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Preventing malfeasance in low corruption environments: Twenty public administration responses
Abstract
Purpose
Corruption undermines good governance. Strategies for preventing malfeasance in low corruption environments require a different approach to that applied in high corruption environments. The paper asks if criminological theories and practice contribute to the study and prevention of corruption in public organizations? Do crime prevention techniques help us in preventing corruption?
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data demonstrates the overwhelming majority of public officials in rich countries demonstrate high levels of integrity, yet significant sums are invested in anti-corruption agencies and prevention strategies. This paper reports on recent work with an anti-corruption agency, which forced us to re-think how to deliver an anti-corruption agenda in a low corruption environment. We build on our research of public sector corruption in rich countries to develop a set of 20 situational corruption prevention measures for public administrators.
Findings
The result, with lessons from crime prevention, is a prevention tool to support continued good governance in low corruption environments. Figure 1 is a template which readers can apply in their own environments. Figure 2 is our attempt to populate this template based on the research reported here.
Originality/value
The matrix of situational corruption prevention techniques provides two original approaches. First, it recasts the language of crime prevention into a non-confrontational approach to avoid alienating honest public officials. Secondly, the matrix incorporates common public sector functions to guide the development of context specific corruption prevention techniques.
... Complexities coupled with discretionary powers of CJOs, which correlate with corruption, usually characterise operations and procedures of CJIs (see Buscaglia, 2007;Buscaglia & Dakolias, 1999a;Voigt, 2007). Therefore, as acknowledged and recommended by Campos and Bhargava (2007), reducing operational complexities and discretionary powers of CJOs in providing services are measures to curb corruption (see also, Graycar & Masters, 2018;Rose-Ackerman, 2010. Equally, Buscaglia (1999a) proposed that implementing organisational reforms that improve administrative procedures, reduce complexities and officials' degree of discretionary power to control decision-making is a great measure to reduce corruption in the CJS, especially judiciary (see also, Buscaglia, 1999b;Buscaglia, 2001aBuscaglia, , 2001bGraycar & Felson, 2010;Langseth & Buscaglia, 2001;UNODC, 2004b). ...
... These include terrorism (Clarke & Newman, 2006), sex offending (Akbas, 2009;Wortley & Smallbone, 2006), organised crime (Bullock et al., 2010;Graycar & Felson, 2011;von Lampe, 2011), e-commerce (Newman & Clarke, 2003), and money laundering (Gilmour, 2014(Gilmour, , 2016. In terms of corruption, including fraud, there is a small literature on the application of situational approaches, especially to corruption prevention (Graycar & Masters, 2018;Graycar & Sidebottom, 2012;Richardson, 2015;Sidebottom, 2010;Tunley et al., 2018). Meanwhile, application of the SCP strategies and techniques has achieved successful prevention results in 17 traditional crimes where conventional approaches that focus on grand initiatives such as regulatory, governance, and institutional reforms had failed or achieved little results. ...
... Indeed, research has shown that anti-corruption policies that focus on monitoring and oversight, e-governance, adequate remuneration, pay-scales disciplinary measures and financial sanctions, and changing incentives via training in ethics exploit four strategies of the SCP to modify corruption opportunities structures (Graycar & Masters, 2018;Graycar & Sidebottom, 2012;Sidebottom, 2010;Tunley et al., 2018). However, a necessary caution that must be taken is that while all the five strategies can apply to corruption, some of the 25 techniques, especially those that focus on geographical locations or tangible objects may not apply to corruption. ...
Corruption in any form is a serious crime that threatens democracies and governments, damages economies, causes devastating inefficiencies, diverts funds away from essential public services, and exacerbates inequalities, especially in developing nations. It negatively affects the lives and destinies of citizens, public bodies, businesses, governments, and charity organisations. Corruption is so infectious that it sometimes affects systems established to enforce the laws and
control corruption. Indeed, research has shown that criminal justice systems (CJSs) or institutions, which are often the last resort for nations and citizens to address crimes that occur in other parts
of the economy, including corruption, are severely affected by corruption. Corruption has attracted substantial academic attention for decades, with several studies reporting that citizens of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere perceived their countries’ criminal justice institutions (CJIs), especially the police and judiciary, as among the most corrupt public institutions. Despite the public perceptions of high corruption in CJSs, its negative consequences, and extensive research on general corruption, little research focuses on corruption in CJSs from the perspectives of criminal justice officials, and across multiple CJIs simultaneously. This study does precisely this.
