What is Done to Protect Integrity: Policies, Institutions, and Systems

Abstract

Many individuals, organizations, and countries have become involved in fighting corruption and safeguarding integrity, including governmental institutions at all geographic levels, business corporations, and integrity watchdogs (e.g., Transparency International (TI), national independent anticorruption commissions). As a result, many policy instruments and institutions to promote integrity have been proposed and put in practice. The crucial question, however, is how successful or effective such integrity instruments and institutions actually are. Despite continual calls to pay more attention to “what works” (Bossaert and Demmke, 2005; Menzel, 2005 a; Lawton and Doig, 2006; Huberts, Jurkiewicz, and Maesschalck, 2008; Demmke and Moilanen, 2011), significant research on actual practice is limited.¹ This chapter, therefore, examines the extant research on integrity policies and policy instruments, with special attention to what is known about their effects.