Corruption: An Alternative Approach to Its Definition and Measurement

Discussion of the definition of corruption has progressed little since Heidenheimer's groundbreaking distinction between definitions centred on public opinion, public office and public interest. All these definitions have been severely criticised. I suggest that underneath these traditional concepts of corruption lurks a much older one based on distributive justice – namely the 'impartiality principle', whereby a state ought to treat equally those who deserve equally. This principle provides a much more plausible reason for why the public condemns corruption than alternative approaches, and, moreover, it is recognised fairly universally: the implicit distinction between 'public' and 'private' is certainly neither as 'modern' nor as 'Western' as many have claimed. The universality of the principle of impartiality does not imply universality of its content: who deserves equally, or, alternatively, on which grounds discrimination is ruled out, will be answered differently at different periods in time and will vary from society to society. The impartiality principle provides a starting point for the discussion of both corruption in 'traditional' societies and contemporary political corruption – corruption involving violations of specific non-discrimination norms governing the access to the political process and the allocation of rights and resources. The impartiality principle calls for rule-bound administration and thus underpins the public office definition of corruption. A central element of the analysis of corruption is the study of specific non-discrimination norms and their comparison across time and place. This approach leads to a significant enrichment of the concept of corruption.     

Methodological and practical problems of comparative party elites research: the EPPMLE project

Abstract. Cross-national empirical research is confronted with several theoretical, methodological and practical problems. Concentrating on theoretical conceptualization, operationalization, design and fieldwork, the research note deals with some of these difficulties on the basis of concrete experiences gathered in the European-wide organized 'European Political Parties' Middle Level Elites Project'.     

A comparison of three automated DNA purification methods in Forensic casework

Manual Chelex^®-100 and organic extractions (phenol/chloroform) are used as routine methods at the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science, SKL. The aim of this study was to find an automated DNA purification system to replace the organic method. The following methods were evaluated and compared to each other and to the organic method used routinely; BioRobot^® EZ1 with EZ1 DNA Investigator Kit and Card (Qiagen), iPrep™ Purification Instrument with iPrep™ ChargeSwitch^® Forensic Kit and Card (Invitrogen), Magnatrix™ 1200 Workstation with the Magnatrix™ gDNA Blood Kit Forensic and two different protocols; Forensic protocol A and B (Magnetic Biosolutions). Blood on fats, cotton swabs, moist snuff, paper towels and leather, post-mortem blood and muscle tissue were extracted with the different methods. DNA concentration and quality of the electropherograms were examined. Individual comparisons between the four extraction methods showed that iPrep™ and Magnatrix™ 1200 gave significantly lower mean quantities compared to BioRobot^® EZ1 and the organic extraction method (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences between the latter two. BioRobot^® EZ1 generated the best results and is in the process of being validated for routine analysis at SKL.     

Dramaturgical self-efficacy and opportunity structures for white-collar crime

Crime, Law and Social Change - Perceived self-efficacy is often held to be the most focal mechanism of human agency. It has shown strong potential to explain action in multiple areas highly...     

Trust and verification: balancing agency and stewardship theory in the governance of agencies

ABSTRACT

Many government services are delivered by (partially) autonomous agencies. Governments need effective measures for contracting, steering, and monitoring agencies and to balance control and trust. In the literature, control-based agency theory and trust-based stewardship theory have often been portrayed as alternative and competing approaches. In empirical studies in public administration, however, these approaches often find mixed and contradictory results. Against this background, this article analyzes how a combination of trust- and control-based approaches, explicitly founded on agency and stewardship theory, can help explain when participants find a given governance regime to be most satisfactory. A survey instrument is developed which, for the first time, fully measures the rich concept of stewardship theory in conjunction with agency theory. The analysis of the governance of Dutch agencies shows that government indeed combines governance solutions from both theoretical camps and illuminates under which conditions this combination is most satisfactory.     

Explaining the Development of Aggregate German Party Membership

This article will first introduce a model that explains the development of aggregate party membership on the basis of individuals’ decisions. Important factors explaining the decision to join a party will be analysed in turn. These are incentives and restraints to join the party as well as possible alternatives of action. The second part of the article will illustrate how the membership of relevant German parties developed between 1945 and 2016, whereas the third part will analyse various explanations for this development according to the presented model.     

Leadership Experiences Within Civil Organizations and Candidacy in Public Elections: Causal Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental Approach

Standing as a candidate in public elections has been characterized as the ultimate act of political participation. We test the hypothesis that acquiring office within civil organizations increases the probability of becoming a candidate in public elections. In order to take self-selection problems into account, we provide quasi-experimental evidence using election discontinuities, in which we compare the likelihood of being nominated for public office between closely ranked winners and losers in Swedish student union (SU) elections. Our original data cover 5,000 SU candidates and register data on their candidacies in public elections (1991–2010). The analysis provides support to the hypothesis: Students elected to SU councils were about 34 percent (6 percentage points) more likely to become a candidate in a public election than SU council candidates who were not elected. The causal impact is fairly stable over time. The analysis makes important contributions to two interrelated bodies of literature: First, it provides political recruitment literature with causal evidence that acquiring leadership experiences at arenas outside of representative democratic institutions facilitate entry into election processes. Second, it provides strong evidence to an increasingly contested issue within political participation research by showing that certain organizational activities increase individuals’ political involvement.     

Fiscal Consolidations: Quality,Economic Conditions,and Success

Recent research has demonstrated theimportance of good quality of fiscaladjustments for the success of governmentbudget consolidations. We extend thisapproach to analyze the importance of theeconomic conditions in which fiscalconsolidations are started for theirsuccess. The cyclical positions of thedomestic and international economy, theinitial debt level and the stance of fiscalpolicy in the OECD are all importantdeterminants of the likelihood of fiscalconsolidations. They also affect thegovernment's choice of consolidationstrategy, making them importantdeterminants of the success of fiscalconsolidations. In contrast, the monetarypolicy stance plays only a negligible rolefor fiscal consolidations. We use theanalysis to test for any Maastricht effectson the performance of European governmentsduring the 1990s. Such effects are weak atbest and occurred only during the firsthalf of the decade.     

Certified or branded?

While often considered a purely financial institution, the IMF has throughout its history performed non-financial services for its membership. The latest example is the Policy Support Instrument (PSI), a certification mechanism established in 2005 for which only poor members are eligible. Based on a formal game-theoretic model, I argue that it is unlikely that the PSI will serve well the intention of facilitating capital market access for members requesting the service. Their low income, the lack of significant consequences for markets, the IMF’s traditional reluctance to criticize members, as well as the need to promote the use of the new arrangement indicate that the Fund could emphasize participants’ welfare over the interests of private lenders. The continued importance of foreign aid in eligible countries also puts the IMF in the role of gatekeeping such flows, which might conflict with sending clear signals to commercial actors. All these reasons imply that in many cases its seal of approval will be of little use to third-parties, despite the high standards to which PSI-countries are supposed to adhere. The best argument in favor of the PSI being a useful addition to the Fund’s tool kit for low-income members is the fact that several countries have already signed a second one.