Comparing Police Corruption


Book Description

This book analyses police corruption across four country case studies, exploring how the problem manifests in each country and how it can be reduced. The problem of police corruption ranges from having to pay a bribe to a traffic cop to avoid a speeding fine, right up to more serious forms, such as collusion with organised crime groups and terrorists. The issue therefore constitutes a significant security threat and a human rights issue, but it is often difficult to understand the extent of the problem, and how it varies across contexts. This book analyses the corruption situation in Bulgaria, Germany, Russia and Singapore, identifies similarities and differences across them, and analyses the various means of addressing the problem: punitive, incentivising, technological, administrative and imaging, and the role of civil society. Drawing on existing literature and research, the book also makes extensive use of local sources and original survey data across the four countries. As comparative literature on police corruption remains rare, this book’s survey of the situation in two developed states and two post-communist transition states will be of considerable interest to students and researchers across corruption studies, criminology, police studies and security studies, as well as practitioners working in anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies.




Government Favouritism in Europe


Book Description

This volume on Government Favouritism in Europe reunites the fieldwork of 2014-2015 in the ANTICORRP project. It is entirely based on objective indicators and offers both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the linkage between political corruption and organised crime using statistics on spending, procurement contract data and judicial data. The methodology used in the analysis of particularism of public resource distribution is applicable to any other country where procurement data can be made available and opens the door to a better understanding and control of both systemic corruption and political finance.




Building Trust and Democracy


Book Description

This volume explores the effects of transitional justice measures on trust-building and democratization across twelve countries in Central and Eastern Europe and parts of the Former Soviet Union over the period 19892012. The author argues that transitional justice measures have a differentiated impact on political and social trust-building, supporting some aspects of political trust and undermining other aspects of social trust. Moreover, the structure, scope, timing, and implementation of transitional justice measures condition outcomes. More expansive and compulsory institutional change mechanisms register the largest effects, with limited and voluntary change mechanisms having a diminished effect, and more informal and largely symbolic measures having the most attenuated effect. These differentiated and conditional effects are also evident with respect to transition goals like supporting democratic consolidation and reducing corruption, since these goals respond differently to the mixtures of institutional and symbolic reforms found in transitional justice programs. The author develops an original transitional justice typology in order to test hypotheses linking trust-building and transitional justice across twelve cases in the post-communist region. The resulting new datasets allow for a quantitative examination of the relationship between different types of transitional justice programs and a range of possible state building and societal reconciliation goals, including political trust-building, social trust-building, democratization, the strengthening of civil society, the promotion of government effectiveness, and the reduction of corruption. Comparative case studies of four transitional justice programs-Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Bulgariadraw on field work, primary and historical documents, and interview materials to explicate trust-building dynamics, with particular attention to regime complicity challenges, historical memory issues, and communist legacies. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.




Research Handbook on Transitional Justice


Book Description

Providing detailed and comprehensive coverage of the transitional justice field, this Research Handbook brings together leading scholars and practitioners to explore how societies deal with mass atrocities after periods of dictatorship or conflict. Situating the development of transitional justice in its historical context, social and political context, it analyses the legal instruments that have emerged.







Government Favouritism in Europe


Book Description

This volume on Government Favouritism in Europe reunites the fieldwork of 2014-2015 in the ANTICORRP project. It is entirely based on objective indicators and offers both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the linkage between political corruption and organised crime using statistics on spending, procurement contract data and judicial data. The methodology used in the analysis of particularism of public resource distribution is applicable to any other country where procurement data can be made available and opens the door to a better understanding and control of both systemic corruption and political finance.




Energy Demand Challenges in Europe


Book Description

This open access book examines the role of citizens in sustainable energy transitions across Europe. It explores energy problem framing, policy approaches and practical responses to the challenge of securing clean, affordable and sustainable energy for all citizens, focusing on households as the main unit of analysis. The book revolves around ten contributions that each summarise national trends, socio-material characteristics, and policy responses to contemporary energy issues affecting householders in different countries, and provides good practice examples for designing and implementing sustainable energy initiatives. Prominent concerns include reducing carbon emissions, energy poverty, sustainable consumption, governance, practices, innovations and sustainable lifestyles. The opening and closing contributions consider European level energy policy, dominant and alternative problem framings and similarities and differences between European countries in relation to reducing household energy use. Overall, the book is a valuable resource for researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others interested in sustainable energy perspectives.




The Kremlin Playbook


Book Description

Russia has cultivated an opaque web of economic and political patronage across the Central and Eastern European region that the Kremlin uses to influence and direct decisionmaking. This report from the CSIS Europe Program, in partnership with the Bulgarian Center for the Study of Democracy, is the result of a 16-month study on the nature of Russian influence in five case countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Serbia.