CULTUROLOGICAL ROOTS OF CORRUPTION IN SERBIA

Abstract

This paper examines the idea of corruption in Serbia, primarily from the cultural perspective. Dimensions of culture, identified by Geerd Hofstede from his well-known researches, are used in the analysis. In this paper, special attention is directed to the distance power as the most important and signi- ficant dimension for generating the corruption in a society. Comparative analysis of power distance index is used in countries with the lowest and highest corruption index. This leads us to the conclusion that the power distance, as one of the key cultural dimensions, influences the level of corruption in a certain society. Since Serbia is one of the countries that has got a high power distance index, a high index of cor- ruption is not a surprise. Success in rooting out corruption, primarily depends on cultural change, which is a slow and difficult process, but not impossible.