabitants' telephone survey, October 2017, N is 1100)
part of respondents consider such methods to be the most effective. According to the survey results of 2018, 64% of respondents have fully agreed with such a way to solve the corruption problem, 19.9% have rather agreed, 7% have rather disagreed, 6.1% have fully disagreed, and 3% of respondents had difficulties in replying.
At the same time, the law-enforcement agencies are considered by the majority of respondents to be one of the most corrupt institutions in contemporary Russia. Nevertheless, they are expected to organize the system to fight corruption. It is believed that austere measures and inevitable punishment would lead to rising prestige and eradicating corruption within law-enforcement agencies. It is interesting that people from age group of 50-60 years support educational and informational campaigns within anti-corruption policy.
As a rule, the increased role of the mass media in the anti-corruption struggle is emphasized by older respondents. Thus, 26% of respondents from St. Petersburg believe that the mass media in comparison with other social institutions are the most effective to fight corruption today. On the contrary, young people of 1830 years are ready to protest about corruption (24.2%) and rely upon an activity of non-governmental organizations and parties in order to influence authorities' anti-corruption policy (24.2%). At the same time, young people take the strongest stand on the issue of law enforcement and support intensifying the control and
Internet Television
Print media, papers and magazines Relatives, acquaintances, colleagues Personal experience Special literature
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Figure 3. Sources of information on corrupt practices (Saint-Petersburg inhabitants' telephone survey, October 2017, N is 1100)
sanctions against corruptors. People of 30-60 years do not perceive social and political protest activities as effective anti-corruption measures.
The corruption perception by mass consciousness is influenced to a considerable degree by information field and content, namely with how information is being presented, evaluations and judgments are being imposed in order to form attitudes to one or another corrupt practice.
We see that the dominant sources of information on corruption are the Internet and TV equally, with Internet often taking the first place. Recently these information sources have been associated with information wars and manipulation technologies. As a rule, people to be influenced by them have some contradictory ideas of a social and political situation in the world or a country. The ambivalence of consciousness and fragmentariness are typical for such people when perceiving different social phenomena including corruption. It should be taken into account that Russians' anti-corruption attitudes are unstable, willingness to follow steady behavioral practices is faint, and there is no clear stand on specific issues. But other types of information sources, namely personal experience and communication practices, social and political essays, and special literature are also important when perceiving corruption and attitudes toward certain behavioral model in a corrupt situation. The competent anti-corruption policy has to enable different information channels, diversify them and attempt to integrate all forces in building a unified model of anti-corruption climate in society.
While conducting sociological research we have revealed that citizens are not sufficiently informed on the real dynamics and scale of corruption in Russia. For example, the majority of respondents (68%) are not aware of an average size of a bribe, whether it decreases or increases from year to year. This fact allows us to conclude that the majority of Russian citizens do not realize all threats connected with spreading of the corruption in Russia. They perceive it not as an all-nation problem to be settled with consolidation of all forces, political will of the state and society but as a common problem to be solved with improving law and toughening punishments for the corrupt practices.
Conclusions
1. Though anti-corruption policy has been actively implemented in Russia for the last decade, there is no "zero tolerance" approach toward corruption. We need to state that there has not been any significant turn in mass consciousness regarding corruption. There is an obvious contradiction between abstract and personal levels of corruption perception. In mass consciousness i.e. on abstract level, corruption has been perceived as a social evil, but on a personal level as a functional necessity to settle private issues.
2. The results of empirical research affirm that corruption directly correlates with the social inequality rate in society. To receive support from population for a state anti-corruption policy without decreasing the inequality rate is hardly possible. As long as there is poverty and the social inequality rate is high, anticorruption measures will be failing. 49.7% of respondents have fully agreed with this statement, 23.9% have rather agreed, 11% have rather disagreed, 9% have fully disagreed, and 6.4% of respondents had difficulties in replying.
3. While fighting corruption for the last decade, there was a number of notorious criminal cases, which left their mark in Russians mass consciousness. But understanding what the state is pursuing as a complete, competent and coordinate policy has not been recorded in public opinion. A significant part of respondents (27%) believe that the anti-corruption policy in Russia has simulative, show-off character. Many corruption cases that had a public and mass media resonance were not prosecuted. As a consequence, the state and court system are treated with distrust.
4. Increasing the anti-corruption policy effectiveness is only to a small extent related to the improvement of criminal law norms, and to a greater extent to social and cultural measures, formation of an anti-corruption climate in society, and ethics of a civil society responsibility.
5. In Russia corruption perception and anti-corruption policy effectiveness should be monitored nationwide without taking into account the interest of different state agencies. As a rule, the effectiveness is estimated not on the basis of
a comparison of results, but on the basis of a comparison of work done to implement anti-corruption programs. The anti-corruption policy effectiveness does not significantly increase. Costs are increasing disproportionately to the outcomes. This fact naturally affects the mass consciousness of Russians; as a result, people increasingly distrust the anti-corruption policy that is pursued by the authorities.
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ВОСПРИЯТИЕ КОРРУПЦИИ И АНТИКОРРУПЦИОННОЙ ПОЛИТИКИ В РОССИЙСКОМ МАССОВОМ СОЗНАНИИ
Сергей Михайлович Елисеева, Екатерина Андреевна Ковтунь, Сергей Дмитриевич Савинь (ssd_sav@mail.ru)
а Автономная некоммерческая организация высшего образования «Университет при Межпарламентской ассамблее ЕврАзЭС»,
Санкт-Петербург, Россия
b Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Санкт-Петербург, Россия
Цитирование: Eliseev S., Kovtun E., Savin S. (2020) Corruption and anti-corruption policy perception in Russians' mass consciousness. Журнал социологии и социальной антропологии, 23(5): 178-194. https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2020.23.5.7
Аннотация. Обеспечение эффективности антикоррупционной политики не представляется возможным при условии высокого уровня терпимости к коррупции в обществе и отсутствия у политических властей четкой и последовательной стратегии борьбы с коррупцией. Системный анализ коррупции как социального явления предполагает изучение как политических, правовых, социально-экономических, культурно-исторических аспектов коррупции, так и восприятия коррупции в общественном сознании. Исследование государственной антикоррупционной политики, оценок её эффективности в массовом сознании позволяет определить направления дальнейшего развития и совершенствования антикоррупционной деятельности. Представлены результаты социологического исследования восприятия коррупции и антикоррупционной политики в массовом сознании российского общества, проведенного на базе Центра социологических и интернет-исследований Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета с помощью телефонного опроса в 2014-2018 гг. Основной целью исследования было выявление и описание доминирующих стереотипов в восприятии коррупции и антикоррупционной политики, характерных для российского массового сознания. Результаты, полученные в ходе эмпирического исследования, демонстрируют отсутствие существенных изменений в отношении коррупции в общественном сознании за последнее десятилетие. Выявлено явное противоречие между абстрактным и личностным уровнем восприятия коррупции: на абстрактном уровне коррупция в массовом сознании воспринимается как социальное «зло», на личностном — как функциональная необходимость при решении вопросов частного характера.
Ключевые слова: коррупция, антикоррупционная политика, массовое сознание, социальные установки, модель поведения.
