Trust Can Eliminate Corruption

On June 5, research fellows at the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) took part in the 3rd International Conference ‘Business Ethics and National Models of Behavior’, which was held at the Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance. 

On June 5, research fellows at the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) took part in the 3rd International Conference ‘Business Ethics and National Models of Behavior’, which was held at the Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance. The conference was organized by the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The HSE St. Petersburg and the European University in St. Petersburg also took part in the conference’s organization.

Two reports were presented by the LCSR during the event. Anna Almakaeva, Senior Research Fellow at the laboratory, spoke on ‘Modernization and Trust Paradoxes’. Using regression analysis she showed that the higher the level of trust, the lower the level of corruption. Each country goes through various stages of development: the pre-industrial period was dominated by traditional values, and the era of modernization by rational ideas. Postmodernists proclaim self-expression and freedom.

The level of trust was higher in the pre-industrial period before falling sharply in the period of modernization. It began to recover during the postmodern era. Unlike traditionalists, postmodernists begin to trust groups and people beyond the boundaries of their immediate communities.

The report by Alexey Oshepkov was dedicated to the factors involved in fighting corruption. He assumes that simple solutions never work, that corruption is stable and that it continues to exist in countries with high economic growth. However, corruption does not survive the pressure of new values when the generation of stability is replaced by the generation of emancipation, the latter of which requires fair elections instead of welfare and the preservation of social obligations.

By Tatyana Chernova