__________________________________________________

A paper prepared for the NISPAcee (Networks of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe) 7th Annual Conference, Sofia, 25-27 March 1999.
__________________________________________________

Caught between state and citizen:
the view from behind the official’s desk
William L. Miller, Ĺse B. Grřdeland and Tatyana Y. Koshechkina
University of Glasgow
Contents: 
Introduction
Officials ‘as citizens’ – in relation to other officials
Officials ‘as employees’ – in relation to the state
Economic problems of officials in context
Job ambitions and expectations
Officials ‘as officials’ – in relation to their clients
Willing and able to help?
The behaviour and strategies of clients
Officials’ criticisms of clients’ behaviour
Accepting presents and bribes
Officials’ attitudes to reform
Training and guidance
How did officials’ experience ‘as employees’ affect their relationship with clients?
Social background
A post-communist generation?
Institutional cultures
Specific occupations within institutions
Inadequate salaries, job insecurity and job expectations
Discussion

Synopsis:
Junior officials are located at the interface between state and citizen. It is not a comfortable position. They are under pressure from both sides. Throughout postcommunist Europe there is widespread public criticism of their behaviour. The public often accuse them of treating citizens unfairly and soliciting presents or bribes to solve citizens’ problems. At the same time they are often badly paid, under-resourced, and under-valued by the state. 
To understand their own perspective on these problems we interviewed junior officials or state employees who came into direct contact with the public in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In each country we aimed to interview 60 officials in each of five broad categories: health care, education, welfare offices, the police, and legal services. More precisely we aimed for 20 interviews in each of three narrowly defined occupations within each broad category: doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators (in health); university teachers, university administrators, and school teachers (in education); officials in pensions, benefits, and housing offices (in welfare); traffic police, ordinary police, and police administrators (in the police); court officials, customs officials, and passport officials (in legal services). To the public these represent the face of the state, whether or not they might be technically classified as ‘civil servants’. 
Since our interviewers usually exceeded their targets in each category and occupation, producing 1307 interviews in total, we have down-weighted the data to have the equivalent of exactly 20 interviews in each specific occupation in each country.  That facilitates comparisons between different countries, and between different kinds of official, since (after weighting) there is no correlation between types of official and countries.
Some of the questions we put to these officials were uniquely appropriate to them. But since we had already put many of the questions to the public we can compare the self-images of officials with the images that the public have of them. 
In the paper we look at officials:
•	as citizens themselves, in relation to other officials 
•	as employees in relation to the state 
•	as officials in relation to their clients 
As citizens themselves, junior officials articulate many of the same complaints about officials as do other citizens – and to much the same degree.  Their personal experience of taking their problems to officials is a little better than that of other citizens, but not fundamentally different.  On the other hand, even though they may have similar perceptions of officials’ behaviour, they interpret it differently: in particular they are much more willing than other citizens to excuse it.
As employees, junior officials complain about poor pay, late pay, job insecurity, lack of training and lack of resources. However these complaints need to be put into perspective. Ordinary citizens make similar complaints in these countries.  In comparative terms, officials may not be under so much economic pressure as they appear to be in absolute terms.  Moreover, the degree of economic hardship varies sharply across different kinds of official.
As officials in relation to their clients, junior officials have complaints to make against their clients.  Interestingly, there is a perfect rank-order correlation between the frequencies with which the public report they use eight different strategies towards officials, and the frequencies with which officials report their clients using these same strategies. To that extent, officials and clients have the same perspective on their relationship.  But in other, more evaluative, respects they have very different perspectives.  Officials have a much more positive view about their ability to help clients.
The paper also investigates the different perspectives and experiences of different officials. In particular it looks for evidence of distinctive perspectives and experiences in social categories defined by gender, education or a big city versus small town milieu. Such differences were generally slight.  It also looks for evidence of a new ‘postcommunist generation’ of officials. Such officials can be identified but they do not seem to have a particularly distinctive relationship with their clients. Employment-related factors had a greater impact on the way in which clients behaved towards officials as well as the way officials responded to clients.: economic pressure (poor pay, late pay), job insecurity (expectations of job cuts, optimism or pessimism about finding another job), job ambitions and expectations (especially expectations of moving to the private sector or self-employment) – and, not least, the institution and specific occupation in which the official was employed. 
There is a brief discussion of the implications of these findings.
END SYNOPSIS

__________________________________________________

A paper prepared for the NISPAcee (Networks of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe) 7th Annual Conference, Sofia, 25-27 March 1999.
__________________________________________________

Caught between state and citizen:
the view from behind the official’s desk
William L. Miller, Ĺse B. Grřdeland and Tatyana Y. Koshechkina 
University of Glasgow
Contents: 
Introduction
Officials ‘as citizens’ – in relation to other officials
Officials ‘as employees’ – in relation to the state
Economic problems of officials in context
Job ambitions and expectations
Officials ‘as officials’ – in relation to their clients
Willing and able to help?
The behaviour and strategies of clients
Officials’ criticisms of clients’ behaviour
Accepting presents and bribes
Officials’ attitudes to reform
Training and guidance
How did officials’ experience ‘as employees’ affect their relationship with clients?
Social background
A post-communist generation?
Institutional cultures
Specific occupations within institutions
Inadequate salaries, job insecurity and job expectations
Discussion

Introduction
Junior officials constitute the interface between state and citizen. It is not a comfortable position in postcommunist Europe. The public accuse them of treating citizens unfairly and soliciting presents or bribes to solve clients’ problems. At the same time they are often badly paid, under-resourced, and under-valued by the state. To understand how they felt we interviewed junior officials or state employees who came into direct contact with the public in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In each country we aimed to interview 60 in each of five broad institutional categories: health care, education, welfare offices, the police, and legal services. More precisely we aimed for 20 interviews in each of three specific occupations within each category:
i.	doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators (in health); 
ii.	university teachers, university administrators, and school teachers (in education); 
iii.	officials in pensions, benefits, and housing offices (in welfare); 
iv.	traffic police, ordinary police, and police administrators (in the police); 
v.	court officials, customs officials, and passport officials (in legal services). 
To the public these represent the face of the state, whether or not they might be technically classified as ‘civil servants’. 
Since our interviewers usually exceeded their targets, producing 1307 interviews in total, we have down-weighted the data to have the equivalent of exactly 20 interviews in each specific occupation in each country.  That facilitates comparisons between different countries, and between different kinds of official, since (after this weighting) there is no correlation between types of official and countries. Although some questions we put to officials were uniquely appropriate to them, we had already put others to representative samples of the general public in each country (with a total of 4778 respondents). 
In this paper we look at officials:
•	as citizens themselves, in relation to other officials 
•	as employees in relation to the state 
•	as officials in relation to their clients 

Officials ‘as citizens’ – in relation to other officials
Officials were citizens themselves. Each of them had to deal with other officials in their role as citizens as well as in their role as officials: teachers got stopped by traffic police, traffic police fell ill and had to go to hospital, and so on.  So before we asked officials about their interactions with their clients, we asked them about their own perceptions and experience as citizens interacting with other officials. 
Officials were somewhat less critical than the public about trends in the behaviour of politicians and officials since the end of communism. Even so, just over half the officials felt these trends had been for the worse. The views of Czech officials diverged most from those of the public: they were about 26 percent more positive than the Czech public.  But in other countries officials were only a little less critical than their public.

Table 1: Perceived trends in the behaviour of politicians and officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q54: Most politicians now behave worse than they did under communism	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	68
56	65
35	82
74	40
36	87
80	
Difference: officials – public	-12	-30	-8	-4	-7	
						
Q55: Most officials who deal with ordinary people and their problems treat people worse now than they did under communism	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	62
50	47
24	66
56	45
39	89
79	
Difference: officials – public	-12	-23	-10	-6	-10	

Just as many officials as members of the public (about 70 percent) alleged it was more likely than not that even a person who approached an official ‘seeking something to which they are entitled by law’ would ‘have to offer money, a present or a favour to get help’. Officials took a less critical view of similar officials – but only of very similar officials.  When hospital doctors were asked about hospital doctors, school teachers about school teachers, or customs officials about customs officials, and so on, the numbers who said presents or bribes were likely to be necessary went down from 70 percent to 51 percent on average. But at the same time, even slightly different professions were highly critical of each other: 
-	75 percent of nurses (compared to only 64 percent of doctors) said it would be necessary to give something to a hospital doctor
-	68 percent of school teachers (compared to only 48 percent of university teachers) said it would be necessary to give something to university staff
-	and 84 percent of passport officials (compared to only 61 percent of customs officials) said it would be necessary to give something to customs officials.  
 
Overall, the striking thing about officials’ perceptions of other officials is not that they were occasionally a little less critical than the public. The striking thing is the similarity, not the difference, between the perspectives of the public and of officials themselves. While officials defended those who did exactly the same job as themselves, they remained remarkably critical of officials in general.

Table 2: Perceived need to bribe various types of official	
Likely that the client would need to offer money, a present or a favour to…	Views of 
public	Views of all officials	
Views of  ‘very similar’ officials	
				defined as:	
Q60: hospital doctors	81	82	64	hospital doctors	
Q63: state ministry officials	81	81	69	benefits officials	
Q67: customs officials	75	78	61	customs officials	
Q62: university staff	68	71	48	university teachers	
Q65: court officials	72	70	46	court officials	
Q64: local government officials	68	67	44	benefits officials	
Q66: police	67	66	50	traffic police	
Q61: school teachers	39	42	26	school teachers	
					
Average of the above	69	70	51		

Q68: members of parliament	70	65	---	none 	
Q69: local councillors	60	54	---	none	
Q70: private sector	55	51	---	none	

‘On the whole’ officials themselves were more satisfied than the public with their actual treatment at the hands of officials though never by more than a few percentage points, except in Ukraine where they were 16 percent more satisfied than the public. 

