Data and factors analysis of anti-corruption environment components of Russian public authorities

The paper is devoted to the examination of functional features of anti-corruption activities in Russian public government bodies and authorities using the cognitive modeling method . Currently, a contradictory situation is observed in corruption related assessment practice. At present, the leadership of public authorities reports on a decrease in acts of corruption whereas the statistics testify rather to the persistence of the previous level of corruption offenses than to the decline. Employees are concerned about the increasing requirements related to compliance with anti-corruption restrictions, as well as income, expenses and property obligations reporting. Citizens continue to express distrust in government bodies and state apparatus as a whole. These contradictions could be resolved if the interests of both employees of state bodies and citizens of the country are taken into account. It is assumed that when assessing anti-corruption environment effectiveness, it is advisable to take into account not only the risks of citizens, but also the risks of public officials and state authority’s employees. We applied cognitive modeling as it is difficult to formalize most stages of government bodies` activities, whereas we need to take into account many factors and conflicting goals that have complex weakly structured relationships. Fishbone Diagram or Cause-and-Effect-Diagram and the cognitive map were basic initial stage of cognitive modeling which allowed conducting the analysis of external and internal factors influence on the anti-corruption environment development in government bodies. The authors of the paper have shown benefits of expediency transferring of some personnel department functions into digital format.