Socio-cultural background and differences in corruption spread in Russia

The challenges facing Russia, which are primarily connected with the need to ensure high rates of economic growth, high level and quality of life of the population and reduce the technological gap to the developed countries of the world, require improving the efficiency of public administration and minimizing the phenomenon of corruption, which is so common in this country. According to the international expert organizations, Russia occupies one of the most disadvantageous places in the ranking of countries in the world in terms of the level and prevalence of corruption violations in the political life and economic environment. Today, in Russia, anticorruption is declared as one of the key tasks of the state policy. The Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated June 29, 2018 No. 378 “On the National anticorruption plan for 20182020” was adopted. A set of measures to prevent corrupt behavior is being implemented by the public authorities; the commissions to resolve the conflicts of interest have become common and widespread. At the same time, sharp discussions continue in the scientific and expert community about the very possibility of fighting corruption, given the regions’ territorial inequality and the role of the national component in the depth of corruption. The purpose of the article is to analyze and assess the level of corruption in the context of Russia’s national and sociocultural diversity. Based on the analysis of statistical data on the registered corruption offenses, it is shown that the level of corruption in the national republics is often lower than that on the national level, which indicates a low objectivity of data on the offenses in the corruption behavior assessment. The author comes to the conclusion that there are serious sociocultural prerequisites for corruption within the national republics, however, they are not always reflected in the reports of the Prosecutor General’s office of the Russian Federation. According to the author, the phenomenon of “national bribery” does exist, but the role of Federal authorities in the processes of improving the quality of public administration should not be underestimated.