Schematising factors lurking behind corruption-related social norms

Armenia's corruption perception Index and rank scored the most notable improvement worldwide for two consecutive years after the 2018 Velvet Revolution. However, in 2021, the progress stopped, and it decreased in 2022. In 2022, Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) underscored a global, pervasive challenge, with over two-thirds of 180 countries scoring below 50 and 26 countries hitting their lowest corruption scores ever. Despite millions of dollars invested into anti-corruption campaigns and research, it remains an unresolved enigma for governments, policymakers, and scholars partly because of its intricate cultural variations. Previous solutions heavily lean on law, institutions, and legislative enforcement. Further, the latest studies pinpointing the power of curbing it through scrutinizing social norms to yield long-lasting effects, predominantly luck statistical analysis, and are dispersed. Whereas perceptions forming corruption-related social norms are incremental drivers behind corrupt behaviour, advancing from sporadic assessment to classifying them into groups is still missing. This paper seeks to schematize the anchored perceptions that form corruption-related social norms in the country, which are likely to be stable in the long run. Social norms are integral to human societies, shaping values and attitudes. Although unwritten, social norms can be more robust in predicting and guiding human behaviour within certain circumstances than written laws. "Different from codified laws, social norms are unwritten codes of conduct that are socially negotiated and understood through social interaction" (Chung and Rimal, 2016). They are the moral compass and framework of acceptable behaviour in a society formed based on observation and expectations. The relationship and impact of social norms have been studied on various behaviours such as alcohol, littering, and energy consumption. This paper draws on social norm theory and distinguishes between descriptive and injunctive social norms to categorize the implicit perceptions shaping these norms among individuals. In particular, it distinguishes and classifies statements behind corruption-related descriptive and injunctive social norms separately. The relationship between social norms and corruption is intricate and bidirectional. In societies where corrupt behaviour is prevalent (descriptive norm), individuals might be more likely to view corruption as socially acceptable (injunctive norm). The empirical analysis is based on confirmatory factor analysis considering the complex survey design and employs a dataset representative of the country gathered after the Velvet Revolution in 2018. Notably, pluralistic ignorance rather than a private attitude might be the lurking factor behind reported perceptions of corruption-related social norms. Hence, this study employs perception-based corruption measurement, which, despite its drawbacks, is still the most widespread corruption study research method. Future research avenues, as well as discussion about the practical consequences of these findings, are provided.