Посттоталитарната корумпираност
Post-totalitarian Corruption

Summary/Abstract: Corruption is a form of socially unregulated exchange. It is a parallel social order, whereby redistribution of resources that are in shortage is carried out in the context of an unequal access to the system of distribution of power and wealth in society. The formation of bilateral and multilateral engagements through corrupt transactions permanently distances institutions and citizens in their mutual social dealings, mediating relations between them through non-legitimate figures that control various levels of access even where official regulation exists. In mass consciousness, corruption increasingly serves as an universal explanation for all kinds of problems. One of the most stable characteristics of public opinion concerning corruption is that it is morally blameworthy but socially effective behaviour. The author attempts to demonstrate the specifics of post-totalitarian corruption and to comment on the potential for effective counteraction to the phenomenon. The effectiveness of such counteraction depends on making it a fact of public attention and clearly defining the forms and scale of its manifestation. Under Bulgarian conditions the strategically negative consequences of an attitude chronically favorable to corruption are most clearly evident in respect to property and private economic initiative, in the field of civic activity and political participation, as well as with regard to public institutions. The attitude to corruption in Bulgaria increasingly often takes the form of public denial of justice. The idea that acts of corruption are improvable and unpunishable permanently degrades public relations, puts in doubt the authority of institutions of justice, and narrows the space of free civic choice. The all-embracing view of corruption makes this an even harder obstacle to the modernization of contemporary Bulgarian society.

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