Table 3: Satisfaction	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q127: personal experience of dealing with officials was satisfactory	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	67
73	72
77	71
75	68
68	55
71	
Difference: officials – public	+6	+5	+4	0	+16	

In their personal experience, officials had some advantages over other citizens in dealing with other officials. As might be expected, they felt more knowledgeable than the public when they approached other officials with a personal problem: they were 14 percent more likely to feel they ‘knew their rights’, and also 14 percent more likely to report that they ‘knew someone in the office.’ This ‘knowledge-bonus’ for officials was slight in the Czech Republic (5 percent), but it ranged between 16 and 19 percent elsewhere.

Table 4: The knowledge bonus						
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q133: Knew rights	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	46
60	51
56	52
66	36
55	44
64	
Difference: officials – public	+14	+5	+14	+19	+20
	
Q134: Knew someone in the office		%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	35
49	32
36	41
61	29
42	40
58	
Difference: officials – public	+14	+4	+20	+13	+18	
						
Average difference: officials – public	+14	+5	+17	+16	+19	

Officials were also more likely than the public to report that they had actually been treated ‘as equals’, ‘fairly’ or even ‘favourably’ when they took their problems to other officials. The differences were fairly small in every country except Ukraine. The ‘good treatment bonus’ for officials averaged just 5 percent in the Czech Republic and not much more in Slovakia or Bulgaria, but it reached 19 percent in Ukraine.

Table 5: The good treatment bonus						
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q129: usually treated as equals	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	37
44	52
48	32
36	40
50	23
42	
Difference: officials – public	+7	-4	+4	+10	+19
	
Q130: usually treated fairly		%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	44
54	66
72	51
61	38
41	20
43	
Difference: officials – public	+10	+6	+10	+3	+23
	
Q131: sometimes treated favourably (more than rarely)		%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	28
38	35
48	38
48	14
16	26
40	
Difference: officials – public
	+10	+13	+10	+2	+14	
Average difference: officials – public
	+9	+5	+8	+6	+19	

Despite their general criticism of other officials, officials seemed to have some advantages over other citizens when they approached officials with a personal problem. But, except in Ukraine, the advantages of being an official were small.

Officials ‘as employees’ – in relation to the state
Many officials, indeed a majority in Bulgaria and Ukraine, claimed that the state did not pay them enough to live on.  On average, 40 percent claimed that it was ‘not possible to live on their official salary’ and a further 28 percent that it was ‘possible, but very difficult’.  The numbers who said it was ‘impossible’ jumped from only 16 percent in the Czech Republic and 23 percent in Slovakia, to over 60 percent in Bulgaria and Ukraine.  Moreover, 49 percent in Ukraine (though very few elsewhere) said their salaries were ‘rarely or never’ paid ‘in full, on time’.  So Bulgarian and Ukrainian officials felt particularly badly paid, and Ukrainian officials complained that they were frequently not paid at all. 

Table 6: Salary problems of officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
X5: Not able to live on salary	40	16	23	62	60	
X4: Rarely (or never) paid on time and in full	14	2	2	3	49	

Small but significant numbers in Slovakia and Ukraine said that ‘tips and presents were an important part of their income’ – 12 percent in Slovakia and 7 percent in Ukraine. Many more, about a quarter overall, said they had ‘another source of income than their official salary’.  Those with additional sources of income were not always the worst paid however.  So about a quarter of all officials – just 10 percent in the Czech Republic and 15 percent in Slovakia, but 35 percent in Bulgaria and 40 percent in Ukraine – claimed that they could not live on their salary and that they had no other source of income.

Table 7: Job insecurity	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
X6: Another source of income	27	22	26	33	25	
X5, X6: Not able to live on salary and no other source of income	25	10	15	35	40	
						
X8: Very likely to lose job through cuts	17	7	8	23	29	
X9: Very difficult (or impossible) to get another job	39	33	20	50	52	

Even their badly paid jobs were insecure in Bulgaria and Ukraine, where about a quarter said they thought they ‘might lose their job because of job-cuts in the next year or two’. And just over half in these same two countries thought it would then be ‘very difficult or impossible’ to find another suitable job. Where salaries were worst, both job-security and the availability of alternative employment were also worst.  Officials in Bulgaria and especially in Ukraine were clearly under much worse economic pressure than in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Economic problems of officials in context
But officials’ economic problems need to be put into context. Life was tough for everybody in Bulgaria and Ukraine, not just for officials. In fact, life was easier for officials than for their clients. Indeed, where life was toughest for everybody, the differential advantages of officials over the public was the greatest. 
On average, officials were 12 percent less likely than the public to complain that their family living standard had got ‘much worse’ over the last five years, and 14 percent less likely to complain that their ‘family income was not enough to live on’. Within the Czech Republic the relative advantage of officials over the public averaged 6 percent, in Slovakia 11 percent, in Bulgaria 17 percent, and in Ukraine 20 percent.

Table 8: The comparative economic advantage of officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q1: in last five years, family living standard has got ‘much worse’	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	36
24	14
9	19
7	42
34	70
46	
Difference: officials – public	-12	-5	-12	-8	-24	
						
Q192: family income not enough to live on	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	31
17	12
6	14
4	45
20	53
38	
Difference: officials – public	-14	-6	-10	-25	-15	
						
Average difference: officials – public	-13	-6	-11	-17	-20	

And although support for the transition to a market economy varied sharply from country to country, officials were 17 percent more likely than their publics to support that transition in principle. They were also a little more likely than their publics to say that the transition had been ‘handled well’. That was consistent with the fact that officials, despite all their complaints, were not as pessimistic as the public about the trends in their family income.

Table 9: The comparative support of officials for the transition to a market economy	
Transition to a market economy was	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q7: right in principle	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	63
80	64
84	63
76	81
95	44
63	
Difference: officials – public	+17	+20	+13	+14	+19	

Job ambitions and expectations
Just over a quarter of officials said they would prefer to be self-employed or work for a private or foreign company rather than continue in the public sector. But only 15 percent expected to make the switch within the next five years. So despite their complaints about their public-sector jobs, which were no doubt real enough in absolute terms, most officials could not see much better prospects for themselves in the private sector.
Preferences for a switch to the private sector were greatest amongst those officials who had not been paid on time. But preferences for a switch to the private sector were affected less by inadequate salaries, and hardly at all by fear of job cuts. Expectations of a switch were a little greater than average in all three circumstances.

Table 10: Job preferences and expectations	
X10, X11 Work for private or foreign company, or as self-employed?	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
X10: would prefer it	26	27	23	25	30	
X11: expect it to happen within five years 	15	12	9	17	20	

Table 11: Job preferences and expectations by economic problems	
X10, X11 Work for private or foreign company, or as self-employed?	Average	If not possible to live on salary	If salary never 
paid on time	If very likely to lose job 	
	%	%	%	%	
X10: would prefer it	26	31	47	27	
X11: expect it to happen within five years 	15	21	26	22	

Officials ‘as officials’ – in relation to their clients
Officials recognised that they had problems in relation to their clients.  On average, over half of them said that the relationship between the public and officials was now worse than it had been under communism. In the Czech Republic only a minority of officials (35 percent) felt the relationship had deteriorated, but 55 percent took that view in Bulgaria, 63 percent in Slovakia and 72 percent in Ukraine. 

Table 12: Perceived trend in relations between citizens and officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
						
X67: The relationship between citizens and officials is worse now	56	35	63	55	72	

Willing and able to help?
 We asked officials about ‘top priority’ when a client came them with a problem: was it to…
(i)   ‘apply the laws and regulations as they are without question’
(ii)  ‘do what is fair and reasonable, but no more than that’
or	(iii) ‘help the client as much as possible’?
By default, this third option implied doing something more than ‘what was fair and reasonable’.  Nonetheless, half the officials indicated that it was their priority to give the maximum help, with roughly a quarter opting for each of the other alternatives.

Table 13: Priorities when dealing with a client	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X35: Main aim is…	%	%	%	%	%	
- to apply the laws and regulations without questioning them	27	23	21	40	25	
- to do what is fair and reasonable but no more than that	24	28	29	18	21	
- to help the client as much as possible	49	49	50	42	54	

On average, two thirds of officials said they themselves were now more able to help their clients than they had been under communism. That was a much more positive view than they expressed about trends in the behaviour of officials in general. However, the percentage who felt more able to help their clients ranged down from 84 percent in the Czech Republic to 56 percent in Ukraine.  And the rank-ordering across countries was the same, whether officials were commenting on the trends in their own ability to help clients, or about trends in the behaviour of officials in general. 
Understandably, officials were more positive (19 percent more) about themselves than about officials in general. But this gap between their ratings of their own performance and that of other officials was lowest in the Czech Republic (7 percent) and Bulgaria (11 percent), and highest in Slovakia (25 percent) and Ukraine (35 percent).  Thus, officials in Slovakia and Ukraine managed to combine a positive view of their own increasing ability to help their clients with a negative view about the declining standards of service provided by most officials in their country. Indeed in Ukraine a majority thought their own ability to help clients had improved despite the fact that four-fifths of them thought the behaviour of ‘most officials’ in Ukraine had deteriorated.

