Bribery and public procurement: an experimental study

A procurement contract is granted by a bureaucrat (the auctioneer) who is interested in a low price and a bribe from the provider. Procurement is thus a multi-dimensional bidding contest with one-dimensional type space (the privately known cost). The optimal price and bribe bid is derived based on an iid private cost assumption. In the experiment, bribes are negatively framed to capture that society is better off if bribes are rare or low. Although bid prices are lower than predicted, behavior is qualitatively in line with the linear equilibrium prediction. When bribes generate a negative externality, there is a significant increase in the variability of the data.     

Mexicans react to electoral fraud and political corruption: an assessment of public opinion and voting behavior

Despite various electoral reforms enacted in Mexico between 1988 and 1994, large numbers of Mexicans doubted the honesty of elections and the general integrity of their country's policy making process. Such doubts did not automatically lead, however, to support for opposition parties that called for greater democratization. Rather, voter preferences were largely dependent on judgments about the opposition's viability and competence. Widespread suspicions about fraud and corruption in Mexico did affect electoral outcomes by making it less likely that potential opposition supporters turned out to vote. Data are drawn from seven national public opinion surveys conducted in Mexico in 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994 (3 polls), and 1995.     

Transparency, wages, and the separation of powers: An experimental analysis of corruption

We conducted an experimental analysis of the causes of corruption, varying the ease of hiding corrupt gains, officials’ wages, and the method of choosing the law enforcement officer. Voters rarely re-elect chief executives found to be corrupt and tend to choose presidents who had good luck. Directly elected law enforcement officers work more vigilantly at exposing corruption than those who are appointed. Increasing government wages and increasing the difficulty of hiding corrupt gains both reduce corruption.     

Impact of natural disaster on public sector corruption

This paper uses inter-country panel data from 1990 through 2010 to examine how the occurrence of natural disasters affects corruption within the public sector. For a closer analysis, disaster is classified into various categories, including general floods, other floods, tropical storms, other storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. Furthermore, this paper explores whether natural disasters have different impacts on corruption levels in developed and developing countries. The study reveals a number of novel findings. (1) Natural disasters that cause substantial damage increase public sector corruption in both developing and developed countries. (2) Natural disasters have a greater impact on public sector corruption in developed countries than in developing countries. (3) In developed countries, natural disaster frequency has a significant impact on the level of corruption. Hence, foreseeable disasters increase corruption in general. In developed countries, an incentive may exist to live within disaster-prone areas because of the potential for disaster compensation payments.     

International diffusion of regulatory governance: EU actorness in public procurement

This paper attempts to go beyond actor‐centered explanations of the European Union's (EU) presence in regulatory politics by examining the role of the EU in the diffusion of regulatory norms and practices. We explore the international diffusion of public procurement policy, to which multiple organizations and especially the EU and the World Trade Organization have made an active contribution. Using the “opportunity‐presence‐capability” scheme, we argue that the EU is actively co‐shaping the global agenda on public procurement, mainly as a result of the “opportunity” and “presence” dimensions of its global actorness and its role in the horizontal diffusion of public procurement regulations between international organizations. For “EU as a global actor” literature to offer valuable explanations, an in‐depth analysis of its relationship with other international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, reveals significant interactions and the co‐shaping of policy agendas.     

Fiscal consequences of public corruption: Empirical evidence from state bond ratings

Empirical analyses of public corruption focus predominantly on international differences; regional differences in public corruption within a single country receive little attention. We empirically investigate the effect of public corruption in the United States on state bond ratings, which previous research shows are inversely related to net interest costs on public debt. After controlling for various economic influences on bond ratings, we find that more corrupt states have lower bond ratings, which implies that taxpayers in more corrupt states face a negative pecuniary externality by paying a premium for debt.     

The impact of public sector accounting reform on corruption: Causal evidence from subnational Indonesia

It is widely believed that the adoption of quality public sector accounting practices can assist in reducing corruption. In theory, accounting reform, especially the shift from cash-to accrual-based methods, leads to the production of much improved financial information, which ultimately can be used by citizens to hold government more accountable and limit corruption. Empirical evidence from cross-country analyses appears to support the theoretical predictions. We investigate the impact of accounting practices on corruption among districts in Indonesia. We use external financial audits to measure the adoption of reforms and the number of corruption case court convictions as our proxy for corruption. We estimate Poisson regression models using instrumental variable techniques to identify the causal effects of adopting accrual-based accounting procedures on corruption. We show that the employment of improved accounting methods is strongly associated with declining corruption. However, after accommodating the endogeneity of accounting practices, we determine that reform adoption has no effect on corruption.     

Bypassing public procurement regulation: A study of rationality in local decisionmaking

Using private contractors through procurement is common in most public sector areas. Despite the benefits of procurement, officials are sometimes tempted to circumvent procurement regulations. The aim of this article is to examine the strategies used by local governmental decisionmakers to bypass procurement regulations and to analyze the rationality underlying these officials' actions. Interviews, court documents, municipal documents, and newspaper articles describing the actions of Swedish municipal officials concerning special transport service (STS) procurements were collected and analyzed. In a case in which rural municipalities lost regular taxi services after STS procurement, we demonstrate how decisions were driven by pressure from the public and local interest groups, making municipal officials deviate from procurement regulations in striving to secure the existence of regular taxi services. One outcome was that local businesses were given preferential treatment, violating regulations and reducing economic efficiency.     

