The Integrity of Governance

What it is, What we Know, What is Done and Where to go

L. Huberts

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137380807
• eBook ISBN: 9781137380814
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the first book of its kind, Leo Huberts provides a critical synthesis of cutting-edge research on public sector integrity exploring issues such as the definition and importance of public sector integrity, the various methodological approaches to the field as well as considering the causes of for the violation of values associated with integrity.

1

Introduction¹

1.1 Integrity is the thing to have

Integrity is the thing to have, for politicians and public servants, for managers and employees in the business sector, for all of us in our personal lives. We all hope to be able to act and decide with integrity, and we hope others will recognize and acknowledge our doing so.

In fact, we seem to favor integrity above anything else. We value it more than, for example, honesty. Being honest and being seen as honest are important, but being seen as a man or woman of integrity seems more comprehensive and decisive. We also seem to favor integrity above being ethical. “Ethics” brings in more philosophical and intangible connotations; integrity seems more concerned with our everyday behavior and decision-making.

The importance of integrity to every individual and every organization, and the fact that it touches upon the very core and essence of existence, manifests itself when someone’s integrity is questioned. Such doubts about integrity can destroy careers and paralyze organizations. Whatever presidents like Marcos, Suharto, and Mubarak may have achieved for their countries, what they will be remembered for is the dubious and corrupt use of their power(s). The crucial significance of integrity makes it important to reflect in more depth on the concept, to explore what we are talking about and clarify to some extent the situations and contexts in which the concept is appropriate. Such clarification is exactly the goal that I, together with several esteemed colleagues,² will try to reach in the following chapters.

To begin this task, this book delves first into the content of integrity. Everybody desires it, but what exactly are we longing for and talking about? To answer this question, this chapter introduces a number of the central concepts of our theory on the integrity of governance, followed by an introduction to the topics dealt with in later chapters. These latter include certain fundamental questions about the bright and dark sides of ethics and integrity: what are the central moral public values to be cherished, what can go wrong and why, and what policies and institutions help to curb corruption and safeguard integrity?

The clarification of the concept of integrity, however, is hindered by the fact that in English the noun “integrity” has no parallel adjective: whereas it is common practice to speak about the integrity of a politician or a manager, it is highly exceptional to refer to an “integral” (Carter, 1996) person, politician, or manager (and, in such cases, the connotation is of a “whole” character), and “integer,” the closest to the French (intègre), German (integer), or Dutch (integer) adjective, falls awkwardly on the native ear. What adjective, then, is useful and possible in English? I choose the term “integritous” because it follows the pattern of the Latin -icitas forms (solicitous, felicitous, duplicitous . . .) and because Carter’s alternative “integral” reminds one more of integrality than integrity.

The language differences may also play a role in the relative popularity of the concept of integrity in current discussions about the character and quality of government and governance. Although the fierce debate about corruption, ethics, and integrity rages across the globe, the uses of “integrity” as a challenging concept to illuminate these phenomena seem to differ. Hence, this book refers frequently to the “ethics and integrity” of governance, two concepts that I differentiate more clearly as the chapters unfold while also clarifying what makes integrity special and important.

1.2 More attention to integrity and ethics

1.2.1 Politics and administration

Interest in the integrity and ethics of governance has increased significantly during recent decades (Yoder and Cooper, 2005; Huberts, Maesschalck, and Jurkiewicz, 2008; Cox III, 2009; Lewis and Gilman, 2012; Menzel, 2012), particularly in the face of the growing commitment demonstrated by international organizations to fighting corruption and safeguarding integrity. As a result, such organizations as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as civil organizations like Transparency International (TI), now see the issue as essential to political and economic progress. These organizations have overseen an impressive number of initiatives and established an extensive framework of conventions, rules, monitoring guidelines, and sanctions, including the 1999 OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and the UN Convention against Corruption that entered into force in December 2005.