Table 14: Perceived trends in service provided by other officials, and by themselves	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Views expressed by officials	%	%	%	%	%	
X64: more opportunity to help people now	70	84	69	72	56	
Q55: most officials behave better now	51	77	44	61	21	
Difference: rating of themselves – rating of ‘most official’	+19	+7	+25	+11	+35	

Officials complained that the state did not provide them with the means to satisfy clients. Just under half complained that they did not have enough equipment (computers etc.) to get their work done efficiently – about a third in the Czech and Slovak Republics, but half in Bulgaria and two-thirds in Ukraine. Worse, a majority of officials in every country, ranging from 63 percent in the Czech Republic up to 90 percent in Ukraine, complained that they did not have sufficient funds to give their clients ‘their legal rights’.

Table 15: Lack of resources	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Do not have adequate….	%	%	%	%	%	
X65: equipment to get their work done efficiently 	44	33	30	48	65	
X66: funds available to give clients their legal rights	76	63	71	78	90	

The behaviour and strategies of clients
Relationships depend upon the behaviour of both sides. Twice as many officials as ordinary citizens alleged that clients behaved badly towards officials.  But the numbers were small: just 13 percent of officials and 7 percent of the public. There was a consensus that clients behaved worse in Ukraine however: 19 percent of officials and 13 percent of the public said clients in Ukraine behaved badly ‘on the whole’. Of course, many individual clients might behave badly towards officials even if clients behaved well ‘on the whole’.

Table 16: Perceived behaviour of clients	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
Q154: On the whole, people who go to officials with problems behave badly towards officials						
- replies by the public	7	5	4	5	13	
- replies by officials	13	9	11	14	19	
Difference: views expressed by officials – views of the public	+6	+4	+7	+9	+6	

Officials reported that their clients used different strategies towards them with varying frequency.  A simple indicator is the percentage of officials who said that clients used a strategy frequently – that is ‘usually’ or ‘sometimes’, in contrast to ‘rarely’ or ‘never’. Significantly, the frequencies with which officials reported clients had used these different strategies correlated exactly with the frequencies with which the public confessed that they had used them. This provides a remarkable degree of corroboration: both sides tell the same story.
At the top of the list, 82 percent of officials said clients had frequently ‘accepted their decisions even when they were dissatisfied with them’.  But 77 percent of officials also said clients had frequently ‘behaved in a friendly way just to get better treatment’. And 54 percent reported clients had frequently ‘argued’ with them.  Somewhat smaller numbers reported that clients had frequently ‘approached them through a contact’ (43 percent), offered ‘a small present’ (30 percent) or appealed over their head ‘to a superior official’ (27 percent). 
Relatively few reported that their clients had frequently ‘threatened violence’ (13 percent), offered ‘money or an expensive present’ (10 percent), or appealed to ‘an elected politician’ (8 percent).  However, at least on rare occasions, 37 percent of officials had been ‘threatened with violence’ and 27 percent had been offered ‘money or an expensive present’.
Both officials and their clients reported considerably more frequent offers of presents and bribes in Slovakia and Ukraine than in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Table 17: Client  strategies viewed from above and below	
	Average
	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
According to officials, their clients (‘people you dealt with recently as part of your official duties’) frequently (i.e. more than ‘rarely’)…	%
	%	%	%	%	
							
X44/Q135: accepted the official’s decision even when dissatisfied	82	(69)	84	79	87	79	
X45/Q136: behaved in a friendly way just to get better treatment	77	(64)	80	80	78	69	
X46/Q137: argued	54	(50)	37	52	61	66	
X50/Q140: approached the official through a contact	43	(31)	43	54	50	26	
X51/Q141: offered the official a small present	30	(25)	24	43	23	30	
X48/Q138: appealed to a superior official 	27	(21)	30	21	22	35	
X47: threatened violence	13 	(na)	12	11	17	13	
X52/Q142: offered the official money or an expensive present	10	(13)	7	14	9	11	
X49/Q139: appealed to an elected politician	8	( 9)	8	3	6	14	
							
Note: Figures in brackets are the frequencies with which the public said they had used these strategies in their dealings with officials.  The public were not asked about threatening violence.	

Officials’ criticisms of clients’ behaviour
Even though clients were not judged to have behaved badly ‘on the whole’, officials still had some criticisms to make. Just as the public thought the behaviour of officials had deteriorated since the end of communism, so officials felt that clients’ behaviour had deteriorated: they were not only more likely to complain, which might be in some respects a positive trend, but they were also more likely to offer bribes. From ‘their own experience’, 80 percent of officials said their clients were now more rather than less likely to complain, and 72 percent said their clients were now more rather than less likely to offer money, presents or favours. 
In general officials did not accuse various ethnic minority clients of behaving particularly badly.  But they accused gypsy clients of being particularly ‘rude and abusive’.

Table 18: Perceived trends in client behaviour	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Compared to communist times, clients are now more inclined to…	%	%	%	%	%	
X42: complain	80	89	82	88	60	
X43: offer money, presents	72	52	77	90	69	

For officials, the most frequent problem with clients was ‘excessive expectations’: 32 percent of officials said clients ‘usually’ had ‘excessive expectations’. That was followed, a long way behind, by allegations that clients ‘complained too much’ (16 percent) or ‘thought they could get what they wanted by offering money or presents’ (16 percent). Faults such as ‘going to the wrong office’ or ‘behaving rudely’ were less frequent.

Table 19: Most frequent client faults	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
(In the view of officials) People usually..						
X36: expect too much  	32	14	33	52	29	
X39: complain too much	16	7	15	24	16	
X40: think they can bribe	16	6	30	15	14	
X37: go to wrong offices	11	4	16	16	6	
X38: behave rudely	7	4	9	9	5	

What was the least frequent was the most annoying however. Officials cited clients’ ‘rude or abusive’ behaviour as ‘having the worst effect on relations’ between officials and clients. It was closely followed by ‘excessive expectations’ and by clients’ assumptions that they could get their way by offering money or presents.  By contrast, clients’ complaints and confusion, though frequent, caused very little resentment amongst officials.  

Table 20: Faults which have the worst effect on relations between officials and clients	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X41 Worst influence on relations with public is clients who...	%	%	%	%	%	
- behave rudely	31	42	15	36	33	
- think they can bribe	28	21	37	22	32	
- expect too much  	27	24	30	30	23	
- complain too much	8	4	9	9	11	
- go to wrong offices	6	10	11	3	2	

Perceptions of clients varied somewhat from country to country. Officials in the Czech Republic were far more annoyed by clients’ rudeness than by anything else. In Bulgaria they were most annoyed by a combination of rudeness and excessive expectations; in Slovakia by a combination of assumptions about bribery and excessive expectations; and in Ukraine by a combination of rudeness and assumptions about bribery.

Accepting presents and bribes
Many officials felt that clients should pay something extra (direct to the official) for special help. For solving the client’s problem ‘faster than normal’, 53 percent of officials thought it would be right to at least ‘accept something if offered’.  And in return for ‘extra work’ to solve a client’s problem, 60 percent of officials thought it would be right to at least ‘accept something if offered’. Indeed 16 percent of officials thought it would even be ‘right to ask for something’ from the client in these circumstances. 
This sense of moral justification was most prevalent in Ukraine where roughly two-thirds of officials supported the practice.  It was least prevalent in the Czech Republic where only 53 percent justified extra payments for ‘extra work’ and 40 percent for ‘faster work’. 

Table 21: Willingness to justify extra payments from clients	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X3: Solve problem faster 	%	%	%	%	%	
- right to ask for something	9	5	10	9	13	
- right to ask, or at least to accept, something	53	40	51	56	64	
						
X2: Extra work 	%	%	%	%	%	
- right to ask for something	16	11	14	19	18	
- right to ask, or at least to accept, something	60	53	59	61	67	

On average 47 percent of officials in our survey confessed that they would accept a ‘small present’ if offered by a client, and 17 percent that they would accept ‘money or an expensive present’ if offered. Indeed, 58 percent confessed that they had actually accepted something from a client recently, though only 5 percent admitted to accepting ‘something more’ than a small present. 
But many had not accepted a gift simply because they had not been offered one: amongst those who reported that they had ‘more than rarely’ been offered a ‘small present’, 78 percent confessed they had accepted. And amongst those who had ‘more than rarely’ been offered ‘money or an expensive present’, 25 percent confessed they had accepted.
Two-thirds of officials thought an official in a job like their own who did accept money or a present from a clients would be penalised. Only 36 percent said it was most likely that ‘nothing’ would happen to them, and a mere two percent that ‘the present would be confiscated’ and nothing more. But 29 percent said they would suffer ‘a more severe penalty’ and a further 33 percent that they would actually be ‘dismissed’. 

Table 22: Likely penalties for taking money from a client	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X30: What would be most likely to happen to a person in a job like yours who did accept money or a present from someone who came to them with a problem?						
	%	%	%	%	%	
- nothing 	36	29	42	42	30	
- confiscation	2	3	2	3	0	
- more severe penalty 	29	33	31	23	29	
- dismissal 	33	36	25	32	41	

But that severe view only surfaced when we asked explicitly about penalties. A majority of officials thought their government tolerated low-level officials accepting ‘money or expensive presents’ from clients. On average, just under half thought their government regarded it as ‘a corrupt practice to be eliminated’ – just over half in the Czech Republic and just under half in Slovakia and Bulgaria, but a mere 36 percent in Ukraine. Over a third of all officials thought their government regarded it as a temporary expedient that was ‘unfortunate but unavoidable until it could pay officials better salaries’, and another fifth thought their government even regarded it as ‘an informal way of charging for state services and paying officials’.  Only a third of officials thought their government was really trying to cut corruption amongst junior officials – though that was well over twice as many as thought their government was really trying to cut corruption amongst top government officials!  

