Ambivalence,Political Consensus and Conditionality: Support for Whistleblowing among Danish Employees

Whistleblower research is understandably focused around the protagonists of the practice. We still know surprisingly little about how whistleblowing is perceived in the wider population. Drawing on a representative survey of Danish employees (N = 1,709), this paper analyses how whistleblower public support is distributed along variables such as political preference, political interest and job type, and tests whether it is conditional on whistleblower motivation and type of wrongdoing. The paper finds that public support is strong but also ambivalent. It shows that support is evenly distributed along party preference. It also demonstrates that support is not uniform but conditional on the characteristics of the whistleblower situation. These insights are important for both social and political reasons in the present situation where whistleblowing seems to be on the rise. From a policy perspective, it offers policymakers an important evidence‐based navigation tool in devising whistleblower legislation.     

WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION IN THE USA: LESSONS LEARNT AND TO BE LEARNT

Abstract: In the 1970s, both Australia and the United States instituted legal reforms aimed at promoting greater accountability among public servants. Prompted by growing awareness of the need to encourage and protect federal government whistleblowers, Congress enacted whistleblower protection measures in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Although the notion of open government in Australia has never been extended to include whistleblowing by public servants, probing the issue of whether or not United States whistleblower protection can serve as a reform model in the search for more effective legal mechanisms for ensuring government accountability can provide lessons and insights of value to Australian public administrators. Analysis of the role and impact of the Office of the Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board as established under the Civil Service Reform Act reveals many difficulties associated with whistleblower protection. Research has substantiated the jurisdictional ambiguities, administrative and procedural deficiencies and lack of sanctioning power which plague this reform effort. Similar deficiencies also impede the protection of parliamentary witnesses in Australia. Evaluation of whistleblower protection leads to the conclusion that reform models in either country for ensuring government accountability must not be judged solely through examination of statutory provisions. There must also be in place strong stabilising factors such as political unity, economic comfort, social discipline, civic virtue and public service ideology in order to achieve the common public service goal of rendering governmental decision-making more accountable to persons affected by it and open to review by independent decision makers.     

Why so few acting whistleblowers? Impacts of institutional anticorruption

Despite strong whistleblowing intention, very few truly act to blow the whistle. Building on a random sample of local citizens with citywide anticorruption performance indicators, this study investigated the linkages between institutional anticorruption and citizens' whistleblowing acts, both directly and indirectly via situational settings (i.e., corruption incidence and corruptive climate). The findings confirmed the impacts of varying anticorruption practices and detected both direct and indirect trajectories. More judicial convictions against senior officials directly reduced citizens' subsequent whistleblowing acts, but also indirectly invited more as they signaled more ensuing corruption incidence, with overall effects toward reduced whistleblowing. More citywide public whistleblowing incentivized more individual whistleblowing subsequently; yet, such effects were canceled out as such practices also deterred ensuing corruption incidence and indirectly reduced citizens' acts. The total effects explained why there were so few acting whistleblowers. The study concludes with discussion of research findings and potential policy implications.     

Signaling and Counter‐Signaling in the Judicial Hierarchy: An Empirical Analysis of En Banc Review

We leverage the institutional features of American courts to evaluate the importance of whistleblowers in hierarchical oversight. Drawing on a formal theory of signaling in the judicial hierarchy, we examine the role of whistleblowing dissents in triggering en banc review of three‐judge panels by full circuits of the Courts of Appeals. The theory generates predictions about how dissent interacts with judicial preferences to influence circuits' review and reversal decisions, which we test using original and existing data. First, we show that judges who dissent counter to their preferences are more likely to see their dissents lead to review and reversal. Second, we show that dissents are most influential when the likelihood of non‐compliance by a three‐judge panel is highest. Our results underscore the importance of dissent in the judicial hierarchy and illustrate how judicial whistleblowers can help appellate courts target the most important cases for review.     

