Regulating the revolving door: A comparative assessment

The revolving door is a socio-economic phenomenon denoting the career flow of public officials to the industry, and vice versa. Although being beneficial for both the industry and the State, due to scandals, controversial cases and financial crises, scholars and policy makers have been designing hard and soft law mechanisms curbing the phenomenon’s side effect. Research evaluating regulations in this area of conflicts of interest is still scant and restricted to national accounts, and evaluations prompted by governmental and non-governmental organisations – e.g., GRECO, the OECD, Transparency International. This paper provides a survey of revolving door policies targeting bureaucrats and cabinet members across OECD jurisdictions. The comparative legal study finds the regulatory framework being highly fragmented. Additionally, drawing on case studies and interviews with ethics officials, the argument is that the regime in force suffers from: (i) poor proactivity towards constantly evolving challenges, and (ii) limited implementation and effectiveness. Addressing shortcomings, policy proposals advocate a better policing of conflicts of interests and clearer rules. Moreover, operating in a globally interconnected labour market, policy makers shall ponder the creation of supranational ethics committees sharing rules and practices, and cooperating over the identification and assessment of potential risks for public integrity. Systematically describing revolving door policies in the executive branch, this work’s overarching purpose is to foster a sustainable public-private nexus.