The civic crime of corruption: Citizen networks and public sector bribery in the non-democracies
| Author | Marina Zaloznaya |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806221099105 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The civic crime of corruption:
Citizen networks and public
sector bribery in the
non-democracies
Marina Zaloznaya
The University of Iowa, USA
Abstract
In the Global North, corruption is considered incompatible with civic health: scholars
argue that it decreases social trust, atomizes communities, and discourages active citi-
zenship. Using the first-ever national dataset from Russia with behavioral measures of
corruption, ego-centric networks, and political participation, this article develops an
alternative theory of corruption’s impact on civic life in societies where freedoms of
association are limited. Analyses of these new data suggest that: (1) Russian bribe-givers
are embedded in outward-oriented and mobilizable personal networks, supportive of
civic connectivity; and (2) Russian bribe-givers are significantly more likely than law-abid-
ing citizens to mobilize others when pushing back against the state. Counterintuitively,
then, in non-democracies, corruption in the public sector sustains the kind of social net-
works that underlie civic culture.
Keywords
Autocratic regimes, bribery, civil society, corruption, personal networks
Millions of people around the world report regularly bribing bureaucrats in exchange for
basic or improved public services (Rose and Peiffer, 2015). Case studies from Latin
Corresponding author:
Marina Zaloznaya, Department of Sociology and Criminology, Department of Political Science, 400 K North
Hall, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
Email: marina-zaloznaya@uiowa.edu
Article
Theoretical Criminology
2022, Vol. 26(4) 641–663
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/13624806221099105
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America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East document wide-
spread illicit payments, favors, and string-pulling in schools, utility services,
permit-issuing agencies, police precincts, courts, tax administrations, and other bureau-
cracies (Ijewereme, 2015; Mbate, 2018; Monem and Baniamin, 2017; Sabet, 2013;
Zaloznaya, 2017). In the literature, such exchanges go by different names; hereafter,
I use terms public sector, petty, and bureaucratic corruption interchangeably.
In addition to documented negative effects of public sector corruption on economic
growth, inequality, and public health (Justesen and Bjørnskov, 2014; Prasad and
Zaloznaya, 2021), it is typically billed as antithetical to healthy civic life. Illicit exchanges
between public servants and their clients are believed to pit citizens against each other and
weaken ties across social groups, undermining their willingness and ability to pursue
common good (Howard, 2002; Rothstein and Stolle, 2003; Warren, 2013). According
to this argument, public sector corruption flourishes in, and contributes to, disjointed
and anomie-ridden societies, where “every man is for himself”, and where participatory
democracy is unlikely to take root (Johnston, 2005; Smith, 2005).
Although this theory is applied universally, it was developed in liberal capitalist dem-
ocracies of the Global North. To date, little empirical evidence exists that citizens’cor-
ruption behavior also generates social fragmentation and undermines civic health of
non-democratic societies in the Global South. My study challenges the theory of
public sector corruption as antithetical to civic life in countries with limited freedoms
of association and expression. Based on social networks research, case studies from non-
democracies, and unique new data from Russia, I develop and test an alternative theory of
public sector corruption in authoritarian-leaning regimes as “a civic crime”, or an illegal
behavior that sustains rather than undermines social cohesion in ways that are congruent
with what Almond and Verba (1963) famously call “civic culture”.
My analyses of personal networks of ordinary Russians show that their bribery
behavior is linked to a specific kind of social connectivity. Relative to citizens who
abstain from corruption, personal networks of bribe-givers are extensive (serving to
connect citizens to bureaucrats in different organizations) and contain ties that are, sim-
ultaneously, bridging (help establish pathways between citizens and bureaucrats) and
strong (willing to assist with risky transactions). Whether corruption fuels the cultivation
of such networks, or vice versa, corruption-facilitating networks sustain meaningful
encounters among “birds of a different feather”, facilitating interactions and collaboration
across social cleavages. In states with limited political freedoms, where citizens do not
have formal options to collaborate outside of the government’s purview, corruption net-
works build a structural platform whereby they can share resources, exercise autonomy
from the state, and pursue collective goods.
I test the theory of public sector corruption as civic crime using an original dataset
from non-democratic Russia (N =2350) that contains, simultaneously, behavioral mea-
sures of corruption, egocentric networks (up to 25 alters), and political participation.
First, I examine the relationship between bribe giving and personal networks at the indi-
vidual level. My results show that citizens who participate in public sector corruption are
more likely to identify network ties that are both outward-oriented and mobilizable, sug-
gesting that in oppressive political environments, social integration sometimes occurs in
642 Theoretical Criminology 26(4)
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