The current study uses theories of rational choice, routine activity, and crime pattern and situational crime prevention framework to examine various aspects of corruption across multiple CJIs in Ghana. Using interview data from 65 criminal justice and anti-corruption officials and spontaneous observations across three regions of Ghana, this thesis addresses six research questions. These are 1) What is the nature of criminal justice corruption in Ghana; 2) Which institutions and processes in Ghana’s CJS are affected by corruption and how; 3) What factors account for the occurrence and persistence of corruption in Ghana’s CJS; 4) What measures exist for controlling criminal justice corruption in Ghana; 5) Are existing measures to control corruption in Ghana’s CJS adequate and effective; and 6) How can Ghana control corruption in its CJS effectively? Results from this study demonstrate that participants perceive that: 1) corruption concentrates at entry points of Ghana’s CJS and institutions; 2) deficiencies in the internal operations of the CJS, institutional (in)actions and lack of guardianship create opportunities and motivations for widespread corruption; and 3) low literacy and a lack of awareness among the public about criminal justice operations, procedures and services serve as key facilitators of corruption. In addition, criminal justice officials variously explain and justify
the occurrence and prevalence of corruption in Ghana’s CJS. This thesis makes some significant contributions to the corruption literature from the perspectives of opportunity theories and
organisational context, with important implications for developing evidence-based measures that can help to control corruption in Ghana’s CJS.
... Second most common was embezzlement, which occurred in 19.1 percent of the cases, followed by official misconduct, procurement fraud, regulatory law violations, bribery solicitation, obstruction of justice, and extortion. Graycar and Masters (2018) used situational crime prevention techniques to build a matrix of corruption prevention. This tool can facilitate both research and practice for corruption prevention and has great relevance for good governance, by providing a structured framework to identify potential corruption risks by function and also strategies for developing contextually appropriate prevention techniques. ...
... Benson, Madensen, and Eck (2009) also used this theoretical framework to identify the underlying opportunity structures in specific types of white-collar crime. Graycar and Masters (2018) argue that the principle Typ hier uw tekst applies equally to public corruption. If any one of the three elements (a motivated offender, a target, and the absence of a capable guardian) is missing, then there is no corrupt event. ...
... The existence of a tax institution with its integrity system must encourage transparent and accountable reporting mechanisms so that each component of society can act as a front line supervisor and ensure investment service delivery organizations perform as expected (Graycar & Masters, 2018), which is in line with the principles of investment which basically do not tolerate any illegal act, which is the actions of every person that is not only limited to acts that violate the law but also act that vilate moral, propriety, thoroughness and caution that should be owned by someone in social life (Sinaga, Samekto & Emirzon, 2019). The meaning of illegal activity in the investment process in Indonesia also provides an understanding of the similarity of criminal acts of corruption and located tax evasion, which are equally causing losses to the country's financial or economy that cannot be separated from collective illegal acts, as the logic of tax evasion and corruption as collective illegal acts refer to the characteristics of these acts as illegal, hidden, and collective practices make it a routine that forms a pattern of organizational action that consists of rules as a basic pattern of actors, interpretation of these rules by actors and actual performance patterns (Frost & Tischer , 2014). ...
... The implementation of tax reorientation that is expected to provide services to the public through the presentation of decisions of individuals and business entities that are intolerant of corruption in connection with an investment in the future can be done through the development of several techniques that have been suggested by Graycar & Masters (2018). First, in the event that corrupt behavior is not detected because every transaction of parties that are not reported and or disguised is anticipated by the efforts of the tax authorities to make changes to their efforts by making transactions transparent. ...