The Strategic Nature of Compliance: An Empirical Evaluation of Law Implementation in the Central Monitoring System of the European Union

This compliance study models correct and timely implementation of policies in a multilevel system as a strategic game between a central monitoring agency and multiple implementers and evaluates statistically the empirical implications of this model. We test whether compliance is determined by the anticipated enforcement decision of the monitoring agency and whether this agency is responsive to the probability of enforcement success and the potential sanctioning costs produced by noncomplying implementers. Compared to other monitoring systems, the centralized monitoring system of the European Union (EU) is praised for exemplary effectiveness, but our findings reveal that the monitoring agency refrains from enforcing compliance when the probability of success is low, and the sanctioning costs are high. This results in a compliance deficit, even though the selective enforcement activities of the monitoring agency are almost always successful before court.     

An International Comparison of the Incidence of Public Sector Whistle‐Blowing and the Prediction of Retaliation: Australia,Norway, and the US

We compare results of several large‐scale survey studies of whistle‐blowing by public sector employees, from samples in Australia, Norway, and the United States. Specifically, we review incidence rates of wrongdoing, whistle‐blowing and retaliation, as perceived by thousands of respondents employed by many government agencies in these countries. Despite differences in measurement in the studies and variation in results, findings suggest that wrongdoing was quite frequently observed and was reported in many cases. Retaliation resulted for far fewer than half of the whistle‐blowers, in all three nations. We also compare findings from the various studies concerning variables that predicted retaliation against whistle‐blowers in the different samples. Differences in results across the three countries add to existing evidence that country and workplace cultures can affect the whistle‐blowing process.     

Human Rights as Reputation Builder: Compliance with the Convention Against Torture

A strong record of human rights protections is an important factor for a state to maintain a positive international reputation. In this article, we suggest that states will use compliance with human rights treaties as a mechanism by which to improve their reputations to help achieve their foreign policy goals. We hypothesize that international human rights compliance is a means to improve a state’s reputation in three specific situations: when the state is facing regional pressures as the result of a desire to join a regional organization; when the state is facing regional pressures not to run afoul of a court within a regional organization; or when a state seeks foreign assistance from an entity with human rights requirements for the receipt of such assistance. We examine our theory by analyzing human rights reports regarding state compliance with specific treaty obligations outlined in the Convention Against Torture (CAT). While the evidence for our hypotheses is mixed, we do find some support for our assertion that state compliance is linked to reputational concerns. In particular, states comply with the CAT when they are part of a regional organization that has a human rights court, and when they are receiving conditional aid from the European Union.     

Whistleblowing in Local Government: An Empirical Study of Contact Patterns and Whistleblowing in 20 Norwegian Municipalities

Whistleblowing by administrative employees in local governments can bring critical knowledge about misconduct and failed policy outcomes and priorities to the attention of politicians. This article examines whether (1) whistleblowing to politicians is considered acceptable among politicians and administrative employees, (2) politicians receive whistleblowing cases and how those who do so handle the case, and (3) contact patterns between politicians and administrative employees influence the whistleblowing activity and the action taken by the politicians to address wrongdoing. The article departs from the theory of pillars of institutions and the tensions between and within institutional pillars to analyse unique data from a survey based on the vignette method and actual whistleblowing among politicians (N = 400) and employees (N = 373) from 20 Norwegian municipalities. The analysis shows that the degree of contact between politicians and administrative employees is correlated with positive perceptions of whistleblowing and constructive handling of wrongdoing reports by the politicians.     

Different ways of blowing the whistle: Explaining variations in decentralized enforcement in the UK and France

The factors explaining decentralized enforcement – the monitoring and reporting of illegalities in organizations by employees – remain poorly understood. This article contributes to filling this gap by presenting a study of employee reports to regulatory authorities of incidents that have taken place in British and French high hazard industries. The article distinguishes between two different registers of “quiet” and “loud” reporting, reflecting the varying echo of employee reports, as intended either by employees themselves or by other stakeholders. The study finds quiet reporting to be widespread in the UK, while loud reporting was salient in France only. The contrast can be explained by making reference to the relationships between unions, regulators, and managers, and the history and institutions of industrial relations that shaped them in particular ways in each country. The comparison suggests also that whistleblower protection legislation has played little role in encouraging reporting.     

