An ‘Institution-First’ Conception of Public Integrity

Abstract

There is an emerging drive to define a new praiseworthy governance goal: a goal that not only implies addressing corruption but going further to establish institutions that are truly worthy of trust. That goal is ‘public integrity’. However, most current accounts of public integrity adopt an ‘officer-first’ approach: defining public integrity primarily as a quality of individual public officers, and only derivatively, if at all, as a quality of public institutions themselves. This article argues that this approach is flawed. Analysing the current debate, it identifies the need to define a role-specific sense of praiseworthy behaviour for public officers. However, it is only possible to define this role-specific sense of praiseworthy behaviour by referring to a public officer's contribution to the overall moral ideal of her institution. Assuming that this ideal itself is a form of public integrity, it then follows that such institutional integrity must be defined ‘first’ in order to then define a public officer's praiseworthy contribution to it second. Substantively, this article argues that ‘public institutional integrity’ is an institution's robust disposition to pursue its purpose efficiently, within the constraints of legitimacy, consistent with its commitments. ‘Public officer integrity’ is the robust disposition of an officer to support the integrity of her institution, within the course of her duties, to the best of her abilities.

Good governance: Contemporary issues in political philosophy

“…I assume that the latter can be analysed in some relevant sense . But I largely leave this sense open: governments may well be a group moral agent, or such talk might be understood as a placeholder for some subvenient set of duties amongst government agents (compare Ceva & Ferretti, 2017; Kirby, 2020; Lawford‐Smith, 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, respect requires trustworthiness , respecting whatever commitments arise, whether explicit or implicit, between the government and such agents, as the former induces the latter to assume it will be acting in one way or another in the future (Buchanan & Keohane, 2006, pp. 422–424; Kirby, 2020, pp. 10 & 11; Rosanvallon, 2018, p. Chs 14 and 15).…”

“…In this role, accountability is less about an assertion of the fundamental superiority of the people over government, and more instrumental: accountability by the people, or at least sufficient number of interested, even specialised, members or representatives (Philp, 2007, p. 227), can ensure that government does not merely exercise power well today, but can be relied upon to do so robustly over time. Indeed, some argue that it is this more abstract value of ‘robustness’ that is central to good governance, turning it from a telic value – a mode of exercising power that we all have reason to promote (albeit, that mode primarily requires compliance with deontic norms by government agents) – to an aretaic one, a robust disposition within government to exercise power in this praiseworthy way (Kirby, 2020, p. 11; see also; Zacka, 2017). Regardless, theories of good governance need to also explain what to do when the materials means of accountability – transparency – runs up against a seemingly justified imperative for secrecy (Sagar, 2017).…”

Public Administration Reform over Time – Did Change Lead to a More Effective Integrity Management?

“…As such, these trends are to be welcomed because they illustrate the shortcomings of the classical institutional models. However, the increasing popularity of behavioral sciences in public policies and public ethics are leading toward an individualization of integrity policies and a focus on the concept of "public-officer ethics" (Kirby, 2020). These developments run counter to the discussed grand administrative tradition of the ethics of impartiality and compliance-based approaches.…”

“…One reason for this is the fragmented nature of approaches and the proliferation of integrity concepts and theories. Overall, academic publications about institutional integrity are becoming more complex (Schwartz, Harris and Comer, 2015;Kirby, 2020). According to Breaky, Cadman and Sampford (2015, p. 3), Sampford was actually the first academic to distinguish between institutional and individual integrity.…”