Korrupciós trendek Kelet-Közép-Európában
Corruption Trends in Central Europe

Summary/Abstract: Hungary is a moderately corrupt country – according to the 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International (TI). This finding of the annual report accords with the results of other surveys of corruption by ranking Hungary among countries with a relatively high level of corruption in comparison with Western Europe. It also tallies with other surveys by placing Hungary among those states that joined the European Union at the same time that have relatively clean public dealings, and by putting it among the least corrupt countries in the Visegrád group. However, on publication of the 2007 Index, Transparency International Hungary observed that the rank assigned to Hungary has remained within the methodological margin of error for several years, meaning that no significant progress has been made in the fight against corruption. An analysis of corruption trends observed between 2001 and 2007 among EU member states of the Central European region may shed light on the mechanisms that helped other countries achieve significant results in curbing corruption. Currently no methodology exists that could measure the level of corruption by covering the entire spectrum of the phenomenon. Corruption indicators based on crime statistics cover only a fraction of cases since the most characteristic feature of incidences of corruption is that they tend to favour both sides of the agreement, seriously reducing the chances of their discovery. The disadvantage of indicators measuring the perception of corruption, as an alternative source of data, is that they do not measure the level of corruption itself but the degree to which a given country, institution or sector is perceived as corrupt by various population groups. Given the methodological limits of quantitative studies, it is always worth comparing their results to the conclusions of qualitative analyses; in this way, we can get a (more) comprehensive picture of corruption in a given country or region.[...]

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