Michaelene Cox
the decade’ s highest profile cases since its former governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 of trying to sell a Senate seat and engaging in bribery and wire fraud.
While the most reliable and handy source of corruption levels by state continues to be drawn from the DOJ, researchers have considered numerous dimensions of political corruption, including economic, historical, geographical, cultural and political factors. Broadly speaking, many influences have a bearing on corrupt activity, but scholars come to some consensus regarding the most significant drivers of corrupt activities, at least at the aggregate‐level( Serra 2006, Treisman 2007). For instance, it is now widely recognized that as nations attain greater economic prosperity, the level of corrupt activity goes down. Nevertheless, other aspects remain unclear when exploring determinants of corruption at the state level and among federal and state government officials. Some limited research in the 1980s and 90s about corruption in America suggest that district political cultures, education, state level of political participation, gambling arrests, number of government employees and urban population size are positively related to annual convictions for corruption by state( Johnson 1983, Nice 1983). Empirical analyses on the determinants of U. S. state‐level political corruption are growing but have not been altogether systematic. Further, to the best of my knowledge, there are no studies to date gauging the relationship between political corruption and government on‐line ethics training.
2. An introduction to G2E ethics training
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. For instance, it is argued that IT innovations in the delivery of value‐added services such as open information, well‐defined regulations and website interactive features can enhance awareness, participation and oversight of public administration by citizens, government employees and other stakeholders, and so serve as a check on political malfeasance. Thus increasing risks for detection and opportunity costs, e‐Government arguably can curb( in) discretionary behavior of officials and foster public trust and the rule of law. 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, drawing on annual corruption data from Transparency International and e‐Government scores produced by the UN Public Administration Programme or rankings from The Economist Intelligence Unit( Andersen 2009). The findings generally point to considerable disparity on the import of e‐Government among developed and developing countries, reaffirming 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, most notably India, Bangladesh and some African states such as Ethiopia. Here I seek to supplement this body of case studies by examining a narrowed aspect of the topic from U. S. state‐level experiences.
Specifically, this paper takes into account one of the value‐added services provided by IT— ethics training of public servants. There is a marked trend in many countries over the past decade or so for government agencies to use online capabilities to interact with their public employees. This government‐to‐employees( G2E) electronic interaction is one of five delivery models found in e‐Government. Among other things, G2E advances knowledge‐sharing and streamlines public administration by providing convenient and less costly access to civil rights laws and information on employee compensation and benefit policies, and the like. G2E also generates a variety of electronic educational programs for federal and state 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 whether outsourced or administered in‐house, G2E ethics training is positioned to effectively reinforce both public and private 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) Most broadly, 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 what are 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? With the exception
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