Nudging Early Reduces Administrative Burden: Three Field Experiments to Improve Code Enforcement

In the past decade, public sector organizations around the world have worked to simplify administrative processes as a way to improve user experience and compliance. Academic evidence on administrative burden supports this approach and there is a strong body of research showing that learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs help to explain why residents do not always take up programs for which they are eligible. This article considers the role of these types of costs in a different set of resident-state interactions: compliance with regulations. We present the results of three large field experiments aimed at improving resident compliance with municipal housing codes using targeted behavioral interventions. We find that contacting property owners earlier, redesigning first notices, and proactively communicating with previous violators, can significantly improve compliance by 14.7 percent, 3.3 percent, and 9.2 percent, respectively, with costs savings ranging from 6 to 15 percent of a city's annual enforcement budget. Our results counterintuitively suggest that sometimes adding steps to an administrative process can reduce the costs associated with the resident-state interaction.     

Internal Whistle‐Blowing in the Public Service: A Matter of Trust

Although employee reporting of workplace ethical violations is recognized as an important measure for managing the integrity of the public service, not many public employees who have observed ethical violations actually report them. This article examines and compares the links between employee perceptions of trustworthiness of different organizational members and internal whistle‐blowing. It differentiates between trustworthy coworkers, supervisors, and senior managers. It uses cross‐sectional data from 10,850 employees in the Australian Public Service in 2013 and 2016, which are aggregated to construct longitudinal data for 60 organizations. Among the three groups examined, perceptions of trustworthy senior managers are found to be most strongly related to internal whistle‐blowing.     

Whistleblower protection: is Africa ready?

The article critically examines propositions driving the exportation of western whistleblower concepts into the developing world. 1

1 The full definition used in the article is that whistleblowing is an act of ethical reporting by concerned citizen, totally or predominantly motivated by the public interest, who initiate of their own free will an open disclosure about significant wrongdoing to a person or agency capable of investigating the disclosure, and who suffers accordingly. This definition was developed in the course of the Queensland Whistleblower Study, Australia's largest inquiry into whistleblowers. Whistleblowing is a different reporting mode to that used by informants, hot line users, witnesses, public interest denunciators, and disclosures in confidence (De Maria, 1994; De Maria & Jan, 1994; De Maria, 1999, pp. 24–35). Africa, throughout the article means sub‐Saharan Africa. Abridged versions of this paper were presented to the 4th National Business Ethics Conference, Zanzibar, 1 September 2004 and a staff seminar in the School of Sociology, University of Johannesburg, 25 August 2004.

Specifically it attacks the prevailing view that public interest disclosure is somehow a culture‐free, or at least a culture‐muted phenomenon, governed by a set of rules and conventions detached from local histories and practices. The article concludes that this exportation is in the spirit of neo‐colonialism and issues a note of warning about the dangers of dispersing western conceived forms of corruption reporting to Africa. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy

Circuit splits, or conflicting rules across multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals, have important policy implications and dramatic effects on Supreme Court case selection, yet we know little about the incentives ideological lower courts face when deciding whether to initiate conflict. This article develops a formal model of a judicial hierarchy where lower court judges are subject to review by a high court with distaste for unresolved conflict, termed “split-intolerance,” and with uncertain preferences over policy. Lower courts may compete by investing costly effort in legal quality to make their rules more attractive. In equilibrium, lower courts may initiate conflict even when the odds of success before the high court are remote. Surprisingly, lower courts grow more likely to create conflict as the high court's split-intolerance increases; however, split-intolerance can also incentivize greater lower court effort. I present qualitative evidence illustrating the model's explanatory power.     

