Government favoritism in Europe: anticorruption report 3 (the anticorruption report) edited by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Opladen, Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2015)

Abstract

This volume contains papers that discuss the relationship between political corruption and organized crime using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The related studies were carried out within the framework of the European-Commission-funded ANTICORRP project, a large-scale research project being conducted with the participation of research groups from fifteen European countries. However, the editor of this volume concentrated only on five Eastern European countries in addition to Germany and Turkey in the selection of the articles. What makes the book unique and unusual is that these papers present cross-national evaluations concerning corruption based on new objective indicators instead of the well-known subjective perception indices that are usually used for this purpose. The analyses take into consideration the period between 2007 and 2013 and assess corruption risks in the construction sector based on two indicators. One of them deals with the practice of single bidding during calls for tenders, while the other is connected to the awarding of contracts to companies that have political connections. The existence (or co-existence) of such conditions may imply the presence of corruption; however, some more characteristics of public procurement can also be taken into consideration, such as the transparency of procurement procedures and the time that elapses between the announcement of tenders and the deadlines for application. The volume is edited by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, a Romanian political scientist and professor of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.