This paper offers a cross-country analysis of street-level corruption. In line with earlier studies on general corruption (where data did not allow a distinction between street-level and high-level corruption, e.g. Treisman 2000 and La Porta et al . 1999), nine hypotheses based on general economic theories of law enforcement are tested using data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) held in forty countries (N = 27,456). The analyses employ multilevel logistic regression models. The results show that citizens living in countries with (a) high levels of economic development, (b) high levels of economic freedom, (c) long exposure to democracy, (d) a non-federal structure, (e) Protestant traditions, and (f) a British legal culture, experience less corruption. A relation between corruption levels and economic development, economic freedom, long democratic traditions, and a British legal culture, however, is found only when no distinction is made between industrialized and developing countries. As for individual characteristics, a higher risk of being victimized by corruption is correlated with a lower age and higher levels of education and income.

Since 1989 the political systems in Eastern European societies have changed radically, from totalitarian regimes towards democratic regimes with free general elections and multi-party systems similar to early democracies. This paper examines whether in these new democracies the same class cleavages have become important as in longstanding Western democracies. The relation between social class, attitudes towards economic justice and voting behavior is investigated in five new democracies and compared with those in nine longstanding democracies. The data used are from various cross-nationally comparable and nationally representative surveys held in the 1990s (total N = 20,270). Results show that social class has clear effects on economic justice attitudes and voting behavior in Western democracies. In the post-communist societies, members of different social classes consistently differ in their attitudes towards income inequality and social security, but hardly differ in their voting behavior. Owing to the politically unstable situation in the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe, people in different classes are probably unable to translate their policy preferences into party preferences.