Academic literature on the topic 'Elections – Corrupt practices – Russia (Federation)'

The purpose of this research is a comparative description of the visual features of the national flags of Russia and Albania as symbols of diffusion of macroidentity, which is expressed in the contradictory vectors of their foreign policy and focus on both European and Asian macroidentity. Based on color semantics, the article analyzes the state flags of Russia and Albania, which, as in state symbols, reveal the features of the geopolitical positioning of states. The connection between the axial symbol of identity – the double-headed eagle – and the bifurcation (diffuseness) of political macroidentity is shown. The features common to the two states are shown: a tendency toward geopolitical isolationism, authoritarian state power, the dependence of the institution of the church on the state and statist atheism, the prevalence of corrupt practices, the emphasis on forced modernization and extraordinary technologies for overcoming situations of foreign political challenges. It is stated that in both countries there is a corruption of power, a sign of which is a fierce struggle for power during most of Byzantine history. It was determined that this struggle was not waged by political methods, but by force – a military coup, uprising or assassination of the current head of state. In the geopolitical position of Albania, this was due to Skannerberg’s attempt to combine two in one: Islamic and Orthodox identities, as well as situational adaptation of the country’s political elite to the next occupier: from 1443, i.e. the years of struggle against Turkish rule and until 1944 the coat of arms acquired alternately Turkish, Austrian, Greek, Italian and Soviet-Russian details. The coat of arms of the Russian Federation also contains Byzantine elements, which indicates a spiritual succession with the Byzantine Empire, however, with less borrowing.

The presented study examines the relationship between the tax system and the level of corruption in Russia.Aim. The study aims to provide a theoretical and methodological substantiation of the relationship and convergence between the tax system and the level of corruption in the Russian economy for the purposes of implementation of Russia’s economic security concept.Tasks. The authors examine the legislation on taxes and duties of the Russian Federation and the Russian anti-corruption legislation; examine the factors that affect the relationship between the tax system and the level of corruption in Russia and the country’s economic security; identify problems in the mutual influence of the tax system and the level of corruption caused by a low level of legal consciousness and extralegal approaches to the formation of the tax system that disregard theoretical foundations; substantiate recommendations for organizing a system of taxes and duties that would minimize the lobbying of economic and political forces in view of the objective social and public importance of the tax system for the country.Methods. The methodological basis of this study includes the fundamental provisions of modern economic theory, theory of public administration in taxation, and works on anti-corruption policy. The information basis of the study comprises the regulatory and legal acts of the Russian Federation on taxation and anti-corruption measures, Russian statistics on tax administration, and materials of national programs.Results. The study substantiates that at the current stage of development of the tax administration system it is possible to determine an objective trend: the Russian tax system has become an objective and substantial prerequisite for active impact of the quasi-legal tax system on the level of corruption, i.e. corrupt practices at the time of the establishment of the corresponding public relations have determined today’s acts of corruption.Conclusions. There is a close relationship between the tax system and the level of corruption in the country.

The article contains theses of the speech at the International Scientific and Practical Conference: Liability for Corruption-Related Crimes. Prevention Measures, Legal Regulation Issues and Possible Solutions held in Moscow on April 6, 2017, by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the All-Russian State University of Justice (RLA of the Ministry of Justice of Russia). The article draws attention to the fact that the specific matter of corruption combatting-related crimes using the criminal law means cannot be viewed separately from the more general issues related to the development of the Russian criminal laws in general. The author states the prospects of introduction of criminal liability of legal entities in the Russian Federation, justifies the objective dependence of establishment of criminal liability of legal entities for commitment of corruption-related offences. The article stresses that many countries of the world have already established criminal liability for legal entities, and the Russian interests are violated when foreign authorities have a right to bring Russian legal entities to criminal liability while the Russian law enforcement authorities can raise a question of bringing foreign legal entities to administrative liability only. Apart from that, the author notes that the need to introduce criminal liability of legal entities is driven by the membership of the Russian Federation in some international organizations and its being a party to some international conventions. The article gives reasons indicating insufficient efficiency of the institution of administrative liability of legal entities for corrupt practices, which exists in the Russian Federation. As a transitional stage to the establishment of criminal liability of legal entities, the author suggests keeping the existing liability types (criminal one for individuals and administrative one for legal entities), while abandoning different procedural models of bringing to liability in the event that interrelated acts are committed, i.e. reviewing such offences in the course of criminal proceedings.

