Students Soft On Corruption
Armenia Now reports that a new study concludes that corruption is tolerated by students in Armenia. Actually, it’s tolerated by almost everyone here who wants to get ahead. From the health to the education sector, from the traffic police to high level officials, corruption is the way the entire system in Armenia functions. However, this is the first time that the phenomenon is described as such in a report that I know of.
Armenian students have developed a tolerance toward corruption, according to a new study released last week in Yerevan. In “Corruption and the Social Dynamics of Transition Period; Positions and Tendencies of the Yerevan Studentship on Corruption”, author and advisor with “Campaign against Corruption Friendly Social and Legal Settings in Armenia” Samvel Manukyan says social tendencies have contributed to students’ coming to accept corruption with less resistance than a generation before them.
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The study has shown that corruption is understood as necessary and a universal means for social success. The lower the tolerance, the lower is the individual’s inclusion into social-economic relations. In other words, the book concludes, intolerance towards corruption increases the risk of marginalization of an individual and the children from relatively more well-off families are more tolerant towards corruption.
The full news item can be read online here while the online publication has more on another visible form of corruption and abuse of power in Armenia — the land grab in central Yerevan.
