Acceptance of Corrupt Acts: a Comparative Study of Values Regarding Corruption in Europe

Journal of Social Research & Policy, Volume: 3, Issue: 1, pp. 27-42.

Date: July 2012

ISSN: 2067-2640 (print), 2068-9861 (electronic)

Abstract: The present contribution seeks to explain variation in the degree of acceptance of corrupt acts by taking into consideration both individual characteristics and societal ones. We used a large dataset covering 43 European countries and employed multi-level models in order to disentangle the compositional and contextual effects. Our main findings suggest that young single Europeans with no occupation but with material possibilities are more likely to consider corrupt acts as being acceptable. The presence of a partnership and of children as well as high confidence in the governance bodies of a country makes corrupt acts less acceptable. In addition, the society where one lives is also important: individuals living in the former soviet countries display on average higher acceptance of corrupt acts than individuals living in the former communist bloc or in long established democracies. This conclusion holds also after controlling for how widespread corruption is in these countries or how high their income inequality is.

Keywords: Corruption, Values, Communism, Europe