ABSTRACT
Introduction It is almost commonplace for articles dealing with corruption and anti-corruption to start by remarking on what is normally described as an explosion of interest in the subject in the past decade.1 And indeed, in no other part of the world is ‘corruption eruption’ as aptly observed as in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe: a recent study found an approximately sevenfold increase in press coverage of corruption in six East Central European (ECE) countries between 1996 and 2004, a higher growth than anywhere else around the globe.2 Reflecting increasing salience in the political and public discourse, scholarly attention has kept apace, with numerous academic articles and books looking at corruption in the ECE context. In addition to the themes generally discussed in the literature, such as the relationship of corruption with development, democracy and democratisation, this
1. The author is chairman of the Board of Transparency International Hungary (TI-H). This article was written in a personal (academic) capacity; the views expressed in the following do not necessarily represent those of TI-H. 2. Alexandru Grigorescu, ‘The Corruption Eruption in East-Central Europe: The Increased Salience of Corruption and the Role of International Organizations’, East European Politics and Societies 20 (2006): 527. For the purposes of this article, ECE refers to the post-communist member states of the EU.
