How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes

1.2. The research question

The research question of this study addresses the core of the dilemma described above:

Why do presidents in Ukraine use different political strategies and discursive framings for dealing with corruption? How do they practice corruption as a tactic to maintain political domination in hybrid regimes?

It is assumed that the political leadership of a hybrid regime needs to practice corruption as a rational action in order to maintain its dominance. Since corruption is an expected behavior, political leaders risk losing the support of the strategic elite if they refuse to favor their clients during the redistribution of public resources. However, the costs of blatantly practicing corruption can be too high due to international pressure and the risk of losing popular support and the resulting damage to electoral prospects. Especially since the mid-1990s, corruption, as a topic, has become increasingly important in international politics, and has resulted in the establishment of several international anti-corruption regimes by the mid-2000s (Moroff 2005). International actors, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations (UN), the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as Transparency International (TI) have developed a variety of instruments—from conditionality during financial assistance (IMF, EU) to control and peer review mechanisms (OECD, CoE) as well as mechanisms of “shaming and blaming” (e.g. TI Corruption Perception Index)—in order to force national governments to introduce anti-corruption measures.2 Thus, considerable credits and development assistance are reliant upon the implementation and success of anti-corruption measures.

Citizens, too, are increasingly aware of the negative consequences of political corruption and they condemn blatantly corrupt practices. As indicated above, the main trigger of the Orange Revolution was electoral fraud. Also, removing the corrupt political elite was among the chief demands during the Euromaidan. Both revolutions witnessed a change of political leadership, although they did not change the regime.

1.3. The central argument

The central argument of this study is that under conditions of instability and permanent oscillation, political leaders in pursuit of political domination instrumentalize both public framing and the hidden practice of corruption. They engage in corruption in order to increase their power and material resources. The practice of corruption allows cooperation with strategic partners or exclusion and coercion of one’s opponents. Framing corruption is applied to develop anti-corruption policies in a particular way that legitimizes and institutionalizes the political domination of a presidency that has been achieved by means of corrupt practices. In other words, corrupt practices and anti-corruption policy are two sides of the same coin: they are highlighted and exercised to maintain domination on an uneven playing field by maintaining a prevalence of resources and hierarchies in the constellation of actors.

The theoretical assumption of this study is that different patterns of corrupt practices and framing fulfill varying functions. The analysis of corrupt practices and framing under different regime trajectories will be applied to demonstrate the interdependencies of political tactics utilizing corrupt practices and the trajectories of a hybrid regime. Thus, the answer to the empirical question about framing and practicing corruption as tactics for political domination in Ukraine will contribute to the theoretical question:

What functions does political corruption have in hybrid regimes and how do different tactics of framing interdepend with hybrid regime trajectories?

At the edge of transformation and corruption studies, this work combines theoretical concepts from both fields of research. In transformation studies, this combination enriches the explanatory potential of political corruption as an intervening variable in hybrid regimes. Corruption research will be enriched through the concept of the system of corruption as an immanent part of a hybrid regime. Studying the system of corruption marks an important shift from the focus on quantitative assessment of the level of corruption to the in-depth assessment of the dynamic mechanisms and implications of the system of corruption. The system perspective assumes that the features and implications of corruption are not the same in all contexts, even though high scores on the quantitative scale of corruption may suggest that they are. This approach allows analyzing different patterns of how the system of corruption operates, and what implication the system has on political and economic development. Most importantly, it assists in explaining the failures of the anti-corruption policies in place and designing innovative tools to counteract corruption.

1.4. Methods of data collection and analysis

For the data collection and analysis, the following methods have been applied: Explorative expert interviews, process tracing, qualitative content analysis and textual legislation analysis.

