Public sector corruption and perceived government performance in transition

Abstract

We offer evidence that public sector corruption has an inverse association with evaluations of performance at both the local and central government levels. Consistent with ex ante expectations, perceptions of corruption among local government officials are directly and negatively related to performance evaluations at the local government level and relatively less so at the central government level. Conversely, perceptions of corruption among overall government officials have a stronger negative association with performance evaluations of central governments relative to performance evaluations of local governments. These results confirm that individual evaluations of public sector corruption affect perceived government performance evaluations, with local-local, local-central, central-local, and central-central level variances. Regressions by country groups-such as European Union membership, or geographic clusters, such as Southeastern Balkan or the former Soviet Union states-continue to support the core findings with one caveat. Results from two-level random intercepts and slopes regression models show that the negative association between perceived corruption and government performance evaluation is weaker in contexts with relatively higher levels of public corruption.

Ethical behavior perceptions in Russia: Do ethics‐related programs and individual characteristics matter?

“…Corruption has long been seen as a hindrance to socio‐economic development in Russia (Bertot et al., 2012; Clark et al., 2020; Meirovich & Reichel, 2000; Moldogaziev & Liu, 2020; Narizhnaya, 2011; Nguyen et al., 2015). The main corruption factors are related to excessive discretion of public authorities, lack of transparency and control mechanisms, limited access to information, and conflict between legal provisions.…”

“…Illegal performance is thus viewed as legitimate and ethical” (p. 126). Some scholars explain this situation as the “resource curse” when the political elite has control of resources and resource rents, as well as control over patronage and the distribution of resources (Bertot et al., 2012; Kolstad & Wiig, 2009; Kolstad et al., 2009; Mehlum et al., 2006; Moldogaziev & Liu, 2020; Robinson et al., 2006). Meirovich and Reichel (2000) found that Russian government did not play a fair game and because “it's behaviour is unjust, so to reinstate order and balance, a manager has to cheat and deceive” (p.131).…”

Does Corruption Have a Bad Impact on Local Government Performance

“…Society demands the government to have good financial and non-financial performance, because good government performance can increase public satisfaction (Beeri et al, 2019;Weitz-Shapiro, 2008); increasing public trust (Bone, 2017); increasing legitimacy and public support (Ahyaruddin & Amrillah, 2018;Ashworth et al, 2009;Blume & Voigt, 2011); increasing organizational value https://www.ilomata.org/index.php/ijss (Hermawan & Maf'ulah, 2014;Kurniati, 2019); increasing investment value (Desbordes & Wei, 2017;Maqbool & Zamir, 2020) and increasing organizational survival (Paeleman & Vanacker, 2015). However, the current performance of local governments in Indonesia is still not good, this is evidenced by the UNDP report which stated that for 3 (years) Indonesia's HDI was far below the HDI of ASEAN countries such as: Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Thailand (UNDP, 2019) presented in the following table: The performance of local governments in Indonesia, which is still not in line with public expectations, is due to poor governance in governance which is characterized by high levels of corruption in local government organizations (Ahmad & Ali, 2010;Moldogaziev & Liu, 2021). This was reinforced by the (KPK, 2022) which stated that the largest perpetrators of corruption during the 2004-2021 period were carried out by regional heads and their staff (governors, mayors/regents, and echelon I/II/III officials) with a total of 421 perpetrators.…”

Theme-Based Book Review: Shifting Views of Public Sector Corruption

“…It results in waste of public resources, slowing of growth in the private sector, and further erosion of trust between citizens and government. It also leads to failure of government programs, and makes it less likely that efforts to encourage public participation in government will be fruitful (Moldogaziev & Liu, 2021).…”