Anti-corruption values in the system of British political axiosphere

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Anti-corruption values in the system of british political axiosphere

Kushnarov Ihor

PhD in Law, postdoctoral student of the Legal

Problems of Political Science Department

of the V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Purpose of research. The purpose of the article is to investigate the features of the British axiosphere as an example of public attitudes to political and other forms of corruption. Methodology. The research methodology is the neo-institutional analysis that considers corruption as a destructive informal institution with a devastating effect on the stability of the state. Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty lies in the author's original analysis of the problem of the lack of "zero tolerance" for corruption among the British people, who continue to tolerate it, as well as of the corruption pragmatism of the policy makers. Conclusions. The article states that, despite significant progress in combating all forms of corruption, a peculiar value confrontation of the “anti-culture of corruption” against the “culture of anti-corruption” is characteristic for the Great Britain. It is proved that, despite a large number of strategies, concepts, doctrines etc., a successful anti-corruption policy is impossible without fundamental changes in the social and individual consciousness, significant positive adjustments in norms, rules, and behavior of all kinds of political actors. It is argued that the modern British anti-corruption policy matrix, in order to be effective, should base the fight against corruption not only on the institutional mechanism, but also on formation of a high level of anti-corruption culture among the public, which should become the basis for building the whole system of corruption practices counteraction.

Key words: Great Britain, political culture, corruption, axiosphere, anti-corruption values.

Кушнарьов Ігор Володимирович, кандидат юридичних наук, докторант відділу правових проблем політології Інституту держави і права ім. В. М. Корейського НАН України

Антикорупційна культура у системі британської аксіосфери

Мета статті - дослідити особливості аксіосфери Великої Британії на прикладі ставлення громадськості до різних форм корупції з проекцією на необхідність формування антикорупційної культури. Методологія дослідження ґрунтується на міждисциплінарному поєднанні низки підходів: неоінституційний аналіз дає змогу розглянути корупцію як неформальний деструктивний інститут, що руйнівно впливає на стабільність держави; культурологічний підхід у поєднанні з аксіологічним уможливлює аналіз ціннісного протистояння "антикультури корупції" та "культури антикорупції". Наукова новизна полягає в авторському аналізі проблеми відсутності "нульової толерантності" в британців до корупції за збереження толерування їй, а також корупційного прагматизму суб'єктів політики. Висновки. Для Великої Британії, попри значні успіхи у протидії усім формам корупції, характерне своєрідне ціннісне протистояння "антикультури корупції" та "культури антикорупції". Успішна антикорупційна політика, попри значну кількість стратегій, концепцій, доктрин тощо, неможлива без фундаментальних зрушень у суспільній та індивідуальній свідомості, істотних позитивних коректив норм, правил і поведінки всіх політичних акторів. Сучасна матриця боротьби з корупцією у Великої Британії повинна орієнтуватися не лише на забезпечення антикорупційного інституційного механізму, а насамперед на формування у громадськості високого рівня антикорупційної культури, на основі якої доцільно вибудовувати всю систему протидії корупційним практикам.

Ключові слова: корупція, антикорупційні цінності, аксіосфера, антикорупційна культура, Велика Британія

Кушнарев Игорь Владимирович

Антикоррупционная культура в системе британской аксиосферы

Цель статьи - исследовать особенности аксиосферы Великобритании на примере отношения общественности к различным формам коррупции с проекцией на необходимость формирования антикоррупционной культуры. Методология исследования основана на междисциплинарном сочетании ряда подходов: неоинституци- ональный анализ позволяет рассмотреть коррупцию как неформальный деструктивный институт, который разрушительно влияет на стабильность государства; культурологический подход в сочетании с аксиологическим анализирует ценностное противостояние "антикультуры коррупции" и "культуры антикоррупции". Научная новизна заключается в авторском анализе проблемы отсутствия "нулевой толерантности" у британцев к коррупции при сохранении толерантности ей, а также коррупционного прагматизма субъектов политики. Выводы. Для Великобритании, несмотря на значительные успехи в противодействии всем формам коррупции, характерно своеобразное ценностное противостояние "антикультуры коррупции" и "культуры антикоррупции". Успешная антикоррупционная политика, несмотря на значительное количество стратегий, концепций, доктрин и т. д., невозможна без фундаментальных сдвигов в общественном и индивидуальном сознании, существенных положительных корректив норм, правил и поведения всех политических акторов. Современная матрица борьбы с коррупцией в Великобритании должна ориентироваться не только на обеспечение антикоррупционного институционального механизма, а прежде всего на формирование в общественности высокого уровня антикоррупционной культуры, на основе которой целесообразно выстраивать всю систему противодействия коррупционным практикам.