Table 23: Perceived government tolerance for bribe-taking	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X69: The government regards low-level officials accepting money or expensive presents from ordinary people as …	%	%	%	%	%	
- a corrupt practice which it must liquidate	46	54	47	48	36	
- unfortunate but unavoidable until it can pay better salaries	35	37	23	36	42	
- an informal way of charging for state services and paying officials	19	9	30	16	22	
						
(Views of officials:)						
Q181: Govt really trying to cut corruption amongst top officials	14	11	12	24	7	
Q182: Govt really trying to cut corruption amongst junior officials	34	34	25	44	34	
Difference: low-level – high-level	+20	+23	+13	+20	+27	

Only 13 percent of officials blamed the practice of taking ‘money or presents’ from clients on the ‘greed’ of officials. Three times as many of the public took that view.  Conversely, officials were much more likely than the public to lay the blame on ‘the government’ because it ‘does not pay officials properly’. 

Table 24: The basic cause of bribe-taking is greedy officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q177: Basic cause of taking from clients is ‘greedy officials’	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	39
13	37
15	30
16	39
7	48
12	
Difference: officials – public	-26	-22	-14	-32	-36	

If they did accept ‘money or a present’ for solving a client’s problem, how would officials be ‘most likely to feel – happy, angry, worried or ashamed’? Many officials refused to answer on the grounds that they would not accept such gifts. Amongst those who did reply, 52 percent of officials told us they would feel ‘ashamed’. But a critical public thought differently: a majority claimed that officials would be most likely to feel ‘happy’, and only 12 percent of the public thought the official who accepted such a gift would be most likely to feel ‘ashamed’. 

Table 25: Two views on officials’ shame	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Official would feel ashamed if they accepted money from a client….	%	%	%	%	%	
Q105: views expressed by the public [about a hypothetical ‘official’]
X59: views expressed by officials [about themselves]
	12
52	14
45	15
60	10
59	9
44	
Difference: views of officials – views of public	+40	+31	+45	+49	+35	

Officials’ attitudes to reform
We presented both officials and the public with a menu of ten reforms and asked them which would be the ‘single most effective’ way to ‘ensure that citizens get fair treatment from officials without having to give them money or presents’.  
Both put ‘higher salaries’, ‘more training’, and ‘stricter controls and penalties’ for officials above all the other proposed reforms – but not in the same order! Officials were 25 percent more likely than the public to choose ‘higher salaries’ – which officials put at the very top of their list.  Conversely the public were 20 percent more likely than the officials to choose ‘stricter controls and penalties’ – which the public put at the very top of theirs. It would have been very surprising if officials had not been somewhat more favourable to ‘higher salaries’ and less favourable to ‘stricter controls and penalties’ than the public. But the scale of this polarisation of opinion between public and officials is striking.

Table 26: Polarisation of opinion about reform between officials and the public	
	Public	Officials	Difference
(officials – public)	
Q173: single most effective reform	%	%	%	
- higher salaries for officials	17	42	+25	
- better training for officials	16	18	+2	
- stricter controls/penalties for officials	33	13	-20	

Moreover, this polarisation of opinion on reform between officials and the public varied sharply across countries. It was almost three times as great in Bulgaria and Ukraine as in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Officials in the Czech Republic and Slovakia were (on average) only about 12 percent more favourable to ‘higher salaries’ and less favourable to ‘stricter controls and penalties’ than their publics.  But in very sharp contrast, officials in Bulgaria and Ukraine were (on average) 34 percent more favourable to ‘higher salaries’ and less favourable to ‘stricter controls and penalties’ than their publics. Despite the uniquely difficult economic circumstances that faced officials in Ukraine, the public was no more inclined to choose ‘higher salaries for officials’ in Ukraine than in the Czech Republic where officials were under much less economic pressure. 

Table 27: Polarisation of opinion about reform between officials and the public – by country	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q173: higher salaries most effective	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	17
42	11
26	18
26	30
69	12
48	
Difference: officials – public
	+25	+15	+8	+39	+36	
Q173: stricter control and penalties for officials most effective		%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	33
13	28
11	21
16	32
5	51
19	
Difference: officials – public	-20	-17	-5	-27	-32	
						
Polarisation = Average size of difference: 	23	16	7	33	34	

We also asked whether, ‘to stop officials taking money or presents from clients, it would be more effective, for those at the top to… 
(i)	impose stricter controls on their subordinates 
(ii)	set a better example by refusing to take bribes themselves’.
In reply, 74 percent of junior officials, supported by 61 percent of the public, opted for ‘a better example at the top’. So while opinion was sharply polarised between junior officials and the public on the question of ‘higher salaries versus stricter controls’, there was a remarkable consensus between them on the need for a better example at the top. 
Nonetheless, junior officials were 13 percent more enthusiastic than the public about the need for a better example at the top. Compared to the public, officials tended to shift the focus of responsibility both upwards and downwards however. They were not only more willing than the public to demand a better example at the top, they were also more willing (about 11 percent) than the public to say that ‘the people who give bribes should be punished as severely as the officials who take them’. 

Table 28: Between state and citizen – officials’ reactions against those above and below	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Q179: Better example at top	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	61
74	52
67	72
80	50
69	68
80	
Difference: officials – public	+13	+15	+8	+19	+12	
						
Q178: Punish bribe-givers as severely as bribe-takers	%	%	%	%	%	
- views expressed by the public
- views expressed by officials
	36
47	47
50	42
53	36
52	20
32	
Difference: officials – public	+11	+3	+11	+16	+12	

Training and guidance
Fully 42 percent of officials reported that they had received ‘little or no’ training in ‘what to do with offers of money or presents’. Half that number reported ‘little or no’ training in ethics or customer-relations. But few reported ‘little or no’ training in the use of equipment or the application of relevant laws. 
However, their top priorities for additional training were in exactly those areas where they had already received the most training. Their lowest priorities were for training in ethics or ‘what to do with offers of money or presents’! And their top priorities were for training in laws and equipment.  In particular, they saw international training as most useful in the area of equipment and least useful in ‘what to do with offers of money or presents’.

Table 29: Training – experience and priorities	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
Very little or no training in…	%	%	%	%	%	
X17: what to do with offers of money or presents 	42	53	12	63	41	
X16: ethics	21	32	6	31	14	
X15: good relations with citizens	20	35	5	29	12	
X14: legal rights of citizens	14	21	4	18	15	
X12: use of equipment	12	15	2	15	17	
X13: laws and regulations	12	16	2	17	11	
						
X18: Top priority for additional training:	%	%	%	%	%	
- laws and regulations	41	31	44	57	35	
- use of equipment	28	27	26	23	37	
- legal rights of citizens	14	22	13	9	12	
- good relations with citizens	8	11	9	4	9	
- ethics	6	7	6	7	6	
- what to do with offers of money or presents 	2	3	3	1	1	
						
International training very useful in…	%	%	%	%	%	
X19: use of equipment	44	38	44	52	41	
X22: good relations with citizens	29	23	33	36	24	
X23: ethics	29	25	32	34	27	
X20: laws and regulations	28	20	41	33	19	
X21: legal rights of citizens	27	22	32	31	21	
X24: what to do with offers of money, presents etc	21	18	22	27	16	

Four-fifths complained that there had been ‘too many changes to the laws in recent years’. Although only a quarter said these changes had been simply ‘bad’, another half said they had been ‘good in their aims but bad in their design’; so that only the remaining quarter fully supported recent changes in the law. Somewhat paradoxically, 70 percent said that ‘the laws, regulations and instructions that they themselves had to follow in their own job were clear and consistent’. There are some echoes here of the earlier paradox that they thought the behaviour of officials (in general) had declined since the fall of communism but their own ability to help clients had improved! However two-thirds complained that they were subject to ‘too many instructions and guidelines’ and wanted more ‘freedom and discretion to decide how to do their job’. 

Table 30: Changes in the law	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
	%	%	%	%	%	
X33: Too many changes in law	78	69	84	82	77	
X34: Recent changes in law ‘good in aims but bad in design’	49	56	49	45	47	
X34: Recent changes in law simply ‘bad’ 	23	23	21	17	29	
						
X32: Laws, regulations clear and consistent	70	66	68	57	86	
X26: Too many instructions rather than too few	64	61	69	57	69	
X27: Prefer more discretion rather than more detailed instructions	67	69	55	78	67	

Four-fifths accepted that the public should be involved, in some way, in assessing their performance. The most popular mechanism was by means of ‘surveys and questionnaires’ followed, a long way behind, by ‘public meetings’ or ‘letters of complaint’.  While support for surveys was fairly uniform across countries, the balance of support for public meetings versus letters of complaint varied considerably.  Support for public meetings rose steadily from a mere 8 percent in the Czech Republic to 21 percent in Bulgaria and 30 percent in Ukraine, while support for letters of complaint declined from 23 percent in the Czech Republic to a mere 9 percent in Ukraine.  That may reflect the long Soviet tradition of expressing public opinion – insofar as it could be expressed at all - through public meetings.

