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No, Prime Minister: PhD Plagiarism of High Level Public Officials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2017

Theodor Tudoroiu
Theodor Tudoroiu*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies.
*
Email: theodor.tudoroiu@sta.uwi.edu
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Abstract

Based on a public office definition of corruption, this article uses the case studies of doctoral plagiarism of German Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Hungarian President Pàl Schmitt, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to show that, by shattering citizens’ confidence in and respect for political class, political parties, state institutions and rule of law, academic plagiarism of high-ranking politicians intertwines with and enforces the most serious democratic failures in their respective countries: degeneration of political culture in Germany, nationalist authoritarian trends in Hungary, a culture of corruption in Romania, and outright dictatorship in Russia. As such, this specific type of plagiarism goes far beyond academia. It represents a direct, aggressive, and effective threat against democracy itself.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 623 - 641
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2017 

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References

References and Notes

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