Corruption and corruptibility

SummaryThe expressed “norms and values” of both citizens and street-level officials explicitly condemn the giving or taking of bribes. However, citizens respond to extortion by officials, and officials respond to temptation by clients. This paper is based on over 6 000 interviews with the public and over 1 300 with “street-level” officials in four postcommunist countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine) who were questioned about (i) their values, (ii) their hypothetical/conditional behavior if exposed to extortion or temptation, (iii) their personal experience of extortion or temptation, and (iv) their actual behavior with respect to bribes.