Ключевые слова: антикоррупционные ценности, аксиосфера, антикоррупционная культура, коррупция, Великобритания.

Urgency of the topic

axiosphere corruption public attitude

The example of Great Britain as a highly developed democratic state at the highest level demonstrates that political corruption is a "disease" that affects all the newest states, regardless of the level of development and political regime. However, the level of this "affliction" is correlated with a number of factors (political, economic, legal, etc.). In general, Great Britain "reined in" a corrupt offensive on the political sphere.

Despite its leading economic position, Great Britain is not the only leader in the process of rooting out political corruption. Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and other states are leading anti-corruption ratings too. Corrupt political scandals were associated with the names of the British Conservative Party P. Crades, the former Interior Minister J. Smith, the younger Minister of Social Security T. McNulty, the chairman of the Conservative Party, E. Pickles, and others. But the consistent implementation of anti-corruption values ensures steady high positions of these countries in anti-corruption assessments, such as the Corruption Perceptions Index. This index is an indicator of corruption in the public sector, government and activity of other political actors: 2012 - 74, 2013 - 76, 2014 - 78, 2015 - 81,2016 - 81,2017 - 82 point.

Analysis of researches

The scientist K. Friederich emphasized that in modern Britain and a number of other countries, political corruption is perceived as a special form of political pathology, rather than as a global disintegration [5, 22]. D. Canache and M. Alison rightly point out that political scandals in Great Britain have undermined citizens' credence and confidence in actions of the government, but did not destroy the democratic system of these countries [4, 96]. The high level of legal and political culture of the states, and the development of civil society institutions contribute to the fact that politicians retire in the context of a corruption scandals surrounding them.

It is necessary to analyse peculiarities of forms of political corruption in Great Britain, to determine differences of national anti-corruptive strategy and to assess experience and efficiency of their anti- corruptive reforms.

The purpose of the research is to investigate the features of the British axiosphere as an example of public attitudes to political and other forms of corruption.

For several hundred years, Great Britain has been trying to solve the problems of ethics, the standards of righteousness of government officials and politicians. These issues remain on the agenda of the United Kingdom today: public opinion polls express concern about the level of corruption, and the government continues to discuss mechanisms for anti-corruption protection in politics. British civil society, especially thanks to the powerful capabilities of the new media, "holds in the sight" its politicians and parties. Obviously, this gives some positive results, considering the steady increase of the position of Great Britain in the Corruption Perceptions Index over the past five years.

In May 2016, the World Anti-Corruption Summit was held in London, which is another evidence of the urgency of the corruption issue for this country. For Great Britain, political corruption is the subject of active investigations and scientific analysis. Thus, one of the latest researches of the problem of British political corruption by the professor at Liverpool University D. White sharply states it in the title and poses a key question - "How corrupt is Britain?" [6].

An important problem in the area of political corruption is selling of deputy seats. While looking at historical excursus, it is important to state that by 1911 British parliamentarians had not received official salary. Still a seat of the deputy was considered to be extremely profitable. From the end of the 18th century and till 1911 deputies publicly sold state positions, which was announced in printed press. This was a legal procedure, which was stopped only after increase of public indignation and substituted with remuneration of labour. By means of it, there arose possibility to minimize corruption by assigning for state positions.

