Stark draws on legal, moral, and political thought to analyze several decades of debate over conflict of interest in American public life. He offers new ways of interpreting the controversies about conflict of interest, explains their prominence in American political combat, and suggests how we might make them less venomous and intractable.

Conflict of interest occurs at all levels of governance, ranging from local to global, both in the public and the corporate and financial spheres. There is increasing awareness that conflicts of interest may distort decision-making processes and generate inappropriate outcomes, thereby undermining the functioning of public institutions and markets. However, the current worldwide trend towards regulation, which seeks to forestall, prevent and manage conflicts of interest, has its price. Drawbacks may include the stifling of decision-making processes, the loss of expertise among decision-makers and a vicious circle of distrust. This interdisciplinary and international book addresses specific situations of conflict of interest in different spheres of governance, particularly in global, public and corporate governance.

The first edition of this work, published in 1993, refuted the notion that administrative ethics could not be studied empirically. In this second edition, Frederickson (public administration, University of Kansas) and Ghere (political science, University of Dayton) expand their scope to include both the managerial and individual/moral dimensions of ethical behavior, and add a new section on administrative ethics and globalization. Other sections cover organizational designs that support ethical behavior, market forces that compromise administrative ethics, and unintended outcomes of anticorruption reforms. The book is appropriate for a graduate course in public sector ethics.

30+ Years of Peer-Reviewed Studies on the Corporate Ties and Vested Interests that Influence Scientific Research For over 500 years, groups and organizations with political, economic, and personal interests have successfully exercised influence on the pursuit of scientific inquiry and knowledge. History is replete with examples like the Papal authority muddying research into studies of the cosmos, but far less attention is paid today to the various corporate and special interest groups who, through funding and lobbying efforts, have been able to shape the modern academic and scientific landscape to fit their agenda. In Conflicts of Interest Within Science, author Sheldon Krimsky compiles 21 peer-reviewed, academic articles that examine the complex relationship between the individual scientists conducting research and the groups who fund them. Ultimately, Krimsky’s call to action concerns a collective movement among authors, peer reviewers, corporations and journal editors to disclose the sources of their funding. By holding scientists and the groups that fund them more accountable through increased transparency, we as a society can begin to rebuild trust in the integrity of knowledge.

Conflict of interest allegations have become a prominent part of the landscape of political and public sector ethics in Australia and overseas. The arena of policing has not been immune from this problem and this book is based on unique and unfettered access to ten years of internal investigation files held by Victoria Police. Through detailed analysis of actual complaint cases it gives the reader a comprehensive map by which to chart the particular kinds of interests involved, the nature of conflicts with official police duties, and the particular contexts from which conflicts of interest emerge. The book examines conflicts of interest across the private and public realm of the everyday lives of police officers. The author outlines how the problem of conflict of interest is an important aspect of police ethics, arguing that recognition of, and accountability for, conflict of interest may be a significant element in preventing upstream police misconduct and corruption. Conflict of Interest in Policing seeks to provide a conceptual and practical understanding of how integrity and trust must be integrated into the profession of policing through processes of active responsibility, rather than more traditional passive obedience to prescriptive rules.

Questions of ethics in public administration are increasingly in the news, where commentators seem too often detached from the sources of those ethics and their application to current political conflicts. American Public Service: Constitutional and Ethical Foundations examines public administration ethics as contextualized by constitutional, legal, and political values within the United States. Through case studies, hypothetical examples, and an easy-to-read discussion format, the authors explore what these values mean for specific duties of government managers and for the resolution of many contemporary issues confronting public sector officials. Key Features: • Describes the philosophical underpinnings of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights • Identifies the values that anchor and define what government and public administrators should do. • Indicates where these values fit into a framework for moral decision-making in the public sector, and how they apply to discussions of current controversies in public administration. • Written by authors with rich experience as both lawyers and academics in public administration programs.

Mark Knights offers the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era, 1600-1850. Drawing on extensive archival material, Knights shows how corruption in the domestic and imperial spheres interacted, and how the concept of corruption developed during this period, changing British ideas of trust and distrust.

This timely Handbook unpacks the underlying common factors that give rise to corrupting environments. Investigating opportunities to deliver ethical public policy, it explores global trends in public administration and its vulnerability to corruption today, as well as proposing strategies for building integrity and diminishing corruption in public sectors around the globe.

This book seeks to enrich and, in some cases, reverse current ideas on corruption and its prevention. It is a long held belief that sanctions are the best guard against corrupt practice. This innovative work argues that in some cases sanctions paradoxically increase corruption and that controls provide opportunities for corrupt transactions. Instead it suggests that better regulation and responsive enforcement, not sanctions, offer the most effective response to corruption. Taking both a theoretical and applied approach, it examines the question from a global perspective, drawing on in particular a regulatory perspective, to provide a model for tackling corrupt practices.

This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of The Ethics Challenge in Public Service is the classic ethics text used in public management programs nationwide. It also serves as a valuable tool for public managers who work in a world that presents more ethical challenges every day. It contains a wealth of practical tools and strategies that public managers can use when making ethical choices in the ambiguous pressured world of public service. The book contains new material on topics including social networking, the use of apology, ethics as applied to public policy, working with elected officials, and more.