Interest in the links between corruption and politics has increasedsignificantly since the early 1990s. Although the public widely seescorruption as a phenomenon that particularly afflicts the developingworld—as reflected in the growing emphasis placed on anti-corruptioninitiatives by such international agencies as the World Bank, IMF,OECD, and Transparency International—the issue is also attractingsignificant attention in established democracies. Politicians, civilsociety activists, and media commentators have expressed concernsabout a host of high-profile scandals contributing to a decline oftrust in the political class, whilst a perceived “culture ofcorruption” in several of the post-communist countries ofeast-central Europe is seen as an obstacle to their full integrationinto the European Union. Indeed, corruption has started to become apowerful policy narrative in many countries, blamed for a host ofshortcomings in democracies and non-democracies alike (Heywood andKrastev 2006).