ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the more conceptual and descriptive literature on the extent and type of corruption in post-communist Europe. It introduces the major hopefuls of combatting corruption with attention to specific arguments and approaches. The transition from communism to democracy opened up the political systems to myriad new factors and influences with a potential to also affect the likelihood of political elites and the public to engage in corrupt behaviour. The post-communist countries implemented numerous institutional reforms in the late 1990s and the early 2000s in order to reduce corruption, partly driven by domestic forces and partly by the need to comply with European Union (EU) and other international requirements. Tatiana Kostadinova's regression results confirm that advancement towards accession did help limit the spread of corruption, independent from the influence of economic liberalisation and the material and technological capacity of states. The chapter concludes by outlining the major lessons from the literature and a potential research agenda.