These developments coincided with more interest in corruption and integrity within, for example, the European Union (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012), whose discussions and decision-making about new EU members are very much focused on the presence of corruption in candidate countries. International policies and practices are also reflected in decision-making about which countries will receive financial assistance, debt reduction, developmental aid, and political and economic favors. If countries that seek such support do not abide by or recognize these anticorruption initiatives, they are regarded much less favorably, not only by institutions like the World Bank and the European Union but also by national governments. At the same time, as illustrated by the fierce discussion on the criteria of good governance, there also appears to be growing awareness among the international community that issues of the integrity and ethics of government and governance encompass aspects far beyond the mere curbing or sanctioning of corruption.

1.2.2 Academic dialogue

Integrity, ethics, and corruption have also become more important research topics in many academic disciplines, leading to an international academic dialogue on these subjects that is more cooperative, intellectually challenging, vigorous, and substantive (Menzel, 2005a; Lawton and Doig, 2006). There also seems to be a trend toward more international networks (after a period of domination by American scholars), as well as some progress toward bridging geographical, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Also very important is the seemingly more intense discussion and improved exchange between the many disciplines in the ethics and integrity arena. These myriad fields represent many worlds to bridge, possibly through manifold involvement, from psychology to political science, from neurosciences to philosophy, from business administration to public administration . . . Although it is not easy to overcome the borders of such separated paradigms, it seems a highly worthwhile endeavor to develop bodies of knowledge on specific topics using contributions from different disciplines. As a first step, however, it is necessary to be precise about the usage of such concepts as ethics and integrity, implying the need for a refined framework for these concepts.

1.3 Integrity, ethics, values, and governance

The issues that lie at the heart of such a conceptual framework, however, are broad enough to have generated full libraries of written work, a richness that will be hinted at in subsequent chapters. For now, I offer only a brief definition of the major concepts and approaches. Whereas ethics and corruption have always been important concepts in the analysis of politics and administration, integrity, the central concept of this book, has for too long been ignored. For example, the term “integrity” is totally absent from the index of Willa Bruce’s anthology Classics of Administrative Ethics (2001), even though, as the literature review will show, the concept has become more popular over recent decades. This increased interest has produced eight distinguishable views, based on many bodies of knowledge: integrity as wholeness (being consistent and coherent); as integration into the environment; as professional responsibility; as conscious open action based on moral reflection; as a (number of) value(s), including incorruptibility; as accordance with laws and codes; as accordance with relevant moral values and norms; and as exemplary moral behavior.

In this book, “integrity” is seen as a characteristic or quality that refers to accordance with the relevant moral values and norms. Thus, a politician is a man or woman of integrity if his or her behavior (as a politician) is in harmony or accordance with relevant moral values and norms (including laws and rules). Which values, norms, laws, and rules are relevant, however, depends upon the context. Moreover, it is not only individuals who can act with or without integrity: the characteristic or quality can also be applied to other “subjects.” Hence, whereas the behavior being judged in terms of integrity may be very specific (e.g., lying in parliament, falsifying documents to boost profits, drunken driving, smoking marijuana), the subject involved can be a group, an organization, or even a society. When relevant moral values and norms can be distinguished for such a subject, integrity judgments can arise. For example, a group, organization, or society can lack integrity when its leaders and members abuse power and appear to be corruptible. In other words, types of integrity can be distinguished depending on the subject considered, whether the issue is individual personal integrity, integrity of the individual professional, the integrity of a profession or an organization, or the integrity of a system.

A “value” is a belief or quality that contributes to judgments about what is good, right, beautiful, or admirable. Values, thus, carry weight in the choice of action by individuals and collectives. A norm, on the other hand, is more specific. Norms tell us whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. For types of behavior, they answer the question “what is the correct thing to do?” Yet not all values and norms are relevant to integrity judgments. For example, integrity does not deal with what is beautiful (aesthetics), what is conventional (etiquette), or what works (technology). Rather, it focuses on moral norms and values, those that concern what is right or wrong, good or bad, usually in regard to the issues that people feel strongly about, the issues that matter for the community to which they belong (i.e., there is a claim to more general validity and conformity). Both “morality” and “ethics,” therefore, refer to what is right or wrong, good or bad; and the terms “ethical” and “moral” are commonly used as interchangeable synonyms. Others, however, see morals as referring to the principles of right and wrong, and ethics (or Ethics) as the study of those principles. For pragmatic reasons, this book adopts the first approach.

