Baltic Journal of Economic Studies (Sep 2018)
CORRUPTION AS A NEGATIVE SOCIAL PHENOMENON HINDERING THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyse the current state of fighting corruption as one of the negative phenomena that hinder the economic development of the state, parasitizing the whole body of Ukrainian society. It is emphasized that existing in society, being a product of social relations, corruption permeates various social spheres of society, deforms various groups of social relations. It is appropriate that a narrowly chosen approach to preventing such a negative phenomenon significantly reduces the effect of such an activity and, as a result, does not enable to form an autonomous system that would be resistant to other accompanying risk factors. It is worth paying attention to the problems that are gaining the objective acuteness in recent times and are to oppose the state regulation of the economy by administrative methods and the so-called “freedom” of the development of economic relations. The need for operational intervention in the economy by state institutions through the adoption of managerial decisions, taking into account the growth of the global economic crisis, produces a separate phenomenon – economic corruption. However, the strong link between the social and economic spheres indicates the need for a comprehensive counteraction to such a socially dangerous phenomenon. Along with this, the determinants of the spread of corruption in Ukraine are characterized by their social nature, and less – by an economic one. It is stressed that corruption can be considered as a kind of social corrosion, which erodes and destroys public authorities, in particular, the state and society as a whole. The article reveals the content and significance of corruption, its types and forms. It is indicated that corruption – a social phenomenon that has a social conditionality and rules of social development and influence on social processes. The social nature of corruption manifests itself first of all in the fact that it has historical origins and social preconditions. Practical importance of the scientific research is to find out the causes and consequences of corruption for the economic development of the state, which is extremely important for improving the current legislation of Ukraine, which cannot be effective without conducting a high-quality anti-corruption expertise, built on a clear mechanism for conducting such an examination and reliable, validated methodologies. Methodology. The methodological foundations of the study of corruption are determined by a set of methods of scientific knowledge, which allow considering this problem as a multidimensional, multidisciplinary phenomenon. The research strategy, which is the basis of the integrated approach, grounds, first of all, on the following methodological principles: the formulation of a general theoretical concept; the development of cross-cutting concepts and categories that ensure the unity of the approach to the research object.
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