by Sofia Wickberg
Are anti-corruption instruments adopted to tackle existing problems or do they contribute to making new corruption risks visible? Policy sciences originally conceived of public policies as means to solve pressing public problems, such as corruption. However, scholars have demonstrated that policymaking is far more messy and complex, with policy problems and solutions often existing autonomously. In my article recently published in Policy & Politics entitled “Can policy instruments shape the policy problems they aim to solve? How interest registers redefined conflicts of interest”, I investigate this question by examining how policy solutions (here interest registers for parliamentarians) contribute to (re-)defining public problems (conflict of interest). Research has pointed to numerous actors and factors that contribute to the construction and definition of public problems. Examples of these include social movements, interest groups, political parties, experts or news organisations. But, I argue, policies themselves also contribute to the construction of policy problems.
Transnational policymaking is an interesting context in which to study the impact of policy instruments on problem definition. Policymakers often import policy ideas from abroad – for many reasons, as Umut Aydin wrote in a previous post of this blog. And policy instruments are not always (and even rarely) transferred into a new country because the latter faces the same well-defined problem as the source country. The pathways that policies take before reaching new jurisdictions can be complex. With the rapid transnationalisation of policymaking, it is important to better understand the impact of policy transfer on problem representations in ‘importing’ countries.
Corruption is one of these problems that has gained international visibility recently. As a consequence, a plethora of policy instruments to address it have been added to global anti-corruption toolkits. One of these instruments is the interest register (also known as interest declaration). The rationale behind making elected officials declare their private interests is for the benefit of their peers as well as the public, the media and civil society to be aware of a representative’s ties to certain sectors, companies, associations etc. This is expected to reveal potential conflicts of interest and make the legislative footprint (more) visible. It is also expected to make officials more reflexive about existing relationships and ties that might influence them.
My research traced the trajectory of interest registers as a tool to regulate conflicts of interest in parliaments, from their birthplace in Britain and the United States to their integration in the global anti-corruption toolkit in the 1990s. Subsequently, they were adopted in France and Sweden in the 2010s, where conflicts of interest – under this label – appeared as a ‘new’ problem. The sequencing of events, and, more specifically, the evolution of public discourse on conflicts of interest show that interest registers contributed to (re)define the problem of conflict of interest in these new contexts. This suggests that the term “conflict of interest” was rarely used before the adoption of the instrument and, importantly, did not have a clear ