Informal Payments in Ukrainian Hospitals: On the Boundary between Informal Payments, Gifts, and Bribes

Abstract

This article suggests that money payments are central to the persistence of informality in Ukraine because they are more complex than simple bribes—they cement social obligations and even reciprocity. We will use the case study of informal payments in Ukrainian hospitals to illustrate the blurring of boundaries between gift exchanges and bribing. This, in turn, will question the relevance to this case of the Maussian concept of the gift as personal and inalienable to point at a possible new phenomenon: the monetarisation of the gift. Money, it will be shown, may, in certain cases, generate the obligation to receive and reciprocate, even if not necessarily using the same currency. By questioning legalistic views of payments as bribes or corruption, this article problematises the discourse on corruption to suggest that other commodities, or services, could play the role that money has in economic exchanges, is, to create dependency, alliances, or indebtedness without being formally associable with illegal actions.

Keywords:

• Bribe
• Gift
• Hospitals
• Informal payments
• Ukraine

Notes

[1] I wish to thank the four anonymous reviewers and the editors of this special issue for their continuous feedback and guidance throughout the whole submission process.

[2] I owe this observation to one of the anonymous reviewers, to whom I would like to express my gratitude here.

[3] Private hospitals have been spreading in the past years but their prices make them out of reach for large portions of the population.

[4] I would like to thank Hans Gutbrod for the discussion we had in this regard and who suggested the 3 level classification of corrupted acts.