ABSTRACT
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 48 “Eastern Europe” .................................................................................................. 48 Kosovo ................................................................................................................... 48
The Republic of Kosovo .................................................................................. 48 The United Nations Administered Kosovo .................................................. 49 Planned European Union Involvement ........................................................ 51 The “Russian Roadblock” and Kosovo’s “Independence” ........................... 51 The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo ................................ 52 Criminality and Safety within Kosovo .......................................................... 52 Organized Crime Activity within Kosovo .................................................... 53 Corruption within Kosovo ............................................................................. 54 Recommendations for Kosovo to Move Forward ....................................... 56
Ukraine .................................................................................................................. 57 Contemporary Ukraine .................................................................................. 57 Instability and Conflict in Ukraine ............................................................... 58 Crime and Corruption in Ukraine ................................................................ 59 Recommendations for Ukraine to Move Forward ...................................... 61
Criminological Explanations for Public Corruption ....................................... 62 Public Corruption and Abuse ........................................................................ 62 State Crime Theory .......................................................................................... 62 International Strain Theory ............................................................................ 63 Police Deviance and Corruption ................................................................... 63 Theories of Crime and Police Deviance ........................................................ 64 Criminological Explanations for Police Corruption ................................... 65 Criminological Explanations for Police Criminality .................................. 66
Summary and Conclusion ................................................................................... 66 Kosovo, Ukraine and Eastern Europe ........................................................... 66 The Challenges of Countering Public Corruption through Foreign Assistance ........................................................................................... 67
References .............................................................................................................. 68
Most of the states that fell under the Soviet Union or Soviet influence prior to the end of the cold war, from Hungary on the west, across to the eastern Russian coastal border, down south through the Balkan states, often generically referred to as Eastern Europe, have been chronically plagued by corruption that permeates both public and private organizations. To many, paying a bribe to obtain a service continues to be a routine practice in all daily activities. In order to better understand these phenomena, two nations, the independent Republic of Kosovo, which has been under international supervision since the end of the conflict with Serbia in 1999, and Ukraine, presently undergoing political and constitutional reform since the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014, will be compared, contrasted, and analyzed in order to better comprehend the underlying causes of the criminality, misconduct and fraud that pervade Eastern European society. Criminological explanations will be examined, and the impact of efforts at political and sociological reform by international organization and nations will be evaluated.
