Attitude to corruption practices of Russians and Chinese: Cross-cultural analysis

Abstract

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the attitude of Russians and Chinese towards corrupt practices. The study was conducted anonymously in an online survey using the service https://webanketa.ru. 275 Russians and 105 Chinese took part in it. To determine attitudes towards corrupt practices, the author’s questionnaire was developed, based on the color model of A. Heidenheimer (2015). The questionnaire consisted of 59 hypothetical situations, to assess the corruption of which a 7‑point scale was used. For the Chinese participants in the study, a bilingual philologist translated the questionnaire into Chinese. Reliability testing of the instrument confirmed high consistency of the data (Cronbach α = 0.962). The results of factor analysis made it possible to identify three factors and confirm the color model (black, gray, white) of the perception of corruption by A. Heidenheimer. The results of the study made it possible to identify both general features and culturally specific features of the perception of corruption. A comparative analysis of the data showed that deviant actions of officials or persons whose social role is strictly regulated in society and presupposes high moral qualities (judge, doctor, policeman, etc.) were assessed by respondents as highly corrupt in both samples. Also, in both national groups, respondents gave lower ratings to the corrupt actions of holders of such social roles as a flight attendant, teacher, or coach than to the corrupt actions of officials, who were subject to higher moral requirements. At the same time, respondents from China statistically reliably assessed hypothetical situations of black corruption as less corrupt, unlike Russians. White corruption, on the contrary, was condemned by the Chinese significantly more than by the Russians. The results obtained reflect the transcendental legitimation of power inherent in the Chinese mentality and the horizontal responsibility captured in the guanxi phenomenon.