Failure of Public Institution in Systemic Corruption Environment (evidence from public procurement)

The paper focuses on the failure of public institution in systemic corruption environment on the basis of the evidence from public procurement. As a starting point, the author offers an analogous comparison of changes within the concept of governance, which is built on a shift from a classical vertical hierarchy in institutions towards networking and asymmetric relationships. As well, the similar process, but with pathological consequences, is observed in systemic corruption environment. The aim of the paper is to show that the effect of systemic corruption environment leads to the failure of the public institution in favor of private interest as well as the deformation of the relations between actors, and explain that a public institution in such an environment can be transformed into the triangle of corrupt relations comprising allied actors from officials, political elites and businessmen. The paper is based on author's original research of systemic corruption (2012 - 2013), which has deepened the ongoing research of public procurement. As the present results of these research show, just in public procurement, the failure of the institution is manifested very significantly. The paper concerning mainly the Pandur and Rath's court affairs and their analysis confirms the same or similar signs of systemic corruption and therefore illustrates the failure of procurement authority which lost its control under the procurement process in favor of private interest, i. e. in favor of the accomplices in the triangle of corrupt relations, including moments in what the failure set in (i. e. in procurement procedure time phases T-0 and T-4). Methodology is conceived as a mixed research, using several methods: court cases analysis, analysis of documents of public administration, media discourse, quantitative data analysis, interviews.