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Alternative strategies for coping with officials in different postcommunist regimes: the worm's eye view
Author(s) -
Grodeland Ase,
Koshechkina Tatyana,
Miller William L.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
public administration and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-162X
pISSN - 0271-2075
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-162x(199712)17:5<511::aid-pad983>3.0.co;2-h
Subject(s) - czech , bureaucracy , gossip , extortion , communism , language change , political science , coping (psychology) , sociology , political economy , law , psychology , art , philosophy , linguistics , literature , psychiatry , politics
This article uses focus group methods to see how citizens in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic view their interactions with postcommunist officials. In the Czech Republic, while they complain that bureaucracy has increased with the transition from communism, and they gossip about the need to use contacts and bribery, their own experience is much more positive, and the reforms they propose centre on efficiency and convenience. At the other extreme, citizens of Ukraine complain that corruption has increased because officials are no longer afraid, and their tales about bribery and extortion extend from general gossip to specific personal experience. They see advantages in more ‘control’ and more ‘fear’. Slovakia and Bulgaria fall between these two extremes, though perhaps are rather closer to Ukraine. People seldom suggest that reform is impossible or undesirable anywhere, and, in terms of attitudes towards dealing with officials, there is no simple, clear and definitive line marking a quantum change in culture between Catholic and Orthodox traditions, or between former Hapsburg, Romanov and Ottoman territories. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.