Table 31: Public monitoring of officials	
	Average	Czech Rep	Slovakia	Bulgaria	Ukraine	
X25: Best way for public to assess work	%	%	%	%	%	
- surveys and questionnaires	46	44	48	51	41	
- views expressed by the public meeting	18	8	12	21	30	
- letters of complaint	15	23	16	15	9	
- other	3	2	2	3	3	
						
- the public should not be involved	18	22	22	10	17	

How did officials’ experience ‘as employees’ affect their relationship with clients?
Apart from the very important cross-national differences, how did the relationship between officials and clients vary? We can investigate this by focusing on 19 indicators of relationships with clients covering:
i.	whether the relationship was better or worse than under communism
ii.	clients’ behaviour
iii.	officials’ ability to help clients
iv.	attitudes towards gifts from clients

Social background
The social background of officials had relatively little influence over their relations with clients. We found only slight differences between officials who lived in large towns and those who lived in small towns or villages. Once we controlled for cross-national differences (important because the Czech and Slovak officials in our survey tended to live in smaller settlements than the Bulgarian or Ukrainian officials), we found no difference greater than nine percent on any indicator of relationships with clients.  Small town officials put slightly more weight on giving clients as much help as possible, and slightly less on simply being fair to them. They were also slightly less allergic to receiving detailed instructions; slightly less willing to accept gifts from clients and slightly less willing to regard poor pay as an excuse for taking bribes. But all these differences were small, all less than ten percent.
In general we also found only slight differences between the better-educated officials and the less well educated. As might be expected, the better-educated were 19 percent more likely to want ‘more freedom and discretion’ and ‘less instructions’ about how to do their job.  They were 10 percent less likely to report that clients frequently argued with them, and eight percent less likely to report being threaten with violence by clients. They were a little more likely to feel more able to help their clients than in communist times and a little less pessimistic about the trends in their relationship with clients. But all other differences between the better-educated officials and the rest were trivially small.

Table 32: The impact of location, education and gender	
	Big town and city	Small town and village	Highest education	Other education	Male	Female	
	%	%	%	%	%	%	
X67: relationship with clients now worse than under communism	55	57	51	59	54	58	
							
CLIENTS’ BEHAVIOUR……………….							
X46: clients frequently argue	55	53	48	58	55	53	
X47: clients frequently threaten	12	14	8	16	16	10	
X51: clients frequently offer small present	32	29	30	31	34	27	
X52: clients frequently offer money or expensive present	11	9	11	10	16	6	
							
ABLE AND WILLING TO HELP CLIENTS……………							
X35: official’s priority is to apply the laws and regulations	27	27	24	29	35	22	
X35: official’s priority is to be fair to the client	29	21	24	23	25	23	
X35: official’s priority is to help the client as much as possible	45	52	52	47	41	55	
X64: less able to help clients now than under communism	30	31	25	34	25	34	
X66: lack adequate funds	76	78	77	74	74	77	
X27: want more freedom and discretion to do job	70	63	79	60	69	66	
							
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS							
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	63	58	63	60	58	62	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	57	51	53	54	50	54	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	51	42	50	46	45	49	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	19	15	16	18	20	15	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	59	56	60	57	53	61	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	5	5	6	4	7	3	
X69: thinks government tolerates practice of gifts to officials	56	49	53	55	51	56	
Q177: poor pay is the main reason why officials take bribes	60	51	54	56	58	53	
							
Notes: 
1.	Highest education = approximately the top third of officials except in Bulgaria (university degree in the Czech and Slovak Republics, and ‘kandidat nauk’ in Ukraine). In Bulgaria the top educational category (degree)( applied to twi-thirds of officials and they could not be divided by levels of degree as in Ukraine.  More Czech and Slovak officials lived in small towns, more Ukrainian officials in large towns.
2.	Entries are the average percentage across the four countries (not the percentage in the four country sample taken as a whole) which automatically controls for slight differences in the gender structures, and larger differences in the education or settlement structures of the samples in different countries. 
3.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that varies by as much as 10 percent across gender, education or settlement size.	

Female officials were 10 percent less likely to report being offered money or an expensive present by clients and a little less likely to report being offered small presents or being threatened with violence. They were 13 percent less likely to put a priority on applying the laws and regulations, and 14 percent more likely to give priority to helping their clients as much as possible. Female officials were also about 12 percent more likely than male officials to admit accepting small gifts from clients but, at the same time, four percent less likely than male officials to admit accepting money or expensive gifts. Since the absolute numbers were small it is worth noting that female officials were less than half as likely as male officials to admit taking money or expensive gifts from clients. But apart from that all gender differences were trivially small.

A post-communist generation?
We looked for evidence of a distinctive ‘post-communist generation’ of officials. We asked officials what their occupation had been under the communist regime.  Most had served the state at that time. Nearly all of the rest had been students. So we have extracted those officials who had been students, not employees, in communist times; and divided the remainder into younger officials (aged under 40) and older (aged 40 and over). This three-way split correlated strongly with Communist Party membership.  Only one percent of the former students admitted ever having been members of the Party; but, amongst the rest, 14 percent of the younger and 34 percent of the older officials admitted membership. So this variable really does tap the notion of a ‘post-communist generation’ of officials.

Table 33: The impact of age and generation	
	Student under	Worked for communism regime and…..	
	communism	aged < 40	aged 40 + 	
	%	%	%	
X72: ever a member of the Communist Party	1	14	34	
X67: relationship with clients now worse than under communism	47	52	62	
				
CLIENTS’ BEHAVIOUR……………….				
X46: clients frequently argue	54	56	53	
X47: clients frequently threaten	11	17	10	
X51: clients frequently offer small present	30	31	29	
X52: clients frequently offer money or expensive present	8	13	9	
				
ABLE AND WILLING TO HELP CLIENTS……………				
X35: official’s priority is to apply the laws and regulations	29	27	27	
X35: official’s priority is to be fair to the client	27	25	22	
X35: official’s priority is to help the client as much as possible	43	48	51	
X64: less able to help clients now than under communism	16	23	39	
X66: lack adequate funds	72	77	75	
X27: want more freedom and discretion to do job	62	68	69	
				
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS				
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	63	60	59	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	51	55	52	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	48	45	49	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	19	17	16	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	57	57	60	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	3	5	5	
X69: thinks government tolerates practice of gifts to officials	53	53	55	
Q177: poor pay is the main reason why officials take bribes	57	57	53	
				
Notes: 
1.	Entries are the average percentage across the four countries (not the percentage in the four country sample taken as a whole) which automatically controls for slight differences in the age structures of the samples in different countries. 
2.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that varies by as much as 10 percent across age categories.	

But it was not a very distinctive generation.  Of our 19 indicators of relations with clients, only two varied by more than ten percent across these age categories. Moreover, both of these indicated nostalgia for the past rather than a difference of attitude or behaviour in the present.  Compared to the post-communist generation of ex-students, the older officials were 23 percent more likely to feel they could offer clients less help than in communist times, and 15 percent more likely to feel that their relationship with clients was now worse than in communist times. That owed more to nostalgia than anything else.
Compared to the post-communist generation of ex-students the older officials put a little more weight on helping clients and a little less on strictly applying the law or being no more than fair. But all other differences were trivially small. The communist and post-communist generations of officials were identifiable but did not have distinctive relationships with clients.

Institutional cultures
Specifically job-related characteristics had far more impact than any social background factors.  Let us start with the particular institutions which employed our officials – health services, education services, welfare services, police services and the more heterogeneous category of ‘court, customs and passport’ services. Almost without exception, the institution employing the official proved significant. On 17 of our 19 indicators there was a difference of more than ten percent across these five different institutions. 
Those who worked in the health services were the most likely to feel that their relationship with clients had deteriorated since the end of communism. Compared to the average across all services, health service clients were a little less likely to threaten violence, 11 percent less likely to argue, and a little more likely to offer gifts, especially small gifts. Heath service employees were 18 percent less likely than average to put their priority on applying the laws and regulations, and 19 percent more likely to put their priority on helping their clients as much as possible. However they were particularly likely to complain about a lack of funds and to feel they could give clients less help than under communism. 
Compared to the average across all services, health service employees were 11 percent more willing to justify accepting extra payments from clients for ‘faster’ work, and 15 percent more willing to justify taking extra payments from clients for ‘extra’ work.  They were 18 percent more willing to accept a small gift ‘if offered’ and 11 percent more willing to accept money or an expensive gift. They were 20 percent more likely to admit having received a gift recently and, although the absolute numbers were small, twice as willing as the average official to admit having received money or an expensive gift.
Those who worked in the education were distinguished most by their wish for more freedom and discretion (and less guidance or instructions) to do their job. Compared to the average official they put 17 more weight on freedom and discretion. But they were also less likely than the average official to give priority to applying the laws and regulations. They were more likely to complain about lack of resources. And they were more willing to justify taking payments from clients for ‘extra’ or ‘faster’ work – though they actually received no more gifts than the average official. 
Those who worked in the welfare services were distinguished most by the tendency of their clients to argue with them (13 percent more than average). They were also more likely than the average official to prefer more detailed instructions and guidelines rather than more freedom and discretion to do their job. And they were the least willing to justify taking extra payments from clients for ‘faster’ or ‘extra’ work.
Those who worked in the police services were distinguished most by the tendency of their clients to threaten them with violence (almost twice as much as the average official), and by the weight that they put on applying the laws and regulations (18 percent above average) rather than helping their clients (14 percent below average). They were also 11 percent more likely than the average official to complain that they were less able to help their clients than under communism. Compared to the average official they were 11 percent less willing to accept a small gift ‘if offered’ and also 11 percent less likely to admit that they had accepted one recently. But paradoxically those who worked in the police services came second only to health service employees in admitting that they had recently accepted money or an expensive gift from a client.
Those who worked in the somewhat heterogeneous category of court, customs and passport services were distinguished most by the high priority they put on applying the law (15 percent above average), and by the low priority they put on helping their clients as much as possible (13 percent below average). They were also 10 percent less willing than the average official to accept a small gift ‘if offered’, and 11 percent less likely to admit having actually done so recently.