Correlated payoffs in the inspection game: some theory and an application to corruption

The inspection game as formulated by Tsebelis (Am. Polit. Sci. Rev. 83:77–91, 1989) has the counterintuitive implication that crime is unaffected by the magnitude of the penalty. This paper demonstrates that to attain this outcome, it is necessary to assume independence of enforcer and offender payoffs. Given correlated payoffs, the comparative statics of the equilibrium yield an inverse relationship between crime and the severity of the sanction. In an application, we enrich the framework of Tsebelis by adding corruption stages and show that this can imply such a correlation of payoffs. Another interesting finding is that harsher anticorruption measures can increase crime incentives.     

A socio‐cultural approach to public sector corruption in Africa: key pointers for reflection

The public sector of many African countries is notoriously corrupt; cultural inclinations and socialization processes largely have a tendency to lead public officials into actions that may amount to corrupt practices. Providing seven (7) key pointers for reflection, this study explores public sector corruption in African countries by examining the interplay between culturally acceptable norms and professional expectations of public officials. The public official, by these two unparalleled expectations, tends to walk on a tight rope which often results in ethical dilemma and conflict of interest. The study adopts Riggs' prismatic‐sala model and uses the case of Ghana and traditional proverbs to explain the cultural context within which Ghanaian public official ought to operate. How can one combine these cultural expectations with professionalism? To what extent does the ‘collectivity culture’, ‘culture of gift giving and acceptance’, ‘extended family system’, ‘ethnic loyalty’ and ‘unfettered respect of the aged’ downplay professional bureaucratic and ethical principles? Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Politics of Disclosure: Organizational Transparency as Multiactor Negotiation

Transparency is in vogue, yet it is often used as an umbrella concept for a wide array of phenomena. More focused concepts are needed to understand the form and function of different phenomena of visibility. In this article, the authors define organizational transparency as systematic disclosure programs that meet the information needs of other actors. Organizational transparency, they argue, is best studied as an interorganizational negotiation process on the field level. To evaluate its merit, the authors apply this framework to a case study on the introduction of open data in the Berlin city administration. Analyzing the politics of disclosure, they consider the similarities and differences between phenomena of visibility (e.g., open data, freedom of information), explore the transformative power of negotiating transparency, and deduce recommendations for managing transparency.     

Regulating public procurement in Brazil,India, and China: Toward the regulatory-developmental state

Since the 1990s, emerging economies such as Brazil, India, and China have adopted transparency-enhancing public procurement regulations in line with international norms. Yet they have hesitated to join the World Trade Organization's legally binding Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). Based on the Special Issue framework, this article scrutinizes the underlying domestic and international determinants, and how they influence emerging countries’ positions in two overlapping international procurement regimes. In particular, reform-oriented state actors, societal pressure, and lesson-drawing from international templates have induced a strengthening of domestic procurement institutions and turned emerging countries into “promoters” of the international transparency regime. Conversely, the rising powers have remained, to varying degrees, reluctant “spoilers” of the GPA-based market access regime in order to keep policy space and use procurement for domestic development objectives. The article suggests that this regulatory-developmental layering of rule-based governance and interventionist ambitions characterizes the variegated regulatory state in emerging countries.     

Towards virtuous and ethical organisational performance in the context of corruption: A case study in the public sector

With the increasing number of ethical violations reported across the public sector, the emphasis on ethics and values in governance is on the rise. Corruption is widely accepted as a form of unethical behaviour that can have detrimental effects on organisations as well as society at large. Research calls for empirical studies focusing on the contextual factors surrounding corruption. Based on the Contextually Based Human Resource Theory and using the case study method, this paper examines the role of context through a systematic analysis of corruption in a public sector organisation. We integrate corruption and human resource literature to understand employee behaviour, employee relations, HRM strategies, and organisational outcomes in the context of organisational corruption.     

公共行政模式的变革--走向人本行政模式

上层建筑必须适应经济基础,公共行政模式与生产方式相适应.君本行政是与农业经济相适应的,权本行政是与工业经济相适应的.信息社会的知识经济必然促进权本行政模式的变革,走向人本行政模式.     

Policy Area as a Potential Moderator of Transparency Effects: An Experiment

Building on the counterintuitive findings of recent empirical studies that transparency in political decision making may have a negative effect on public legitimacy beliefs, this article suggests that transparency has different effects depending on the policy area. Specifically, it argues that transparency is less effective in policy decisions that involve trade‐offs related to questions of human life and death or well‐being. Using an experiment that involved 1,032 participants, the effect of transparency is tested in two policy areas that represent routine priority setting (culture and leisure) and policy decisions implicitly related to human life and well‐being (traffic security). Results indicate that transparency can increase public acceptance of political decisions, but this effect is moderated by the type of policy area. Furthermore, a limited type of transparency in which decision makers provide justifications for their decisions can result in benefits while avoiding potential costs.     

Materials and devices of the public: an introduction

Abstract

This introduction provides an overview of material- or device-centred approaches to the study of public participation, and articulates the theoretical contributions of the four papers that make up this special section. Set against the background of post-Foucauldian perspectives on the material dimensions of citizenship and engagement – perspectives that treat matter as a tacit, constituting force in the organization of collectives and are predominantly concerned with the fabrication of political subjects – we outline an approach that considers material engagement as a distinct mode of performing the public. The question, then, is how objects, devices, settings and materials acquire explicit political capacities, and how they serve to enact material participation as a specific public form. We discuss the connections between social studies of material participation and political theory, and define the contours of an empiricist approach to material publics, one that takes as its central cue that the values and criteria particular to these publics emerge as part of the process of their organization. Finally, we discuss four themes that connect the papers in this special section, namely their focus on (1) mundane technologies, (2) experimental devices and settings for material participation, (3) the dynamic of effort and comfort, and (4) the modes of containment and proliferation that characterize material publics.