IMPLICATIONS OF WHISTLEBLOWING FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION EDUCATION

Whistleblowing, or going public, is an issue which has received a great deal of media attention and scholarly consideration. Public administrators of the future will surely have to confront it. The author of this article divides whistleblowing into individual, organization, and environmental levels of analysis. Each level has its own unique considerations which must be understood separately before they can be understood comprehensively. Moreover, the author asserts that the study of whistleblowing fosters awareness of ethics, provides the skills needed to effectively cope with dissent, and imparts legal knowledge about the discipline of public administration to students.     

Drinking from the Talent Pool: A Resource Endowment Theory of Human Capital and Agency Performance

This article advances a resource endowment theory of human capital and performance in government organizations. Building on research on human capital and firm location in business economics and task complexity in public management, the authors argue that an agency's ability to implement policy is determined both by its scale and by the human capital of the population from which it draws its employees. The authors cast labor as a factor of production in public agencies and argue that access to higher‐quality labor improves government effectiveness. The effect of human capital on performance is especially pronounced when agencies are charged with the implementation of technically complex tasks. The empirical subject is U.S. municipal water utilities’ compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Comparing records of compliance with more and less complex regulatory requirements provides evidence consistent with the general model. The findings carry important implications for public management and policy design.     

The European Court's political power

The European Court has emerged as one of the most powerful political institutions in the European Union and the most influential international court in existence. National courts are the linchpins of the European legal system, making European Court decisions enforceable and creating an independent power base for the European Court. This article examines why national courts agreed to take on a role enforcing European law supremacy against their own governments and why national politicians did not stop an institutional transformation of the European legal system which greatly compromised national sovereignty. Competition between lower and higher national courts, each trying to enhance their influence and authority vis‐à‐vis each other, explains how national legal interpretive barriers and high‐court ambivalence regarding the European Court's declaration of European Law Supremacy was overcome. Politicians proved unable to reverse national court acceptance of European law supremacy, and institutional rules kept politicians from sanctioning either national courts or the European Court for judicial activism. Legal doctrine became a form of institution‐building, and a mechanism to make international law enforceable was created, giving the European Court the ability to make unpopular decisions and to compel compliance with European law.     

Dog Whistles and Democratic Mandates

Manipulative mixed messages from candidates to voters affect what governments are entitled to do in office. A party that wins an election gains a 'mandate to rule'. But there is a second type of mandate: a 'policy mandate' to enact specific policy proposals central to the winning party's campaign. Mixed-message politics in general can undermine policy mandates, and the use of 'dog whistle politics' - telling one group of voters one thing, while allowing or encouraging another group to believe another - makes the inferring of policy mandates especially problematic. Referendums provide only a partial remedy to dog whistle politics. Winning a clear policy mandate means forgoing dog whistle politics, despite the short term electoral advantage they may deliver.     

Strategic Defiance and Compliance in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Why do lower courts treat Supreme Court precedents favorably or unfavorably? To address this question, we formulate a theoretical framework based on current principal‐agent models of the judiciary. We use the framework to structure an empirical analysis of a random sample of 500 Supreme Court cases, yielding over 10,000 subsequent treatments in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. When the contemporary Supreme Court is ideologically estranged from the enacting Supreme Court, lower courts treat precedent much more harshly. Controlling for the ideological distance between the enacting and contemporary Supreme Courts, the preferences of the contemporary lower court itself are unrelated to its behavior. Hence, hierarchical control appears strong and effective. At the same time, however, a lower court's previous treatments of precedent strongly influence its later treatments. The results have important implications for understanding legal change and suggest new directions for judicial principal‐agency theory.     

How organizational structure can reduce rent-seeking

In multi-tiered organizations, individuals can engage in unproductive rent-seeking activities both within and between the divisions of the organization. Nevertheless, a multi-tiered organizational structure can induce efficiency gains by decreasing rent-seeking. We present a model of production and simultaneous internal and external rent-seeking, assuming a logistic contest success function. In equilibrium, there is generically either internal or external rent-seeking, but not both. A multi-tiered organization leads to less rent-seeking and higher welfare, even though the production technology gives no reason for any specific organizational structure. Our findings constitute a new efficiency rationale for multi-tiered organizations.