Theme 2015: Integrity in Public Governance

About the Working Group

The announced 2015 Working Group on Integrity in Public Governance is the continuation of the WG which began 5 years ago. Topics on Ethics in Governance, Preventing Corruption in Public Administration, and Integrity Management have received renewed attention and new approaches can be observed. It is for this reason that we decided to again put these topics on the WG list.

Background and justification

Administrative malpractice, such as corruption, abuse of power, nepotism and favouritism, are widespread in the public sector, including in the CEE countries. At the same time, corruption and ethics have become important issues in the practice and theory of politics, public administration, law, economics and society. This has led to more awareness and knowledge. Practical solutions for ethical dilemmas and successful professional solutions in administrative decision-making can be formulated.

Although rules and regulations are required to address such malpractice, ethical approaches are also needed. Bottom-up initiatives must complement top-down activities.
The Working Group on Integrity in Public Governance brings together academics and practitioners interested in the ethical dimension and professional work of administrative decision-making.

The focus is to measure the results and the impact of different activities and to analyse the implementation of instruments. This includes questions concerning the principles and standards of discretional power, neutrality and legality, transparency and administrative responsiveness of the regime in office. It also includes the questions of organisational optimisation and personnel development. The Working Group on Integrity in Public Governance has an opportunity to exercise leadership in the development and implementation of new directions in administrative integrity and professionalism. Our Working group provides answers to practitioners on how to optimise their organisation and how to train and influence their personnel in order to obtain the best results and impact in integrity management.

Call for papers

The membership of the Working Group seeks to build connections between reflective practitioners and engaged scholars in the Ethics/Integrity field, as a matter of priority. The primary objective of the Group is to enrich the 2015 Conference programme with practice papers which focus on instruments, results of implementations and impact. Presentations focused on any new aspect of the field of Ethics/Integrity in Public Governance are welcome. Cross-disciplinary studies are encouraged.

We are inviting all member institutions, associate and individual members, as well as others interested in the topics of integrity in public governance in Central and Eastern Europe to participate in and discuss the following:

·Strategies: What strategies and instruments are available to protect the integrity of public administration and its public servants (public officials), in particular CEE countries?

·Leadership: What are the challenges of modern leadership in integrity management? What does the profile of leaders look like? What kind of Leadership developments are in place?

·Instruments: What instruments to protect integrity in governance are working, in what context and in what culture? What does not work and why?; promoting transparency and accountability, conflicts of interests and incompatible policy, recusal, whistleblowing, codes of conduct, HRM practices - training, job rotation, and organisation development etc.

·Institutions: What institutions succeed in curbing corruption and other integrity violations? What are the results of the various task forces? What is the impact of special Integrity units in public administration and within an organisation?

·Organisation: Which guidelines for organisations to improve integrity exist in practice and with what result? What recommendations can be formulated for the development of integrity guidelines in an organisation? How can guidelines be implemented successfully?

·Training: Which training activities for students, for professionals in the public service and for politicians exist? What are the evaluations and impacts of the training approaches? What are the contents of the trainings? Which are the target groups?

·Law: Which law and regulations are in place to combat corruption?

·Results and impact: What are the results and the impact of the different laws and instruments in place and the public awareness programmes?

The above mentioned fields of research and practice in Integrity lead us to the following questions which are the focus of the Working Group:

• Conflicts of Interest and Incompatibility,

• Integrity at the public sector/private sector interface level (Public Procurement),
• Whistleblowing and promoting accountability,
• Corruption in the Public Sector,
• Building an effective "National Integrity System”,
• Scrutiny of Governance by the Media and Civil Society,
• Promoting integrity in public administration through HRM practices,
• Organisational aspects of fighting corruption,
• Education and Training for Good Governance,
• Reaching EU and OECD standards in fighting corruption,
• Implementation strategies,
• Law in combating corruption.

The working group will collect the different existing research papers, practical reports and presentations in the field of integrity. The Working Group members will group the papers and bind them in a handbook entitled "Integrity in Public Service”.

In our working group, at least one session will be without presentations. We would like to discuss the different approaches and decide the way forward and possible (funded) projects in the field of integrity management.