The article analyses the provisions of the main international legal instruments against corruption in relation to the system of public administration of the Russian Federation. The authors emphasise that corruption poses a threat to the entire international community. Corrupt practices destabilise the functioning of state apparatuses of different countries, undermine the national economies and make the stable process of development of social and state institutions impossible. These circumstances have led to the international adoption of a number of legal instruments: the International Code of Conduct for Public Officials (1996), the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (1999), the Civil Law Convention on Corruption (1999), the United Nations Convention against Corruption (2003) and others. These legal instruments set out the most effective forms and methods of combating corruption, which the participating countries can apply in their national legal systems. However, there are certain controversial and debatable aspects related to the implementation of the provisions of certain international legal acts against corruption. For example, the Russian Federation has not ratified the 1999 Convention on Civil Liability for Corruption or Article 20 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption of 2003. The authors conclude that there is now a need to strengthen the activities of the relevant authorities and officials to achieve better results in the fight against corruption. Anti-corruption measures need to be more actively implemented and applied not only in public authorities, but also in state and non-state enterprises and institutions. At present, work in these areas is being carried out, but not always in a quick, qualitative, consistent and systematic manner. The implementation of anti-corruption forms and methods is simply impossible without international cooperation due to the fact that corruption itself has ceased to be a problem of individual states. With this in mind, it is essential for Russia to strive for the widest possible application of anticorruption international legal instruments within the domestic legal system. In the conclusion of the article, the authors emphasise that the Russian Federation is actively and dynamically participating in the international legal regulation of anticorruption. Cooperation in this area has reached an exceptionally high level, which is recognised by many foreign partners. Ultimately, the application of international legal anticorruption measures in Russia will improve the system for combating corruption in public administration. The provisions of international instruments accumulate solid experience of many countries in this area. This experience can and should be used in our country. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

The article deals with the strategy of anti-corruption on the example of Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. The author conducts a comparative analysis of the strategies developed in Russia and China, considering the appropriate anticorruption practices. The author concludes that the anti-corruption strategies in these countries have some common approaches, but there are significant differences in applying approaches, for example, there are great opportunities for incorporation of information and telecommunication technologies in the law enforcement practice of the Russian Federation, taking into account the positive experience of the People’s Republic of China. Also the experience of China is very interesting in the discourse of the rule of law, inevitability of punishment and the absence of selective justice against corrupt officials. In turn, for the Chinese experts can be interesting the experience of the institutionalization of anti-corruption efforts, which is reflected in anti-corruption plans, which are developing and adopting twice a year in a legal space of the Russian Federation.

Defence date: 20 September 2018
Examining Board: Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute (Supervisor); Vladimir Gelman, European University at Saint Petersburg; Anton Hemerijck, European University Institute; John Ora Reuter, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Why do incumbents in electoral authoritarian regimes retain power? This study seeks to answer this fundamental question by linking electoral fraud and sincere voting for the incumbent with incumbent’s distributive politics and, accordingly, by looking at the puzzle of authoritarian survival from two perspectives. An elite-oriented incumbent’s strategy suggests that, unlike democracies, where distributive politics is primarily targeted at voters, authoritarian incumbents inevitably have to deliver benefits to political elites in order to secure their loyalty, which is eventually converted into electoral fraud, repression of the opposition forces, persecution of the media, refraining from challenging the incumbent, and other authoritarian policy outcomes. A mass-oriented incumbent’s strategy implies that, if electoral competition is not meaningless, authoritarian incumbents also have to deliver benefits to the general public in order to secure genuine mass support, which eventually results in sincere voting for the incumbent. This argument is tested on cross-regional data from Russia as a prominent case of persistent electoral authoritarianism. The analysis begins with a poorly studied but an immanent element of any kind of authoritarianism – electoral fraud perpetrated by political elites and their local agents. Having developed a novel measure of electoral fraud forensics based on quintile regression, I demonstrate that electoral fraud in the Russian 2000–2012 presidential elections played a typical role for electoral authoritarianism: it was neither outcome-changing as it occurs in closed authoritarian regimes nor intrinsically sporadic as in electoral democracies, but it was widespread and hardly avoidable by the incumbent. The study then dwells on examination of the federal transfers to regional budgets as a type of public and formally legal yet politically motivated distribution. Not only were the central transfers allocated to the regions according to the principle of electoral allegiance to the federal incumbent presidents, but it also appears that, as authoritarian regime was consolidating over time, the larger amount of transfer funds was allocated to the bureaucracy (as part of the regime’s elite clientele) in order to secure its loyalty. The loyalty of regional elites, in its turn, was eventually converted into distinct authoritarian policy outcomes, including electoral fraud and persecution of the media. This resulted in a general bias of the electoral playing field and, thereby, contributed to sustaining the authoritarian equilibrium. By contrast, the analysis finds no evidence that the politicized transfers influenced sincere voting for the incumbent. These mixed findings indicate that popular support under electoral authoritarianism is still puzzling and calls for further examination, whereas securing loyalty of political elites via delivering them clientelist benefits is crucial for regime survival in personalist electoral dictatorships.