Since the 1990s, recognition has grown that the answer to corruption -political, bureaucratic or corporate -does not lie in a single institution, let alone a single law. Rather the institutionalisation of integrity through a number of agencies, laws, practices and ethical codes is increasingly recognised as the best option for limiting corruption in many societies. This article addresses the key issue of coherence between these various institutions, picking up on the third and final theme of the Australian national integrity system assessment. The assessment has shown, firstly, that concepts of 'horizontal' or 'mutual' accountability are important but also need to be developed and better contextualised as a framework for designing integrity systems; secondly, that integrity system coherence can be usefully measured and mapped using standard network analysis approaches, helping more clearly identify the need for more deliberate strategies for coordination of integrity policies; and thirdly, that new metaphors can and should be developed for communicating the nature and significance of the institutional interactions that constitute integrity systems. The new metaphor suggested here is that of a bird's nest, in which a multitude of often weak institutions and relationships can combine to more effectively protect and promote the fragile goal of public integrity.

The role of the whistle-blower in promoting good government is a troubling one. Commentators often argue both that whistle-blowing is a sign of deep failure within organizations and that whistleblowers inevitably experience reprisals and other negative consequences. This paper argues that this negative depiction of whistle-blowing is misleading. It is often drawn from a small number of prominent cases of whistle-blowing, which are noteworthy precisely because things have gone badly wrong.When the experiences of a wider range of public sector whistle-blowers, managers and case-handlers are explored, a more nuanced picture of whistle-blowing is presented. This paper presents evidence from ‘Whistling While They Work’, a study conducted across 304 public sector agencies in Australia. This evidence allows us to identify key factors that lead to good outcomes from whistleblowing and approaches that can make whistle-blowing a normal part of organizations governing well.

The search for a definition of political corruption that adequately captures the nuances of governmental activity has been a long one. This article defends social or attitudinal definitions of corruption against some recent criticisms. It examines the value of Arnold Heidenheimer's widely cited distinctions among “black,”“gray,” and “white” corruption using empirical evidence from an interview study of over 100 Australian politicians and 500 voters. The results show that the broad dimensions of corruption — the official, the donor, the payoff, and the favor — identified by John Peters and Susan Welch affect the views of both politicians and voters alike. Nonetheless, elites and the public come to judgments from different perspectives, and they judge some acts differently. Put another way, some corruption is gray. Politicians judge actions more subtly than do voters, who are more likely to see corruption in all acts. As Michael Johnston has suggested, the different experiences of political insiders and outsiders explain this disparity in their moral outlooks. Insiders are socialized to see at least some actions as functional and therefore not corrupt. Outsiders, unaware of the insiders' rules, tend to judge political action by moral absolutes. Thus the structure of liberal democratic government contributes to conflicting elite and public views of political right and wrong.

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