Investments, that are supposed to increase the country's economic growth and tax revenues, have potentially created "unofficial" costs for investors and unreported informal income of the bribe recipients. It is important to conduct library research using the new institutionalism theory with historical institutionalism approach in answering the main problem. It is concluded that tax reorientation could prevent corruption on investment in Indonesia. The actors involved in investment, even though, will be limited collectively by government organizations, but the existing restrictions are the design of systems that can influence individuals and groups to prevent corruption. Restrictions of the tax authority can be imposed through several ways, such as enforcing bribes as the non-deductible expense and as an income tax object of gifts to the givers, applying bribes as income to the recipients, recommending non-penal sanctions, and blacklisting the individuals or legal entities involved in corruption.
... Common schemes used to deviate public resources in the Brazilian LGs include creating phantom firms, simulating the call for bids and giving kickbacks to government officials (Ferraz & Finan, 2011). Furthermore, when officials take money from individuals or firms doing business with or regulated by a city, the costs of services rise, regulations go unenforced and public health or safety may be endangered (Graycar & Masters, 2018;Lyman et al., 1978). Consequently, this type of attitude is reflected in the ways in which disclosure is provided, as the LG might try to hide the corruption phenomenon by producing an ambiguous disclosure. ...
The never-ending fight against corruption has driven local governments (LGs) to prepare and disclose their strategies to prevent and/or reduce corruption. This paper aims to identify possible determinants that can affect disclosure provided through anticorruption plans, specifically the factors that can affect accountability behaviour. To this end, anticorruption plans published by a sample of Italian LGs are analysed. Findings reveal that governance, economic and socio-political features considerably affect anticorruption disclosure. The key lessons from the findings reveal that anticorruption regulations require further surveillance and that key mechanisms must be implemented for more effective action.
... Anti-institutional corruption policies should hence be formulated and evaluated based on how they directly and indirectly enable voters to supervise elected officials as well as overcoming collective action problems. By adopting a policy-centered approach, the academic community can take several important steps: moving towards an understanding of the actual functions corruption serves in a society [25], anti-corruption prevention techniques being tailored after specific contexts [9], and ultimately closer attention being paid to various forms of corruption occurring simultaneously in numerous sectors [14]. ...
How can institutional corruption be combatted? While recent years have seen a growth in anti-corruption literature, examples of countries rooting out systemic corruption remain few. The lack of success stories has sparked an academic debate about the theoretical foundations of anti-corruption frameworks: primarily between proponents of the principal-agent framework and those seeing systemic corruption as the result of collective-action problems. Through an analysis of current principal-agent and collective action anti-corruption literature, this article adds two additional arguments to the debate: (a) the need to specify what one talks about when talking about systemic corruption and (b) the necessity to move beyond the principal-agent versus collective action frameworks dichotomy towards a policy-centered approach for how to combat institutional corruption. Having outlined how institutional corruption can be seen as one type of systemic corruption, this article shows how a policy-centered approach such as strengthening the appearance standard through an independent public commission can address theoretical mechanisms emphasized in each anti-corruption framework–thus arguing that the frameworks complement rather than rival each other. The article ends by arguing for an anti-corruption discourse acknowledging that a multifaceted problem such as corruption requires multiple frameworks rather than attempts for silver-bullet explanations.
... A growing body of scholars (Graycar and Prenzler 2013;Graycar and Masters 2018;Tunley et al. 2018) have discussed how corruption prevention can be improved by identifying potential corruption risks for each function of an administration. They have viewed corruption as a 'risk to be systematically governed' (Hansen 2011). ...