Explorative expert interviews

At the outset of this study, ten explorative expert interviews were conducted (Gläser and Laudel 2010). The aim of the expert interviews was twofold: to review initial theoretical assumptions about the particularities of political corruption in Ukraine, and to identify specific assumptions about varieties of the system of corruption under different presidents and the factors that influenced these variations. The explorative interviews were designed as open-ended questions. Three central questions were posed to all experts, while clarifying questions differed depending on the specific subject of conversation and the area of expertise. The three central questions were:

Q. 1: What are the particularities of political corruption in Ukraine?

Q. 2: Are there any differences in the evolution of political corruption under different presidents in Ukraine?

Q. 3: Why do you think the respective differences occurred?

The length of the interviews varied between 30 and 90 minutes. Upon agreement with the experts, most of the interviews were recorded and transcribed for further analysis. The criteria for the expert selection were knowledge of the issue of political corruption in Ukraine, ability to provide precise information and willingness to share it, and availability of the expert (based on Gläser and Laudel 2010, 117 ff.). In addition, experts from different fields of work were selected in order to obtain a holistic overview of political corruption in Ukraine. As a result, experts from anti-corruption civil society organizations, international organizations, journalists, academics, and parliamentary employees were interviewed (Annex 1: Overview of the expert interview partners).

It is worth highlighting the important role of civil society as a source of information on political corruption and the assessment of anti-corruption. In Ukraine, multiple CSOs, in particular at the national level, professionalized their political role as watchdog organizations (Beichelt et al. 2014; Solonenko 2015; Worschech 2017). In the context of a politically dependent judiciary and prosecution, CSOs (among others, Anti-Corruption Action Centre, Chesno, Opora, Transparency International Ukraine) as well as the investigative journalists of Nashi Hroshi, Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske Radio became the only sources of societal control over executive and legislative branches of power, while investigating and revealing political corruption. Besides, very few independent and established think tanks (among others, the Centre of Policy and Legal Reform, Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Razumkov Centre, the Ukrainian Centre for Independent Political Research) became a critical source for the analytical assessment of Ukrainian policymaking, including anti-corruption policies. For this reason, the investigations of the publicly renowned journalists and activists and the expertise of selected think tanks are an important source providing information about corruption practices and an impartial assessment of anti-corruption policies and infrastructure for this study. At the same time, the critical voice of civil society evolved in the course of time. For instance, there are very few investigations about political corruption in the mid-1990s, while there were several murders of investigative journalists, including the prominent case of Heorhiy Gongadze, in that decade. In the third case study, however, there are multiple organizations and individual journalists working and publishing on the issue of corruption. Thus, the change of political context that provided a window of opportunity for politically critical CSOs to evolve is, indirectly, an object of interpretation in the elaboration of regime trajectories.

Process tracing

For the analysis of the research question “How do presidents in Ukraine practice corruption as a tactic to maintain political domination in hybrid regimes?” process tracing has been applied. Compared to other methods for structuring case studies, the use of process tracing offers several advantages. First, the purpose of this study is to analyze the functions of corruption in the trajectories of different regimes. Process tracing made it possible to tackle the dynamic of the regime and trace changes in political tactics. Second, this method is “commonly defined by its ambition to trace causal mechanisms” (Beach and Pedersen 2013, 1). This explicit focus on causal mechanisms differentiates process tracing from the typical congruence methods (George and Bennett 2005) that are restricted by the strict causalities between dependent and independent variables (Wendt 1998, 105). As Beach and Pedersen (2013, 4 ff.) summarize:

Congruence investigates correlations between X and Y, whereas process-tracing investigates the working of the mechanism(s) that contribute to producing an outcome. Process-tracing methods go beyond correlations by attempting to trace the theoretical causal mechanism(s) linking X and Y.

Thus, in the empirical case studies, process tracing of corrupt practices in pursuit of political domination reveals the functions of corruption in the process of regime oscillations with regard to prevalence of resources and the constellation of actors. Third, the internal process of strategy building by the actors is hidden and only the assessment of external activities makes statements about actors’ strategies possible. Process tracing reveals how the political tactics of each president changed and adapted according to the regime dynamic, which in its totality allows generalization about a general strategy and its success.

