I conclude with a discussion of what we know and what we don’t about the linkage of corruption, education, and political culture in Romania. While some of my arguments are speculative, they fit well with the existing literature and are based on empirical findings. The focus of this chapter is small-scale corruption in education, which can have lasting effects on trust and other core democratic val-ues. The claim in this chapter is that small-scale corruption in the civic domain matters as well, impeding not only social and economic development but contributing to the slow pace of democratization by eroding some of the norms and attitudes that make democracy work. Moreover, it is not only large-scale and political corruption that can have negative consequences upon political culture. I will argue that simultaneous placement on the lowest ranks results from a series of mutually reinforcing causal linkages. Romania not only has one of the lowest levels of civic and political participation in the EU and one of the lowest levels of political and social trust, it is also the country with the highest scores on most measures of corruption. Furthermore, economic crisis coupled with a high level of perceived corruption makes for a toxic mix. Countries with shallow democratic cultures can be unstable and, if subjected to intense so-cio-economic stress, might suffer significant political backsliding.
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