There arises an idea that separate political parties of Great Britain in modern time still practice position "privatization", which was more characteristic for 17th century than the current law: many of them openly sell privileged access to the government. The corruption scandal in 2006 concerning the distribution of seats in the House of Lords (the case of "donations in exchange for titles") has become perhaps the loudest. There fell a suspicion on the leadership of the state (the government) in giving seats in the House of Lords in exchange for the financial support of the Labour Party before the 2005 elections. After the investigation was initiated, it turned out that at least four candidates for House of Lords had given significant amounts (which, moreover, were not declared) to the Labour Party fund. In this case, politicians of the highest rank were interrogated, including that-time British Prime Minister T. Blair. It is important to note that the practice of selling titles and positions was legally banned in 1925. And in 2000, the Law on Political Parties, Elections and Referendums consolidated the requirement to disclose information on sponsorship.

The readiness of British justice to consider the question, in which the defendants are parliamentarians, has sharply raised the issue of parliamentary immunity. This principle has a long history, beginning with the Bill of Rights (1689), which had protected lawmakers from prosecution. Even the newer legal acts were protecting parliamentarians: in 2003, the court of highest resort decided that the parliamentary privilege should serve for preservation of the principle of separation of powers, which requires the judiciary powers not to interfere and not to criticize the activities of the legislature.

For the past five years, the situation with political corruption in the Great Britain has shifted towards a reduction. The jump-start for change was the large corruption scandal mentioned above in the parliament in 2009. This led to the emergence of a new system, aimed at ensuring greater transparency of funding allocated to deputies for the maintenance of their offices. Also, in 2010, the British law on bribery was passed; "it demands that organizations train their employees to see the ways in which bribery can penetrate their business practices and inform them about the steps they should take to prevent this phenomenon" [2].

Nowadays in Great Britain two problems became urgent:

1) corruption in the upper house of parliament (lords). Previously, its members were British noblemen of their descent, but now it is possible to become the one by paying a certain amount to party leaders;

2) financing of political parties by corporations. In the United Kingdom, there are no restrictions on political contributions, unlike, for example, in the United States of America or France. Therefore, the dependence of political parties on a small group of donators makes corruption possible. By threatening to stop donations, sponsors from the business environment are pressing for making profitable solutions. Thus, even foreigners can easily make a financial donation - they only need to be registered for "business activity" in the United Kingdom. Among the latest examples there can be amount of 76 million pounds, spent on a Brexit campaign. Most of these funds are donations from 10 private sponsors. It is important to note that in public opinion polls, most British people favour a total prohibition of politicians' funding by corporate entities and the private sector (59% according to the Transparency International Annual Global Corruption Barometer, 2016). British people began to express dissatisfaction with the settlement of the issue of financing the parties in the 1970s, when the report of Houghton was published and the procedure for allocation of budget funds to the opposition parties was established - that is, "Shortage Money" [1, 121]. As G. Monbiot states, "our system of funding political parties that has not been reformed allows very wealthy people to buy these parties".

In 2014, a scandal over D. Cameron and the British Conservative Party broke out because of suspicions of ties with lobbying companies (in particular, New Century), from which remuneration was received in the amount of Ј 85,000, which came to the party account a few months before the 2010 election, however such a sum is a third of the annual income of the "New Century". But at the same time it is important to understand: 1) a new global agenda - the fight against global corruption; 2) civilized lobbyism is an effective alternative to corruption in the case of the influence of interest groups on the state. First of all, lobbyists should be in the official register. According to the head of research of the Transparency International in the United Kingdom, N. Maxwell, less than 4% of lobbyists are registered in the register, and this only concerns the lobbying of ministers and secretaries of parliament, does not take into account lobbyists, who deal with parliamentarians and officials. Therefore, at least there arose a need to: 1) create a register that would cover both private lobbyists and lobbying companies, and would publicize more information about them; 2) publish available detailed information about lobbyists' meetings; 3) create an independent body that would monitor lobbying practices and enable compliance with the rules of civilized lobbying.

On April 27, 2017, a draft bill "Unexplained Wealth Orders" was adopted, which is aimed primarily at top corrupt officials. who invest illegally received funds into luxury real estate in London. This law is not less important than the British law on fight against bribery in 2010. In 2011, the United Kingdom Bribery Act came into force. It is based on the presumption of the guilt of the subject of political and other forms of corruption.

