Anti-Corruption Potential of Prohibiting the Financing of Election Campaigns by Commercial Organizations

Abstract

The problem of political corruption is particularly relevant for modern criminological science. The processes of formation and functioning of power, due to their high social significance, have long been subject to negative corruption, and therefore they need a special protection mechanism. The subject of the study is the legal regulation of banning the financing of political activities (election campaigns), as well as its reflection in the local regulations of commercial organizations. The article presents a general description of the illegal financing of election campaigns as a form of political corruption, describes the problems of applying measures of retrospective responsibility in relation to its subjects, and also evaluates the effectiveness of banning the financing of political activities (election campaigns) in the system of preventing this form of corruption. To study the practice of regulating the prohibition in question at the level of local regulations of commercial organizations, the authors conducted monitoring of the official websites of 250 major Russian companies based on the methods of statistical analysis of sociolegal phenomena and processes. The results of the study allow us to conclude that it is necessary to take a set of measures aimed at encouraging commercial organizations to adopt anti-corruption compliance programs which will include a ban on financing political activities (election campaigns), as well as aimed at limiting the possibility of committing relevant corruption offenses.