Major international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), and the European Union (EU) have stressed the importance of risk management as a useful mechanism to prevent corruption. Anticorruption laws or regulations have been developed around the world, both at regional and national level. These aim to support the design and implementation of proactive management of corruption risks in the public sector. This article aimed to investigate the relationship between stakeholder engagement and the extent of implementation of corruption risk management systems by public organizations. We analysed the anticorruption plans of 343 Italian administrations to explore how different categories of stakeholders (i.e. employees, governing bodies, users/citizens associations) can contribute to the corruption risk management process. We found that the involvement of external and internal stakeholders can positively affect the extent of implementation of corruption risk management systems by public organizations. We explained our results by referring to both traditional organizational theories (institutional theory and the resource-based view) and public governance theories (collaborative and inclusive governance). Institutional pressures, knowledge and values emerged as keys to understanding the results.
... Cantor and Land, 1985;Coleman, 1987;Coleman, 1992;Clarke, 2016), whereas motivations are symbolic constructions defining certain goals and activities as desirable, and opportunities are circumstances that make certain behaviours possible or more tempting (Coleman, 1987;Clarke, 2016). Opportunities include, amongst others, the lack of adequate controls and access to suitable victims, often facilitated by the position of power of the perpetrator (Cohen and Felson, 1979;Graycar and Sidebottom, 2012;Graycar and Masters, 2018;Klitgaard, 1988). Button, Shepherd and Blackbourn observe that, compared to street crimes, there are fewer situational opportunities for briberyand, we can add, for many other corrupt practicessince bribery requires a peculiar coincidence of suitable situations and resources, typically accessible to a limited number of subjects (Chapter 8). ...
Corruption is undoubtedly a global crime. The developments of globalisation are increasingly globalising the causes, the means, the forms of perpetration and the effects of corruption. Gaining an increasingly comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of corruption as a globalising phenomenon is essential. Besides, a solid knowledge of the forms of manifestations of such a phenomenon, its sources and its causes is a necessary condition for the adoption of appropriate policies and regulation to contrast it. The literature on corruption is relatively young and evidence on the extent and the dynamics of corrupt schemes is difficult to gather due to the usual secrecy of such practices. While public and academic interest in corruption is gradually increasing, also thanks to the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as Transparency International or Global Witness, more efforts are required to keep our knowledge up to date with the rapidly evolving features of corruption. Particularly, the observation of the global dimensions of corruption exposes some of its characters which are still understudied and suggests the approach to be taken in order to fill this gap. This book aims at filling, at least partially, such gap by contributing to a better understanding of corruption in the global context and at advancing the academic and public debate on corruption. This project originates from the collaborative research activities of the Financial Crime Research Network at the University of the West of England and the Integrity Research Group at Kingston University London, which allowed us to study some of the emerging and globalising features of corruption calling for more investigation. In the following paragraphs, we will illustrate some of these features and the research methods required to analyse them, which the authors of the various essays included in this book have endeavoured to adopt. In doing so, we will also anticipate some of the contents of the following chapters and highlight the important relations between them.
... In other words, here corruption is not the norm but the exception. Whereas this may characterize the situation in rich countries that have low corruption environments (Graycar & Masters, 2018;Graycar & Monaghan, 2015), corrupt events in most of the fishing states summarized above are structural. They are embedded into a culture, society or country with substantial path dependence from the history (e.g., Van Sittert, 2015). ...
This paper explores corruption in global fisheries. While reducing corruption is critical for the effective management of the fisheries sector and the fulfilment of the UN's sustainable development goals (SDGs, and SDGs14 and 16 in particular), to do so, it is necessary to first have a systematic and comprehensive understanding of what corruption is and how it is manifested in the sector. There is literature on illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, but not much on corruption. The paper proposes an analytical framework and applies it with six revelatory cases to improve the conceptual clarity of corruption in fisheries. Specific corruption problems found in licensing, negotiating access agreements, lax enforcement, extortion, political corruption, money laundering and tax manipulation, human trafficking, etc. can therefore be better identified through this analysis, which lays a base for systematic responses to tackling corruption in fisheries and accordingly furthering the sustainable development of the sector.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how four styles of “morally ambiguous” leadership could have a philosophical basis, while relatively contributing to efficiently prevent bribery and extortion in the organizational life.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper identifies four styles of morally ambiguous leadership in taking philosophically based representations of “sociopolitical saviors” into account: “occasionally cruel saviors” (Niccolò Machiavelli); “occasionally compassionate saviors” (Adam Smith),; “socially conformist and compassionate” saviors (David Hume); and “revolutionary and implicitly compassionate” saviors (Hannah Arendt). Morally ambiguous leaders choose paradoxical ways to assume their moral responsibility. They use paradoxical strategies to prevent bribery and extortion in the organizational life.
