ABSTRACT
The image of widespread corruption has been strongly associated with Ukraine’s politics for years. 1 Two revolutions in the country—the Orange Revolution against electoral fraud and the Revolution of Dignity against the authoritarian tendencies under the presidency of Yanukovych—disappointed observers who were expecting immediate change towards integrity in the public sector and the impartial distribution of public resources. Indeed, the so-called “big-bang” approach to overcoming endemic corruption in Ukraine has been a widespread expectation based on two major assumptions. First, the principal-agent conceptualization of corruption implies that the will and capacity to tackle widespread corruption may come with a radical change in political leadership. The cases of successful anti-corruption reforms in Singapore and Georgia were suitable demonstrations of this logic. However, the new leadership in Ukraine after both revolutions disappointed observers with the lack of rigorous anti-corruption actions. Second, the institutions-centered approach implies that changing the constitutional order might trigger improvements. However, this approach also failed to change the corruption-based logic of politics in Ukraine. Thus, I conceptualize corruption not as an institution or individual decision but as a function in a (political) system that aims to reproduce and legitimize itself.