Table 34: Institutional cultures	
	Average:
all services	Health services	Education services	Welfare services	Police services	Legal 
services	
	%	%	%	%	%	%	
X67: relationship with clients now worse than under communism	57	64	52	58	57	54	
							
CLIENTS’ BEHAVIOUR……………….							
X46: clients frequently argue	54	43	48	67	60	53	
X47: clients frequently threaten	13	9	5	15	23	11	
X51: clients frequently offer small present	30	39	27	27	28	30	
X52: clients frequently offer money or expensive present	10	13	7	6	13	13	
							
ABLE AND WILLING TO HELP CLIENTS……………							
X35: official’s priority is to apply the laws and regulations	27	9	18	25	45	42	
X35: official’s priority is to be fair to the client	24	23	30	23	20	22	
X35: official’s priority is to help the client as much as possible	49	68	52	52	35	36	
X64: less able to help clients now than under communism	31	41	32	35	20	26	
X66: lack adequate funds	76	83	84	73	72	68	
X27: want more freedom and discretion to do job	67	71	84	59	64	57	
							
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS							
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	60	75	67	52	55	52	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	53	64	60	43	49	48	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	47	65	50	48	36	37	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	17	28	13	14	15	14	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	58	78	58	59	47	47	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	5	9	3	2	6	2	
X69: thinks government tolerates practice of gifts to officials	54	60	58	50	46	55	
Q177: poor pay is the main reason why officials take bribes	55	51	50	55	60	60	
							
Note:
1.	Because the weighted samples were structured to have exactly the same number of officials in each category in each country, it is not necessary to apply additional statistical controls for country effects in this table.
2.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that differs by as much as 10 percent across occupational groups.  Bold draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that differs by as much as 10 percent from the average across all occupational groups.	

Specific occupations within institutions
In addition to these sharp differences between institutions there were also sharp differences within institutions, related to the specific occupation of the employee. On every indicator there was a difference of more than ten percent across the specific occupations within some institutional category.  Of course, we are now contrasting quite small subsamples of not much more than 80 interviews in each specific occupation. So it is possible that some of these differences may simply reflect the accidents of sampling. But it is not statistically probable that more than a few of these differences can be dismissed as accidents of sampling.
Within the health services: Doctors were the least likely and hospital administrators the most likely to feel that they were less able to help clients than under communism or that their relations with clients had declined since then. Hospital doctors and administrators differed by 29 percent on the trends in their ability to help clients and by 12 percent on the trends in their relations with clients.  
Doctors were also twice as likely as nurses or administrators to report that clients frequently offered them small gifts, and much more than twice as likely to report frequent offers of money or expensive gifts. Doctors and nurses gave about 13 percent more weight than administrators to helping their clients, and 13 percent less to applying the laws and regulations. Nurses were the least likely to want more freedom and discretion rather than more detailed instructions – 26 percent less likely than doctors.  
In general, doctors were the most self-indulgent about gifts from clients and administrators the least. Compared to the administrators, doctors were 24 percent more willing to take a small gift ‘of offered’, 19 percent more likely to admit receiving a gift recently, and 20 percent more likely to feel that their government tolerated the practice of accepting money from clients. 
Nurses were the most willing to justify taking gifts in return for ‘extra’ work (13 percent more than administrators) or ‘faster’ work (19 percent more than administrators). But they were the least likely to admit actually accepting money or an expensive gift from a client – eight percent less than administrators and 14 percent less than doctors. Perhaps in consequence they were by far the least likely to cite poor pay as the main reason why officials took bribes – 18 percent less than doctors and 20 percent less than administrators.  Nurses felt themselves to be the worst paid but were probably aware that they were the least likely to get extra payments from clients.
Within education services: University teachers were 17 percent more likely than school teachers to report that clients had frequently offered them small presents. And though the absolute numbers were small, university teachers were twice as likely as school teachers to report that clients had offered them money or expensive gifts. School teachers were about 20 percent more likely than university staff to put priority on helping their clients as much as possible, rather than on applying the laws and regulations or even being fair to their clients. They were also more likely than university staff to feel that they could not help their clients as much as under communism.  
Whatever the behaviour of their clients however, it was the school teachers rather than the university staff who were most likely to justify accepting gifts from clients and also the most likely to admit they had accepted a gift recently.  Yet, like nurses in some respects, although school teachers accepted small gifts relatively frequently they seldom accepted money or expensive gifts – definitely less frequently than university teachers.   
Within welfare services: Those who dealt with housing matters reported more frequent arguments with clients. At the other extreme, less than half as many pensions officials as other welfare officials reported frequent threats of violence from clients. Housing officials put 17 percent more priority than pensions officials on being ‘fair but no more than that’, while pensions officials put 21 percent more priority than housing officials on helping their clients as much as possible. Housing officials differed from both pensions and benefis officials in feeling that they were less able to help clients than under communism (17 percent less), in complaining that they lacked the resources to give clients their legal rights (25 percent more), and in wanting more powers of discretion to do their job (16 percent more).  Housing officials were also 16 or 17 percent more willing than pensions officials to justify taking gifts from clients in return for ‘extra’ or ‘faster than usual’ work.  But they did not seem to have actually accepted small gifts more frequently than pensions officials. And relatively few welfare officials of any kind admitted accepting money or expensive gifts.
Within police services: Traffic police were the least likely to say that they were less able to help clients than under communism and the least likely to sense a worsening relationship with their clients. On the other hand they were by far the most likely to report that clients frequently offered them both large and small presents – about 14 percent more likely than other police. Since the absolute numbers who reported offers of money or expensive presents were small, that meant such offers were reported by over twice as many traffic police as ordinary police, and by over three times as many traffic police as police administrators.  Traffic police were the most likely to put priority on applying the laws and regulations, ordinary police on helping their clients, and administrators on being fair.  
Traffic police were more willing than other police to justify taking gifts in return for ‘extra’ work (about 16 percent more) or ‘faster than usual’ work (about 19 percent more). They were also more willing than others to accept small or large presents ‘if offered’. Compared to ordinary police, traffic police were 19 percent more likely to admit accepting a small present recently, and six times as likely (12 percent compare to 2 percent) to admit accepting money or an expensive present.  Yet it was traffic police who were the most inclined to demand a ‘better example at the top’.  They therefore combined a tendency towards authoritarian attitudes with a lack of discipline, and even a degree of moral indulgence, with respect to accepting bribes.
Within the more heterogeneous category of court, customs and passport services: Customs officials were the most distinctive. Like the traffic police, customs officials were the least likely to feel that their relationship with clients was deteriorating, and the most likely to report that clients frequently offered them both large and small presents. Customs officials were almost twice as likely as court officials to report frequent offers of both large and small presents. And while they were only a little more likely than passport officials to be offered small presents, they were four times as likely to be offered money or an expensive present. Customs officials had a lot in common with doctors and traffic police, while passport officials had more in common with nurses.
It was customs officials that were most likely to put priority on applying the laws and regulations, while court and passport officials put around 14 percent more priority than customs officials on helping their clients as much as possible. Customs officials were the least likely to complain of inadequate resources to give clients their legal rights (15 percent less than court officials) and the least likely to want more freedom and discretion (again 15 percent less than court officials) rather than more detailed instructions to do their job. They had a lot of discretion already of course. In all these respects, the position of customs officials compared to court or passport officials was similar to the position of traffic police compared to other police.
Court officials were the least willing to justify taking extra payments from clients for ‘extra’ or ‘faster’ work, while passport officials were the most willing. Passport officials were especially willing to justify taking extra payments for ‘faster’ work (21 percent more than court officials). That was the particular service that passport officials could offer to clients; ‘extra’ work was less relevant to their job. 
Passport officials were 13 percent more willing than court officials to accept a small present from a client ‘if offered’, though customs officials were not far behind. But it was customs officials who were most willing to accept money or an expensive present ‘if offered’ – twice as willing as court officials and one-and-a-half times as willing as passport officials.  In the event, passport officials were only a few percent more likely than others to admit having taken a small gift recently. And while the numbers who admitted taking money or an expensive gift were small, they were limited almost exclusively to customs officials: six percent of customs officials and less than one percent of the others admitted accepting money or an expensive gift from a client recently.  Again the attitudes and behaviour of customs and passport officials echoes that of doctors and nurses respectively. 
Interestingly, so does the gender balance: nurses and passport officials were overwhelmingly female, while just over half the doctors and three-quarters of the customs officials (and nearly all the traffic police) were male. This concentration of male officials in occupations that accepted large gifts, and of female officials in occupations that did not, goes some way towards explaining the gender difference in taking large gifts. But not all the way, however. Within our survey, male and female doctors were equally likely to report frequent offers of large gifts, but the male doctors were twice as likely to report accepting them. Female customs officials were much less likely than male customs officials to report frequent offers of large gifts, and none of the female customs officials would admit to accepting them.

