Good government and sustainable anti‐corruption strategies: A role for independent anti‐corruption agencies?

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230150206
Published date01 November 2006
Date01 November 2006
AuthorAlan Doig
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL.
15, 151-165 (1995)
Good government and sustainable anti-corruption strategies:
a role for independent anti-corruption agencies?
ALAN DOIG
Liverpool
John
Moores University
SUMMARY
Aid donors are increasingly seeking to link assistance to sustainable reform, including the
provision of a responsible and responsive political and legal framework, the improvement of
recipient countries’ social, health and educational prospects, and the promotion of economic
development and liberalization. Much attention is given to the first of these because
of
the size
and cost to the state and the perceived constraints it exercises on the longer-term changes to the
economy and society; in general terms,
good government
is an essential precondition
for
good
governance
and economic development. Increasingly donors have focused on corruption, both as
a core obstacle to the encouragement
of
good government, and on the steps taken to dealing with
it as evidence
of
commitment and the will of recipient countries to their introduction. While the
types of activity associated with corruption are readily identifiable, as are the means to attempt
to deal with it, it is usually much more difficult to determine effective implementation, particu-
larly with limited resources
at
a
time when longer-term political and economic reforms are also
being promoted. It is therefore especially important that, in relation to corruption and good
government, a practicable, effective and sustainable means is available to deal with corruption
from preventative, investigative and reform perspectives.
CORRUPTION, GOOD GOVERNMENT, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THE HYPOTHETICAL FRAMEWORK?
The prevalence of corruption, fraud, and other benefits extracted from their office and
through their powers by politicians and public officials, and the exacerbation of such
conduct in relation to the performance of the roles of the state or its dealings with the
private sector, have been documented in the literature ‘on politics, modernization and
economic development (Huntington, 1968; Scott, 1972; Clapham, 1982; Clarke, 1983;
Williams, 1987; Theobald, 1990). In December 1989 the Report of an Interregional
Seminar on Corruption in Government (‘Report’), organized by the United Nation’s
Department of Technical Cooperation for Development, noted that ‘the problem of
corruption in government has come to be recognized universally as a major concern in
public management’ (United Nations, 1989,
p.
1).
Good government provides a responsive governmental and state administrative
framework, facilitating good governance and, while good governance and economic
development must be longer-term goals than good government, the former will not be
achievable without attaining the latter. Good government in practice (British Council,
1993) would mean: political legitimacy for the government through democratic elec-
tions and transfer of power, political opposition and representative government;
Alan
Doig
is
Professor
of
Public
Services
Management,
Liverpool
Business School,
Liverpool
John
Moores
University,
98
Mount Pleasant, Liverpool,
L3
5UZ,
UK.
CCC
027 1-2075/95/02015 1-1
5
0
1995 by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.

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