Integrity Regulation: Trends and Challenges

Abstract

Integrity regulation has become increasingly prominent in modern governance. While some species of public sector watchdogs like state audit institutions (SAIs) have long featured as public accountability agents, in the last few decades a host of novel integrity regulations haS been adopted and new institutional species, watchdogs of various stripes, have proliferated worldwide, from ombuds-institutions through ethics commissions to varying bodies tasked with tackling discrimination, equity and power abuse in public life. We have also witnessed increasing reliance on ‘non-public’ watchdogs as promoters of public accountability standards, ranging from domestic NGOs to international watchdogs that act as creators of integrity league tables or power abuse ‘alerters’. Through established practice, some of those watchdogs have de facto become informal integrity regulators, shaping integrity standards and promoting evaluation metrics and integrity governance guidelines worldwide. The ever-increasing internationalisation has facilitated data sharing among such institutions and watchdogs, enabled enhanced monitoring of public integrity, and provided an environment where, through international comparisons, domestic institutions could be subject to pressure to demonstrate governance integrity. The rise of social media has provided new oversight and shaming possibilities by third-parties and citizens more broadly. Also, expectations have been growing of judicial and prosecutorial actors to limit officeholders’ abuse of power, particularly as cases arise where power holders seek to grab new powers overstepping the boundaries of the constitutional setup. Yet, as evidenced by recurring scandals worldwide, challenges persist in ensuring public integrity. These challenges relate to multiple factors, from political intimidation, through the lack of resources for efficient oversight of officeholders, to the difficulty of establishing lasting public and political interest in integrity agendas beyond the proverbial ‘political scandal cycle’. The panel “Integrity regulation: Trends and Challenges” aims to reflect on defining features of integrity regulation, explore its trends, map out the key challenges in its pursuit, and highlight emerging issues, whether in relation to resource scarcity, the limits of legal standards in fostering ethical governance, creative compliance practices, or the role of political pressures in undermining integrity regulators. In summary, key interests include: - The nature of evolving integrity regulation; - Challenges and opportunities in the evolving public integrity agenda; - The ‘mechanics’ of integrity regulators’ work; - Challenges and opportunities in prosecution of public integrity breaches.

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