Qualitative content analysis

In order to conduct framing analysis, qualitative content analysis of presidential speeches, citations, and press conferences mentioning corruption between 1994 and 2014 was conducted. The data covers about 1,200 news articles, from the databases of Factiva and Integrum, texts of speeches, and autobiographies. The data was collected in two steps. In a first step, official speeches of each president, such as the annual address to the parliament or to the nation, were collected in the digital archive of the Verkhovna Rada—the Parliament of Ukraine and its official publication “Holos Ukrainy.” By means of an electronic search for the term “corruption,” only relevant speeches were selected for the content analysis. In the second step, in the databases of the electronic newspapers Factiva and Integrum, I conducted a search for direct quotes or interviews by the presidents published in the press. The search inquiry included the term “corruption” (in both Ukrainian and Russian spelling), the name of the president and a verb that indicates an action by the president (e.g. “said,” “mentioned,” “indicated,” etc.). The search inquiry was limited to a text unit of 5 words. The final data set excluded duplications and contained only articles with direct quotes by a president. The central unit of analysis was a direct quote of a president with regards to the term “corruption” and not the interpretation of a journalist. Given this focus, reflections about political affiliation or ownership of the media are not of interest for this analysis. The list of sources exploited for the search in the databases is provided in Annex 2.

Data analysis was conducted with MaxQDA. The essence of the qualitative content analysis is “assigning successive parts of the material to the categories of a coding frame” (Schreier 2014, 170). Coding was done in a systematic and simultaneously flexible way that aimed at reducing the data and selecting relevant aspects of the meaning (Schreier 2014, 170). The concept-driven approach was selected to analyze data in line with the four main theoretical approaches to corruption and the concept of framing (elaborated in Chapter 3.2). This means that main framework of categories was developed in advance, covering the description and definition of corruption, its causal interpretations and judgment, as well as recommended remedies (Entman 1993). However, in the process of data analysis, the categories were revisited and expanded (Schreier 2014, 174). The codebook is summarized in Annex 3. Given the large number of sources, the use of numerical data for internal generalizability was useful for revealing framing patterns, although the research was designed and conducted as a qualitative study (Maxwell 2010). The book provides only selected citations of presidential speeches as examples that reflect each framing pattern most precisely.3

Textual legislation analysis

In order to analyze how public framing of corruption influences anti-corruption policies, textual analysis of anti-corruption legislation was conducted. Annex 4 contains the list of anti-corruption legislation between 1991 and 2014, analyzed in the study. Importantly, the legislation was analyzed independently of its implementation, since the aim is to analyze the anti-corruption policy as a contested space between multiple political actors. The analytical framework of this analysis follows the framing analysis of corruption. It examines the assumption that, depending on the conceptual framing of corruption, anti-corruption policy is exploited by the political leadership to increase their political domination.

1.5. The structure of this study

The study is structured into theoretical and empirical parts. The theoretical part, chapters 2 to 5, conceptualizes corruption, hybrid regimes, and theorizes the interdependency between the system of corruption and the dynamic of hybrid regimes. The conceptualization of corruption is done in two different research paradigms—the empirical-analytical approach (Chapter 2) and social constructivism (Chapter 3)—in order to unfold the complexity of the corruption phenomenon. Chapter 2.1 introduces the empirical-analytical and social constructivist approach, while the rest of the chapter conceptualizes corruption in line with the first research logic. In particular, chapter 2.2 identifies corrupt practices by defining the core characteristics of corruption. Further, in chapter 2.3, a variety of different forms and mechanisms of corruption are presented, while focusing on the difference between two equilibria—corruption as an exception or as a norm. Chapter 2.4 aims to analytically sharpen the blurred lines between corruption and other forms of particularism. Chapter 2.5 theoretically conceptualizes the system of corruption and its variation.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to the analysis of corruption through the constructivist lens as well as its systematic confluence with the empirical-analytical approach. In particular, this chapter elaborates how different empirical concepts of corruption can be utilized through framing. Chapter 3.1.1 defines corruption as an empty signifier and discusses the implications of such an approach for the construction of political identities. Further, this chapter introduces the concept of framing as a key tool for using the topic of “corruption” in political tactics and synthesizes the implications of a post-structural perspective for political domination. Chapter 3.2. discusses a variety of agency- and institution-centered explanatory approaches to corruption that can be exploited for different framing tactics. These approaches are summarized in Table 2, Chapter 3.3 includes an overview of the possible functions for different framing tactics.