The innovation of this Act lies in the fact that its effect extends beyond the bounds of the United Kingdom - the principle of extra-territoriality applies to corruption crimes.

Still, it is necessary to emphasize that despite particular problems and legal gaps even members of Royal family do not have immunity from suspicions of being engaged in political corruption. For example, in 2010 newspaper "News of the World" accused Duchess Ferguson in organization of meetings with her exhusband, Prince Andrew, as representative of the state in trade issues, for an award (in one of such occasions sum of Ј500,000 was fixed).

In 2017, the British parliament (at the level of committee regulating the expenses and salaries of the MPs - The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) raised an anti-nepotism issue - a ban on the employment of relatives in auxiliary posts for a MP, paid from the budget. The issue is to prohibit elected parliamentarians to engage their spouses and other relatives to work paid from the state treasury, as this is not consistent with the modern employment approaches, which encourage a fair and transparent recruitment of staff. It is anticipated that this ban will take effect after the scheduled elections in 2020. The British legislative initiatives concerning the political nepotism counteraction are caused by the fact that, as of 2017, 151 out of 650 deputies of the House of Commons were working with their family members.

Great Britain is still characterized by the situation of the corruption of a person by the government, the belief that his high position will reprieve its bearer of responsibility, or that a state official, politician can manipulate his authority based on his own ideas of good and evil. Therefore, in this country, the issue of "parliamentary privilege" (parliamentary immunity), which is proposed to be cancelled or narrowed considerably in order to fight at least the illegal lobbying of deputies remains in the centre of public discussion. Of course, the scale of corruption in Great Britain is not proportional to the scale of such in most countries in the world, but at present the country cannot be considered as having "zero tolerance" to political and other forms of corruption.

Conclusions

The peculiarity of anti-corruption policy of Great Britain is common public interest in the issues related to lobbying and buying political influence, financing of political parties, transparency of elections, malversation of local governmental authorities, etc. Constant awareness of public is an important driver of anticorruption policy of Great Britain.

Morally and ethically, countering political corruption is equivalent to combating human sins, such as greed, thirst for pleasure, as well as the desire to usurp power, to win at any price etc. In all the definitions of corruption, the emphasis is on the selfish nature of the corrupt actions, therefore countering the corrupt practices in politics should be aimed at the most difficult human defect associated with the selfish motivations.

The anti-corruption system of values syncretizes the political traditions, morality, behavioral aspects and the knowledge of legal requirements. Therefore, we believe the "cultural mechanism" is one of the most important components of a successful process of countering corruption in politics.

Література

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2. Дубровик-Рохова А. Британія - жертва чи бенефіціар ТОП-корупції? / Алла Дубровик-Рохова // День. - 2017. - 16 берез.

3. Підбережник Н. Антикорупційна політика в країнах Західної Європи: досвід для України / Надія Під- бережник // Ефективність державного управління. - 2013. - № 37. - С. 123-132.

4. Canache D. Perceptions of Political Corruption in Latin American Democracies / Damarys Canache, Michael E. Allison // Latin American Politics and Society. - 2005. - № 3. - Vol. 47. - Р. 91-111.

5. Friedrich C. J. Corruption Concepts in Historical Perspective / Carl Joachim Friedrich // Political Corruption: Concepts and Contexts / A. J. Heidenheimer, M. Johnston (Eds.). - New Jersey: New Brunswick, 2007. - Р. 15-24.

6. How Corrupt is Britain? / David Whyte (Ed.). - London: Pluto Press, 2015. - 198 р.

7. Охріменко О.С. Повсякденність міст Англії: за матеріалами середньоанглійських фабліо ХІІІ ст. Вісник Національної академії керівних кадрів культури і мистецтв. Київ: Міленіум, 2014. № 3. С.269-272.

References

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4. Canache, D., Allison, М. (2005). Perceptions of Political Corruption in Latin American Democracies. Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 47, Is. 3, 91-111 [in English].

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