Crime as a Cultural Problem. The Relevance of Perceptions of Corruption to Crime Prevention. A Comparative Cultural Study in the EU-Accession States, the EU-Candidate States and in the EU-States D, GR and UK

Project Information

CRIME AND CULTURE

Grant agreement ID: 28442

Start date 1 January 2006

End date 31 July 2009

Funded under

• Citizens and Governance in a knowledge-based society: Thematic Priority 7 under the Focusing and Integrating Community Research Programme 2002-2006.

Total cost € 1 092 300,00

EU contribution € 1 092 300,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAET KONSTANZ
Germany

Final Report Summary - CRIME AND CULTURE (Crime as a Cultural Problem. The Relevance of Perceptions of Corruption to Crime Prevention. A Comparative Cultural Study ...)

The CRIME AND CULTURE research project aimed to develop means to optimise corruption prevention in the EU. The project proceeded from the assumption that the considerably varying perceptions of corruption, determined as they are by cultural dispositions, have significant influence on a country's respective awareness of the problem and thereby on the success of any preventative measures. For this reason, the project investigated the 'fit' between institutionalised prevention policies and how these are perceived in daily practice, as well as how EU-candidate and member countries as a result handle the issue of corruption. The project stated individual objectives in order to achieve its goal:
1. First empirical phase: evaluation of expert systems. Analysis of documents of the target groups politics, judiciary, police, media, civil society and economy.
2. Second empirical phase: interviews with representatives of all target groups. Reconstruction of common-sense definitions of corruption out of the data.
3. Third empirical phase: systematic strength-weakness analysis of expert systems.
4. Interactive scholars-experts conference in Brussels. Development of bottom-up strategies for the prevention of corruption.
5. Communication of research findings in the scientific community, with policy-makers and in the public sphere.
6. Cooperation with national and international anti-corruption agencies.

In order to capture the crime-culture relations, the research gathered and analysed data from different European countries. As such, it was structured into work packages (WPs) based on the country under study, as follows:
WP 1: Corruption in Germany: perceptions of corruption and anti-corruption policy
WP 2: Public perceptions of corruption and anti-corruption in Bulgaria
WP 3: Cultural and institutional aspects of corruption in Romania
WP 4: Perceptions of corruption and the relevance of anti-corruption discourses in the frame of Turkey's bid for EU accession
WP 5: Corruption in Croatia: social perception and anti-corruption policy
WP 6: The construction of corruption in Greece: a normative or cultural issue?
WP 7: Perceptions of corruption in the United Kingdom: political, economic, juridical and administrative preconditions
WP 8: Anti-corruption policies and respective discourses within the EU
WP 9: Cross-national comparative analysis of the evaluation of anti-corruption measures in the participating countries of the project
WP 10: Organisation and realisation of final interactive scholars-experts conference and report of the conference.

There were five main meetings and workshops organised in order to share experience and results. In general, it can be concluded that corruption figures and types differ from country to country. There is a common perception that corruption is a cultural feature for many countries, especially in the Balkans. In fact, corruption has many forms and is indeed an issue for every country. This project conducted and unbiased investigation on the roots of the problem for each case and offered valuable insight on whether common perception about the corruption has good reasons to exist. All findings can be accessed at the project's website at: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/crimeandculture/index.htm.

Related documents

• Final Report - CRIME AND CULTURE (Crime as a Cultural Problem. The Relevance of Perceptions of Corruption to Crime Prevention. A Comparative Cultural Study …)