Chapter 4 conceptualizes hybrid regimes in the context of transformation studies and the role of corruption therein. Chapter 4.1 provides a general overview of the concept of hybrid regimes in order to contextualize this research within the field of transformation studies. Chapter 4.2 introduces the characteristics of hybrid regimes and focuses in particular on the uneven playing field. It contextualizes the idea of uneven playing in the literature on presidentialism and discusses the interplay of formal and informal institutions in hybrid regimes. Chapter 4.3 elaborates an interdependence between the type of corruption system and trajectories of hybrid regimes. In particular, the type of corruption system is connected to the patterns of elite interaction and distribution of public resources. Chapter 4.4 operationalizes actors’ action and conceptualizes political strategy and tactics for political domination in regime dynamics.

Chapter 5 applies the theoretical concept of the system of corruption to the political system of Ukraine, which allows the combination of transformation studies and corruption research and the application of relevant concepts to the case of Ukraine. Chapter 5.1 introduces the term “oligarchs” and elaborates upon their role in the political system. Chapter 5.2 tackles a model for the system of corruption within Ukraine. While most corruption researchers work with rather static structural typologies, a dynamic model of the system of corruption was developed for this study. It is essential to be able to analytically consider dynamics, when researching corruption in hybrid regimes, because permanent oscillation is one of their defining characteristics. The model of the system of corruption explains the role of corruption in regime dynamics and allocates distinct forms of political corruption in the political cycle. This model arrays different forms and mechanisms of political corruption in a coherent interdependency. Additionally, the model allows locating individual actors and their agency in a time-specific context. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of political corruption in the durability of the hybrid regime in Ukraine (Chapter 5.3).

The empirical part of the study consists of three case studies of corrupt practices and framing as political tactics under three Presidents: Leonid Kuchma (Chapter 6), Viktor Yushchenko (Chapter 7), and Viktor Yanukovych (Chapter 8). All three case studies are structured in the same way and consist of five parts. The first part identifies the point of departure for the strategy of the president with a focus on the initial power resources and constellation of actors in the political system. Next follows an analysis of the particularities of the corrupt practices as tactics for political domination. The synthesis of the second part summarizes the implications of corrupt practices for the president’s access to power resources and dynamics in the constellation of actors, which is crucial for the trajectory of the regime. The third part is dedicated to the analysis of corruption framing as a tactic for political domination. Framing tactics are considered the basis for the anti-corruption policy, analyzed in the fourth part. The synthesis aims to show how different frames of corruption influence anti-corruption policy. Further, it demonstrates how anti-corruption policy is exploited by presidents for political domination. The conclusion in the fifth part provides an assessment of the general strategy for political domination, its success and the tactics utilized to achieve it. The focus of the analysis is on the functions of corrupt practices and framing for the prevalence of power resources and interaction with other actors (external points of reference) in order to create hierarchies in the constellation of actors.

Chapter 9 concludes the study with a synopsis and comparative analysis of the empirical research. It discusses implications of this research for further anti-corruption activities and provides recommendations. Finally, the chapter provides prospects for future research.

1 According to the December 7–8, 2013 survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 75 % of Maidan participants claimed that the dismissal of the government and early presidential elections were necessary, and 50 % considered it crucial to punish the corrupt political elite. 1,037 respondents were questioned. See “Maidan-2013,” Fond “Demokratychniinitsiatyvyimeni Ilka Kucheriva, Available online at: https://dif.org.ua/en/article/maydan-2013-khto-stoit-chomu-i-za-shcho, last accessed 21 June 2018.

2 For the evolution of international anti-corruption regimes and their instruments and mechanisms, see Moroff 2005; Chene and Dell 2008; Sousa, Larmour, and Hindess 2010.

3 The sources cited as an example for the framing are listed in the bibliography as “Primary sources for the framing analysis.” Several online newspapers, such as Ukrainska Pravda and UNIAN, serve also as a source of information for the overall analysis in this study and are included in the list of references.