Table 35: Differences between specific occupations within the same institution	
		Health 
services	Education 
services	Welfare 
services	Police 
services	Legal
services	
	
All
services	Doctors
Nurses
Administrators	Univ. Teachers
Univ. Admin
School-teachers	Pensions
Benefits
Housing	Traffic Police
Ordinary police
Administrators	Courts
Customs
Passports	
	average	D	N	A	UT	UA	S	P	B	H	T	O	A	Cts	Cust	P	
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	
X67: relationship with clients now worse than under communism	57	59	62	71	53	53	50	57	62	55	42	69	58	58	48	54	
																	
CLIENTS’ BEHAVIOUR……………….																	
X46: clients frequently argue	54	32	46	50	44	46	52	63	65	73	67	57	55	55	58	45	
X47: clients frequently threaten	13	13	9	5	5	2	7	8	19	18	27	24	18	10	14	9	
X51: clients frequently offer small present	30	57	33	27	36	26	19	31	22	27	37	21	25	20	38	33	
X52: clients frequently offer money or expensive present	10	21	7	11	10	7	5	6	6	5	21	10	6	11	21	5	
																	
ABLE AND WILLING TO HELP CLIENTS……………																	
X35: official’s priority is to apply the laws and regulations	27	5	4	17	21	22	10	21	30	24	50	43	41	40	50	35	
X35: official’s priority is to be fair to the client	24	23	23	23	35	31	24	14	25	31	19	16	26	17	23	26	
X35: official’s priority is to help the client as much as possible	49	72	73	60	44	47	65	65	45	45	31	41	33	43	27	39	
X64: less able to help clients now than under communism	31	24	46	53	28	30	38	28	29	45	15	27	21	26	29	21	
X66: lack adequate funds	76	79	85	85	86	79	85	62	66	89	67	79	69	77	62	67	
X27: want more freedom and discretion to do job	67	85	59	71	84	81	89	54	54	70	63	63	65	65	50	55	
																	
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS																	
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	60	78	80	67	64	61	75	43	52	59	66	53	46	49	52	54	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	53	65	73	54	59	54	67	35	41	52	62	40	46	38	48	59	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	47	75	70	51	52	45	53	51	45	49	42	31	36	29	39	42	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	17	31	27	26	15	10	14	13	12	18	19	11	14	10	20	14	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	58	89	75	70	59	50	67	59	62	56	56	37	49	44	48	49	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	5	16	2	10	5	1	1	1	3	3	12	2	5	1	6	0	
X69: thinks government tolerates practice of gifts to officials	54	70	59	50	60	55	58	46	54	51	45	40	54	60	47	56	
Q177: poor pay is the main reason why officials take bribes	55	56	38	58	53	52	45	56	55	55	63	56	62	64	58	57	
																	
Note:
1.	Because the weighted samples were structured to have exactly the same number of officials in each occupation in each country, it is not necessary to apply additional statistical controls for country effects in this table.
2.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that differs by as much as 10 percent across the individual occupations within an institutional category.	

Inadequate salaries, job insecurity and job expectations
Our analysis of the impact of institution and occupation hinted at the significance of institutional culture on the one hand and the variable power-relations between officials and clients within different parts of the same institution.  But more personal aspects of employment were also important – inadequate salaries, job insecurity and job expectations. 
We might expect that poor pay, job insecurity and expectations of a move out of the public sector might make officials less committed to their present jobs and perhaps therefore less committed to treating their clients well. Conversely, those who expected to be in the same job in five years, and more especially those who expected promotion to a higher level, might be more committed to their job and perhaps therefore more committed to their clients also.
Inadequate salaries: Compared to those officials who said they could live on their salary, those who said they could not live on their salary were 11 percent more likely to feel that their relations with clients had deteriorated since the end of the communist regime. They were 10 percent less likely to give priority to applying the laws and regulations, and correspondingly more likely to give priority to being fair or helpful.  But they were 20 percent more likely to complain that they did not have enough resources to give their clients their legal rights. 
Their inadequate pay made them consistently more willing to accept extra payments from clients. They were up to 10 percent more willing than those with adequate pay, to justify officials taking extra payments for ‘extra’ or ‘faster’ work; 11 percent more willing to accept a small gift ‘if offered’; and over twice as willing to take money or an expensive gift ‘if offered’. They were 11 percent more likely to claim that poor pay was the main reason why officials took bribes. And 18 percent more likely than those with adequate salaries to feel that their government tolerated the practice of accepting gifts from clients. 
In the event, they were 13 percent more likely than those with adequate salaries to admit having taken a small present recently but, sadly, two percent less likely to report that they had accepted money or an expensive present recently.  Unlike the doctors, the traffic police and the customs officials the inadequately paid were notably willing to accept money but not specially favoured by offers of money from their clients. They had the motivation but not the opportunity to accept money or expensive gifts.
We can usefully investigate officials’ willingness to accept money or an expensive present in terms of their self-conscious motivations. Amongst adequately paid officials, a majority (6 percent) of the 10 percent who were willing to accept money said they would ‘welcome it as a token of thanks’ or because it would be ‘impolite to refuse’. Only a minority claimed they ‘could not afford to refuse’ such offers. But amongst inadequately paid officials, a majority (13 percent) of the 22 percent who were willing to accept money claimed they ‘could not afford to refuse’ such offers.
Job insecurity: Compared to those who felt fully secure in their job, those who felt it was ‘very likely’ that they might lose their job through cuts in the next two years were 13 percent more likely to feel that relations with clients had deteriorated since communist times. (On this as on almost everything else, those who thought they were ‘somewhat likely’ to lose their job had intermediate views.)
The insecure were 16 percent more likely than the fully secure to complain that they did not have the resources to give their clients their legal rights, and 14 percent more likely to feel that they could help their clients less now than under communism. They were up to 10 percent more willing than those with adequate pay, to justify taking extra payments for ‘extra’ or ‘faster’ work; 11 percent more willing to accept a small gift ‘if offered’; and one-and-a-half times as willing to take money or an expensive gift ‘if offered’. They were 13 percent more likely than those with adequate salaries to admit having taken a small present recently but no more likely to report that they had accepted money or an expensive present recently. In general the effects of job insecurity were similar to those of inadequate pay but smaller in scale, perhaps because the insecurity was a hypothetical possibility while inadequate salaries were an real and present problem.

Table 36: The impact of inadequate salaries, job insecurity and job expectations	
	Can live on salary?	Likely to lose job through cuts in next two years?	Job expectations in five years?	
	Yes	No	Very	Not	Same	Higher	Private	
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	
X67: relationship with clients now worse than under communism	49	60	65	52	51	48	67	
								
CLIENTS’ BEHAVIOUR……………….								
X46: clients frequently argue	53	54	55	51	53	53	55	
X47: clients frequently threaten	8	15	10	11	11	16	15	
X51: clients frequently offer small present	26	31	34	29	28	32	42	
X52: clients frequently offer money or expensive present	8	10	11	10	9	11	18	
								
ABLE AND WILLING TO HELP CLIENTS……………								
X35: official’s priority is to apply the laws and regulations	33	23	27	28	27	32	18	
X35: official’s priority is to be fair to the client	18	25	26	20	21	27	34	
X35: official’s priority is to help the client as much as possible	49	52	47	52	52	41	48	
X64: less able to help clients now than under communism	24	32	36	22	33	20	23	
X66: lack adequate funds	61	81	87	71	74	70	88	
X27: want more freedom and discretion to do job	67	67	66	70	65	74	76	
								
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS								
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	56	64	60	54	57	57	73	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	49	59	54	44	50	51	67	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	42	53	52	43	48	44	59	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	10	22	21	14	14	17	31	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	51	62	65	52	57	51	69	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	6	4	4	4	5	1	7	
X69: thinks government tolerates practice of gifts to officials	42	60	58	49	50	57	62	
Q177: poor pay is the main reason why officials take bribes	50	61	55	54	56	55	62	
								
X58: could not afford to refuse offer of money etc 	4	13	13	7	9	7	13	
X58: would accept a money etc as thanks / impolite to refuse	6	9	7	7	5	10	18	
								
Notes: 
1.	Entries are the average percentage across the four countries (not the percentage in the four country sample taken as a whole) which automatically controls for differences in the pay, insecurity and expectations structures of the samples in different countries. 
2.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that varies by as much as 10 percent across age categories.	

Job expectations over the next five years: In general, expectations of a switch to the private sector seemed to have more influence than expectations of promotion. Compared to those who expected to stay in the same job, those who expected promotion were just three percent more optimistic about the trends in relations with clients while those who expected to switch to the private sector were 16 percent less optimistic. 
Those who expected to quit the public sector were the least likely to put priority on applying the laws and regulations while those who expected promotion were almost twice as likely to do so.  Those who expected promotion were the least likely to put priority on helping clients but they were nonetheless the least likely to complain about inadequate funds to give clients their legal rights and the least likely to feel that their ability to help clients had declined since the communist regime. As might be expected, those officials who expected to stay in their jobs without promotion were the least likely to want more powers of discretion and the most willing to accept more detailed instructions. In brief, those who expected promotion put most weight on applying the law and were relatively complacent about the way clients were being served.
Those who expected to quit the public sector were over 16 percent more willing than other officials to justify taking extra payments from clients in return for ‘extra’ or ‘faster’ work. They were 13 percent more willing than others to accept a small present ‘if offered’, twice as willing to accept money or an expensive present, and the most likely to feel their government tolerated bribe-taking by junior officials. They were the most likely to report frequent offers of both large and small gifts from clients, and the most likely to admit to accepting them. By contrast, officials who expected to stay in the same jobs were the least likely to report frequent offers of either large or small gifts, while those who expected promotion were the least likely to admit accepting them. The quitters were twice as likely to report frequent offers of money as those who expected to stay in the same job, and seven times as likely to admit accepting money as those who expected promotion.
It is possible that those who expected promotion were just especially careful not to admit to improper behaviour. But it is also possible that those who expected promotion were especially careful to behave properly despite the opportunities and temptations offered to them.  

