Corruption in One’s Own Country: Facing the Abuse of Office in Late Socialist East Germany and Poland

This project explores the role of corruption and the abuse of office, as well as the ways in which such corruption and abuse were combatted in the German Democratic Republic and Poland. It examines the intellectual history of corruption during the socialist period, and compares the causes, course and consequences of such scandals during the revolutionary periods in Poland (1980/1981) and the German Democratic Republic (1989/1990). Corruption was not only a problem within state socialism but was rather an area of conflict between Blocs during the Cold War, as well as within socialist societies. Combating corruption meant engaging grassroots actors and official institutions and ultimately produced unintended consequences. In my project, I look at the transformative periods in East Germany and Poland from the perspective of popular claims for social equality and redistributive justice which could not have been achieved with the establishment of capitalism and liberal democracy.
 

Jakub Szumski forscht während seines Gastaufenthalts am ZZF Potsdam in der Abteilung "Kommunismus und Gesellschaft"./
Jakub Szumski is researching in the department "Communism and Society" during his stay at the ZZF Potsdam.