Findings
The philosophical basis of those styles of morally ambiguous leadership unveils two basic antagonisms: the antagonism between cruelty and compassion; and the antagonism between social conformism and revolutionary spirit. The axis of power (Machiavelli) does not allow any connection between both antagonisms. The axis of self-interest (Smith) shows an intermediary positioning in both antagonisms (relatively compassionate, implicitly revolutionary). The axis of social conformism/compassion (Hume) and the axis of revolutionary spirit/compassion (Arendt) make leaders deepen their paradoxical positionings about moral issues.
Research limitations/implications
The four styles of morally ambiguous leadership have not been empirically assessed. Moreover, the analysis of Eastern and Western philosophies could allow decision-makers to identity other philosophically based and morally ambiguous positionings about moral issues. Other philosophies could also unveil further kinds of antagonisms that could be applied to prevention strategies against bribery and extortion schemes.
Originality/value
The paper presents a philosophically based analysis of morally ambiguous leadership and its potential impact on prevention strategies against bribery and extortion schemes.
Corruption of all types including occupational corruption causes immense damage to society. Though a number of guides have been published which offer prevention advice, there is very little original criminological research which connects theory to best practice. This paper demonstrates that Clarke’s situational crime prevention framework provides a mechanism for operatively analysing specific situations to design and implement prevention methods. The study analyses a variety of techniques, based upon a survey and interviews with counter-corruption professionals, to offer insights into their utilisation and effectiveness. To achieve meaningful implementation of the techniques, counter-corruption managers need the delegated power and support of the executive leadership.
Corruption demoralises government and weakens the whole endeavour of policy formulation and its implementation. It diminishes services and causes fiscal stress, but most of all it undermines trust and corrodes legitimate community expectations. Corruption takes many forms and is found in many contexts. This paper develops a framework for the analysis of corruption which identifies types, activities, sectors and places (TASP). With the TASP framework identified or suspected corruption in any setting can be analysed as a precursor to the controls and processes that are most appropriate for the control and modification of corrupt behaviour, which ideally can enhance public sector performance. The TASP framework assists in pinpointing the nature, location and context of public sector corruption, and illustrates more precisely where the risks of corrupt activity might arise. This paper demonstrates, with empirical work from New York City and the State of Victoria in Australia (Australia's second most populous state), that more precise classification and characterisation of the nature and types of corrupt activity is an essential precondition to the development and design of targeted anti-corruption measures.
Local government corruption is a phenomenon across the world. This article draws upon survey work in Victoria, Australia, to show that citizens believe that corruption exists in local government and experience it, but rarely report it to an anti-corruption agency or elsewhere. Even when reported, tracing the outcome from state-level authorities to the local government becomes an exercise in futility, because the corrupt act is dealt with in policy frameworks that make it effectively disappear. As a result, corruption as perceived or experienced in the everyday life of citizens is different from what is defined in law and dealt with by public bodies. While the data here are Australian, the lessons and principles can be applied in many other countries. © 2015
Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century. Politicians responded by erecting great bureaucracies, increasingly relying on policy expertise and abstract notions of citizenship and, more recently, on networks of quasi-governmental and private organizations to deliver services using market-oriented techniques. Today, the state is an unwieldy edifice of nineteenth-century government buttressed by a sprawling substructure devoted to the very different idea of governance--and democracy has suffered. In Democratic Governance, Bevir takes a comprehensive look at governance and the history and thinking behind it. He provides in-depth case studies of constitutional reform, judicial reform, joined-up government, and police reform. He argues that the best hope for democratic renewal lies in more interpretive styles of expertise, dialogic forms of policymaking, and more diverse avenues for public participation.