Publication details
Aféry v širších souvislostech
| Title in English | Scandals in wider context |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2006 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Listy |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Sociology, demography |
| Keywords | scandals; corruption; systemic crysis |
| Description | It is highly inadequate to use the explanatory concept of classical corruption to describe deformed and twisted practices that have emerged in the economic and political life of postcommunist societies, as this concept may easily be problematised in the CEE transitory context. This may be done by claiming that 1) absurdly, it is difficult to use the corruption concept, in the transitory context, since this phenomenon implies violation of certain codes or a bridging of the prerogatives associated with particular positions and functions; yet such codes and prerogatives are hardly present in CEE, in fact, they are only being created; 2) also, among the key features characterizing corruption, at least in most common interpretations, is its occurrence on an individual basis and that it represents in some way an extraordinary arrangement. Clearly, various stadiums of corruption can be defined (standard conceptual schema usually works with the scale divided into four categories: accidental c., spontaneously regulated c. organized c., systemic c. though in my understanding even the mere label of the stadium called systemic corruption is a contradiction in terms. Corruption ceases to be corruption any more as it becomes the rule; it is a system functioning in line with the particular code and rationality, in other words, not representing distortions, but gaining a systemic essence in the sense that it develops systematically along with the actual reconstitution of the economic and political spheres. |
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