Discussion
We have looked at officials’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviour from three different perspectives: first, ‘as citizens’ themselves, in relation to other officials; second, ‘as employees’ in relation to the state; and last, and most importantly, ‘as officials’ in relation to their clients. We have also looked at the impact of their experience ‘as employees’ on their attitudes and behaviour ‘as officials’.
As citizens themselves, junior officials articulated many of the same complaints about officials as did other citizens – and to much the same degree.  They were just as willing as the public to allege that officials in general took bribes; and they only made an exception when asked about officials who did the same job as their own.
They were more knowledgeable than the public about their rights and they were more likely to know someone in the offices they had to visit with their own problems. They were treated better than the rest of the public when they took their problems to officials. But, except in Ukraine, they were only slightly more likely to get better treatment than other citizens. So their personal experience of taking their problems to officials, while slightly better, was not markedly different from that of other citizens.  
On the other hand, even though they may have had similar perceptions of officials’ behaviour, they interpreted it differently. They were less pessimistic than the public about trends in the behaviour of both elected politicians and career officials. And in particular they were much more willing than other citizens to excuse bribe-taking on the grounds of ‘poor pay’ or ‘importunate clients’ rather than attribute it to ‘greedy officials’.
As employees, junior officials complained about poor pay, job insecurity and, in Ukraine, about salaries that were paid late or not paid in full. They also complained about lack of training, lack of equipment and lack of the resources necessary to give their clients their legal rights. But their complaints about inadequate salaries need to be put into perspective. Ordinary citizens made similar complaints in these countries.  Life was tough for everybody. In fact the public complained even more than officials about declining standards of living and inadequate family incomes. And officials were considerably more positive than the public about the switch to a market economy. About a quarter of officials would have liked to quit the public service and move into the private sector, but less than one on six expected to make the move within the next five years.
As officials in relation to their clients, half put their priority on helping their clients as much as possible while the rest were divided equally between wanting to do what was fair and applying the laws and regulations strictly. Although only half of them thought the behaviour of officials in general had improved since the fall of communism, 70 percent thought their own ability to help their clients had improved over that same period – despite their complaints about lack of training and resources.
 Officials and clients had remarkably similar perceptions about the strategies employed by clients in their dealings with officials.  There was a perfect rank-order correlation between the frequencies with which the public reported that they used eight different strategies towards officials, and the frequencies with which officials reported their clients using these same strategies. Passive acceptance, unusually friendly behaviour, and argument came were the most frequent strategies. Threats of violence, offers of money or expensive presents, and appeals to elected politicians came at the bottom. The use of contacts, small presents, and appeals to superior officials came in the middle.
Officials had criticisms to make about their clients. They sometimes complained too much, although that did not annoy the officials unduly. They had unrealistic expectations, which was more annoying. And some clients behaved rudely or thought they could get their way by offering bribes, which also annoyed officials even though it occurred less frequently.  Half the officials said they would be ‘ashamed’ if they took money from a client, but only 12 percent of the public believed them.
As a general principle, half the officials were willing to justify extra payments from clients for ‘faster than usual’ work and almost two-thirds for ‘extra’ work. Over a third of officials felt their government regarded bribe-taking as ‘unfortunate but unavoidable’ and a further fifth felt their government regarded bribe-taking as ‘an informal way of charging for state services and paying officials’. Only a third thought their government was making a real effort to cut corruption amongst junior officials and much less that it was making a real effort to cut corruption amongst senior officials.
In the eyes of the public, the single most effective reform would be ‘stricter penalties and controls’. In the eyes of officials it would be ‘better salaries’. Both were agreed on the value of a ‘better example at the top’ and both were somewhat sceptical about ‘punishing bribe-givers equally with bribe-takers’. But it was significant that officials were more eager than the public both to get a better example at the top and to punish bribe-givers. Caught between the state and citizen, junior officials had complaints against both.
We looked at the connection between officials experience ‘as employees’ and their behaviour ‘as officials in relation to clients’. Their experience as employees clearly mattered much more than social-background characteristics like a city, town or village environment, high or low education, gender, or even age. In the peculiar circumstances of a political disruption we looked for evidence of a ‘post-communist generation’ of officials. We found it easy to identify such a generation. Unfortunately this generation proved little different from any other generation of officials in their present attitudes and behaviour, though it was less nostalgic about the past than older generations of officials. 
But we did find sharp differences according to the officials’ job characteristics, in their perceptions of clients, their willingness and ability to help clients, and their attitudes towards presents and bribes. The institution that employed the official was important. There clearly was an ‘institutional culture’ that, for example, put the top priority on helping clients in the health, education and welfare services, but put the top priority on strict application of the laws and regulations in the police and legal services. 
Second, the particular occupation within the service also mattered. Not least in their ability to extract gifts of money or expensive presents from their clients, doctors differed sharply from nurses (within health services), traffic police differed sharply from other police (within police services), and customs officials differed sharply from passport officials (within our somewhat heterogeneous category of legal services). What links these occupations across quite different institutions is the power-relationship between official and client: clients are in an exceptionally weak position when they are in the hands of a hospital doctor, a traffic cop, or a customs official. 
Third, we found that salary and job insecurity also mattered. Officials on inadequate salaries were much more willing to justify taking extra payments from clients, much more inclined to think their government would tolerate bribe-taking, and, personally, much more willing to accept large or small gifts. Unfortunately for them, their opportunities did not match their lack of discipline and they were in fact less likely than others to have actually taken money or an expensive present from a client recently. Job insecurity had much the same effect though on a smaller scale. 
Finally we looked at the connection between job expectations and relationships with clients. We focused on those officials who expected to be in the same job in five years time (the ‘stay puts’). We contrasted them with those who expected promotion within their organisation (the ‘aspirants’), and also with those who expected to quit the public service and switch to a private company or become self-employed (the ‘quitters’). The ‘aspirants’ were the most likely to put priority on strict application of the laws and regulations and the least likely to put priority on helping clients as much as possible. They reported more frequent offers from clients of both large and small presents than the ‘stay-puts’ but, unlike the ‘stay-puts’, the ‘aspirants’ admitted only to accepting small presents. The ‘quitters’ were by far the most likely to report offers of large and small presents from clients, to express willingness to accept large and small gifts ‘if offered’, and to admit that they had actually accepted such gifts recently.
_____________________________

While the empirical pattern of relationships between officials and clients now seems reasonably clear, some questions of interpretation remain, and these have important implications for any strategies of reform. 
Some aspects of what we have termed ‘institutional culture’ seem entirely positive and well worth preserving. It does seem not only inevitable but also quite proper and appropriate that officials in health, educational and welfare services should give top priority to helping their clients while those in police and legal services should give top priority to applying the laws and regulations. But other aspects of institutional culture seem negative, inappropriate, and worth discouraging even if they are quite natural and, to some degree, inevitable. The culture of gift-taking in the health and education services, characterised by their unusual willingness to justify taking extra payments from clients for ‘extra’ or ‘faster than usual’ work, does not seem so positive as their culture of helpfulness. In short, institutional cultures have both positive and negative aspects, some worth encouraging others worth discouraging.
But that raises the even more difficult question of whether these positive and negative aspects can be separated. The moralist might argue in favour of altruistic caring and helpfulness, without hope or expectation or reward. But the economist might see human behaviour more in terms of explicit or implicit bargaining and, in that perspective, helpfulness might go out of production if there was no market for it. No doubt reality lies somewhere in between. If the moralist view prevailed completely, officials who did not give priority to strict application of the law would be no more willing to take presents and bribes than those who did. If the economist view prevailed, the correlation between caring and corruption would be a strong one.
We can summarise officials’ attitudes to gifts from clients using half a dozen questions – about whether extra payments are justified, whether the official would accept gifts ‘if offered’, and whether they have actually accepted gifts recently. Those officials who gave top priority to the strict application of the laws and regulations were the least likely to justify or accept extra payments, presents or bribes. But the most likely to justify or accept extra payments, presents or bribes were those who gave top priority to doing what was ‘fair and reasonable, but no more’ rather than those who gave top priority to ‘helping their clients as much as possible’. Rejecting the Weberian principle of strict, mechanical application of the laws and regulations did encourage the gift-taking habit, but an unconstrained concern for helping clients tended to moderate that habit. In short, there is some evidence that it may be possible, though difficult, to separate the positive and negative aspects of the ‘I help, you pay’ culture. They are not inevitably linked.

Table 37: The connection between caring and corruption	
	When a client comes to you with a problem, what is your top priority?	
	to apply the 
laws and regulations, 
without questioning them	to do what is 
fair and reasonable, 
but no more than that	to help the client 
as much as possible	
	%	%	%	
ATTITUDE TO GIFTS FROM CLIENTS				
X2: right to accept something extra for ‘extra’ work 	53	66	62	
X3: right to accept something extra for ‘faster’ work 	46	59	54	
X57: would accept a small present if offered	35	58	49	
X58: would accept a money or an expensive present if offered	14	23	16	
X63: accepted a gift from a client recently	45	69	61	
X63: accepted money or an expensive gift from a client recently	3	6	5	
				
Average:	33	47	41	
				
Notes: 
1.	For consistency we have followed our standard procedures. Entries are therefore the average percentage across the four countries (not the percentage in the four country sample taken as a whole) which automatically controls for slight differences in the priorities across different countries – though the cross-national differences in priorities are so slight that these controls make very little difference.
2.	Underlining draws attention to any behaviour or opinion that varies by as much as 10 percent across age categories.	

Finally, our results underline the significance of ‘motive and opportunity’ acting in combination to affect officials’ behaviour. Poor pay made officials more willing to take bribes, but the specific power-relationships between officials and clients determined whether that willingness was transformed into action. The implication for reform is that as much attention should be given to changing that power-relationship as to changing the motivation of officials. In our surveys, citizens themselves stressed the need for more control from above. But these findings point to the need for more empowerment for individual citizens, for more control from below – a strategy of reform that citizens themselves undervalued.