Selection and Peer-review under Responsibility of the Emerging Markets Queries in Finance and Business Local Organization Unethical Aspects and the Recent Manifestation of Corruption in Romanian Public Administration

This paper attempts to set some conceptual boundaries and presents corruption as a social phenomenon, which is produced and reproduced in society. Manifested at all levels of Romanian society, petty or grand corruption seriously affect the political, legal, local and central administration domains, thus preventing a normal evolution of society. At the institutional level, a specialized agency was set up to investigate corruption. The paper deals with the deep signification and meanings of corruption. A general valid definition for the phenomenon is difficult to offer and the normative approach to define it is not enough. Under the most general terms, corruption is seen as abuse of power. Several definitions have been proposed for corruption seen as a social phenomenon. The main objective is to analyze corruption in a quantitative way and to examine the evolution of the phenomenon in Romania. Also, a comparative analysis has been made, based on the results of the National Anticorruption Department annual reports.