Does e‐Government Curb Corruption? G2E Service Delivery of Ethics Training in the U. S
Michaelene Cox Department of Political Science, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA mcox @ ilstu. edu
Abstract: Most theoretical literature examining the potential for Information Technology( IT) to advance democratic values, such as transparency and accountability, routinely touts the benefits of e‐Government. Empirical studies, however, are divided on the significance of e‐Government as an anti‐corruption strategy. Most statistical analyses estimate this impact at the cross‐national level and findings generally point to considerable disparity on the import of e‐Government among developed and developing countries. This reaffirms conventional wisdom that multiple forces are at work when it comes to assessing drivers and effects of political corruption. The literature also includes a small but growing number of case studies which provide rich insight into the phenomenon at the national level. Nearly all of these examine the relationship between e‐Government and corruption in developing countries. Here I seek to supplement this body by examining a narrowed aspect of the topic from U. S. state‐level experiences. Specifically, this paper takes into account that one of the value‐added services provided by IT is in the training of public servants. G2E generates a variety of electronic educational programs for government employees, including ethics training. The U. S. Office of Government Ethics and a number of state ethics commission offices have implemented these programs, many of them mandated and with certificates issued upon successful completion. While there is some scholarly attention paid to the impact that corporate ethics training has on corruption, critical attention has not yet turned to these G2E programs. I argue that G2E ethics training is positioned to uniquely reinforce institutional and personal norms about integrity and fairness, and may offer one valuable tool for combatting government malfeasance. This paper addresses the following three questions:( 1) Is e‐ Government state capability, especially in respect to employee training, statistically related to state corruption levels?( 2) What are the institutional origins and rationales for G2E delivery of ethics training programs, and their pedagogical goals, structure and content?( 3) What are implications of G2E ethics training in the U. S., and finally, how is this case study relevant to public administration in other countries?
Keywords: ethics training, public corruption, G2E, U. S. domestic policy
1. A primer on U. S. political corruption
Corruption remains a provocative and ubiquitous facet of political and economic life. Although it is certainly not a new phenomenon, within the past few decades corruption has generated considerable scholarly research on its causes and effects. A voluminous body of literature now routinely touts the domestic and global benefits of curbing government malfeasance in order to minimize its detrimental effects on economic growth, government stability, and societal well‐being. The effectiveness of anti‐corruption policy measures is also becoming more heavily scrutinized( Rose‐Ackerman 1978, Meier and Holbrook 1992, Hill 2003). Political corruption remains central to public policy debates about quality of democratic governance, economic development, and international relations in nearly all countries. The U. S. State Department, for example, stresses that fighting corruption is now a high priority in American foreign policy, and to bring home that point Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that G20 leaders have adopted a major plan to combat both public and private sector corruption and declared December 9 as International Anti‐Corruption Day( Clinton 2010). The new campaign revitalizes the decades‐old and fairly ineffectual Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and together with highly publicized and high‐dollar plea bargain settlements of late, illustrates more resources being channeled to the U. S. Department of Justice to enforce anti‐corruption strategies abroad and at home.
Corruption is unquestionably a matter of growing import to U. S. domestic policy. For instance, a Gallup poll conducted during the 2012 election year finds that second to job creation, Americans overwhelmingly rank reducing corruption in federal government as a priority for their next president to address. The survey indicates that fighting political corruption is more important to citizens than dealing with terrorism, Social Security, education, health care and environmental concerns( Jones 2012). How corrupt is America? Although the U. S. consistently scores well above average on cross‐national corruption perceptions indices produced annually by Transparency International, it generally ranks lower than other OECD countries. Last year, for example, the U. S. scored 73 out of a possible 100 points for least perceived public sector corruption, and was ranked 19 among 174 countries( Transparency International 2012). Yet the extent and variability of public
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