POLITICAL SCIENCE APPROACH TOWARDS THE STUDY OF CORRUPTION

The article refers to the concepts specifying corruption from the domain of political science. It follows the occurrence of the phenomenon in relation to misuse of power for personal profit and provides an overview of theses formulated by political science authors on corruption and misuse of power (e.g. Rose-Ackerman, Warren, Johnston, Klitgaard) in relation to public administration and policy making. The examples and documentation of Slovak experience is provided, particularly in the field of the politico-administrative relations and from the exercise of discretionary power of the street level bureaucracy. Corrupted behaviour usually arises in the environment of public power misuse, where institutional and legal framework does not provide sufficient opportunity for the expression of plurality of the opinions which consequently is reflected in the unequal participatory access of various economic and political elite as well as interest groups.