Much public debate, policy-making, and theory development in ethics on an international level focuses on the concept of corruption rather than on ethics or integrity, defining corruption narrowly—as, for example, bribery—or more broadly, as all behaviors that impair integrity, virtue, or moral principle. In this book, “corruption” is seen as the promising, giving, asking, or receiving of personal benefits or favors that (are meant to) influence the decisions of a (public) functionary; in other words, the intrusion of improper private interests into the decision-making process. Corruption, therefore, means that authority is misused because of the favors or benefits offered by external parties with an interest in past, present, or future decision-making.

Corruption is very often seen as a serious “integrity violation”; that is, a behavior that violates the relevant moral values and norms. Integrity violations include, for example, fraud and theft, leaking information, conflict of interest, private time misbehavior, sexual intimidation, and discrimination. Yet what exactly is seen as a violation depends on the relevant norms and values, and thus on the context (time and situation). Moreover, each type of integrity violation consists of a spectrum of behaviors, from most to least serious, as determined by how far these behaviors are from normative value expectations. Hence, such corrupt behavior as bribery can range from cents to billions, and sexual harassment can vary between a derogatory remark and rape.

One last concept to be defined—and one that has recently become very popular—is “governance,” a term that relates to the dynamics of (the division of) power and authority in government, as well as in civil society and corporations. More specifically, governance concerns the achievement of collective “goals” by either one actor or a network of public and private actors. It thus differs from “government,” which refers to the territorial governance system equipped with the unique powers to use force and to tax. Rather, governance is about authoritative decision-making on collective problems and interests (policy-making), as well as the implementation of such decisions (Table 1.1).

1.4 What is valued

The claim that integrity refers to the relevant norms and values raises the question of what makes up these values and norms. What do we welcome, appreciate, admire, value, see as exemplary? What defines the positive or bright side of integrity (and what the dark side of corruption and integrity violations)? The empirical and normative literature on public values offers useful insights into these questions, which will be analyzed in more depth in a later chapter on “value” (Chapter 5, coauthored with Van der Wal). We will begin with a clarification of the concept of value, followed by an overview of the values in existing laws, codes, and rules. This overview will be followed by a brief investigation into what we actually know about the values of politicians and public servants, and how their values relate to their business counterparts. We also explore a related and important area, the public’s views on values and norms. What values do citizens expect from their administration and politics, and to what extent are the values of public sector politicians, managers, and employees in line with these expectations? We appear to know little about these preferences and views, which is a pity because in the end these should be important, if not decisive, for any integrity-based analysis.

Table 1.1 Summary of the main concepts

Integrity: characteristic or quality that refers to accordance with the relevant moral values and norms

Relevant: valid within the context

Moral: characteristic of right or wrong, good or bad (general and unavoidable)

Morals/Ethics: the collection of moral values and norms that provides a framework for judging and acting

Value: belief or quality that contributes to judgments about what is good, right, beautiful, or admirable

Norm: prescription for what is correct in a certain situation

Integrity violation: behavior that violates the relevant moral values and norms

Corruption: the (mis)use of authority because of the benefits offered by external parties with an interest

Governance: authoritative policy-making and implementation about collective problems and interests

Much normative thought about public administration and politics has focused on the values of politicians and public servants. For example, Frederickson (1997) reflected on the “spirit of public administration” and Cooper (2006) on what a responsible administrator should do. However, this book primarily asks what values are important for politicians and public servants in policy preparation, decision-making, and implementation. And are these values in line with the moral values laid down in their own codes of eth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Multidisciplinarity of Ethics and Integrity of Governance
• 3. Integrity and Integritism
• 4. Governance and Integrity
• 5. What is Valued in Politics and Administration
• 6. What Goes Wrong: Integrity Violations
• 7. Why it Goes Wrong: Causes of Corruption
• 8. What is Done to Protect Integrity: Policies, Institutions, and Systems
• 9. Placing Integrity of Governance in Context
• Notes
• References
• Index