Reinoud Leenders has written a thoughtful assessment of my book, and I am thankful for the insights he provided. In my response I focus on the main issues raised in the review.

Most of Leenders's criticisms relate to methodology. That an “exhaustive use of indices and surveys of perceived corruption” may result in “less attention to qualitative explorations of multiple forms of corruption” is a concern that I would like to address first. My decision on methodology was guided primarily by the goals of the study. Thus, to discern patterns and trends among 15 countries that help explain their different levels of corruptiveness, I had to rely on system-level measures in several chapters. Being aware of the limitations of such an approach, I also developed a one-country study on Bulgaria that casts light on the mechanisms of formation and operation of informal corrupt networks. In addition, the investigation of corruption in the area of party finance and as impacted by European integration in six Balkan countries (Chapters 4 and 7) also uses contextually rich analysis of various forms of abuse and trends in reducing corruption. I believe that these qualitative components balance the quantitative approach used in other parts of the book and strengthen the comparative analysis.

I concur with Leenders's assertion that the deficient regulatory framework in the 1990s contributed to a corrupt process of privatization in Eastern Europe. My qualitative analysis in Chapter 5 reveals how regulation was intentionally delayed in Bulgaria to help “the first winners” consolidate their gains. The Heritage Foundation Index of business freedom does not reflect this nuance but it does not have to, as my cross-national analyses explore data from later phases of the transition when heavy regulation became especially burdensome in some postcommunist countries. I also agree that the risk of endogeneity, always present in social science, should be considered carefully. To diminish the possibility for reciprocity in the relationship of economic capacity and free trade with corruption, I used lags to assure that observations of corruption are analyzed in relation to trade and GDP from a previous year.

The book finds partial support for the possible impact of culture on corruption, and Leenders's review demands more elaboration on this finding. My empirical results should not be taken as an attempt to entirely “write off culturalist approaches,” nor should we blame the Inglehart-Welzel index for the results (as implied by the reviewer). It has already been documented in the literature that the East European countries as a group are more corrupt than the Western democracies; this may well be because of the role of culture (among other factors). The inconclusive results in my analyses reflect the fact that these new democracies share common legacies from the communist past that have shaped similar patterns of stealing from the state and bribing (p. 243). What these countries differ on among themselves is their precommunist past. The data analyzed in the book suggest the possible intervening effect of these earlier value orientations through the design of party finance regimes (Chapter 4), and that the impact of corruption on public trust is much weaker in contexts more tolerant to favoritism (Chapter 8).

In a final note about corruption in Russia, I would like to briefly reflect on the two points raised by the reviewer. Russia, indeed, is the only country in the group of postcommunist transitions that is rich in resources. However, this resource endowment is a blessing that has not made Russia more successful in the consolidation of a stable democratic system. I would agree that in the absence of political accountability, this abundance of energy resources opened incredible opportunities for corruption. Russian oligarchs have already benefited immensely from the “wild privatization” in the oil and natural gas sector in the 1990s. Whether President Putin will reverse the relationship in favor of the state is quite doubtful, I think. But this is a large topic that deserves to be researched and argued more thoroughly, a topic for another book.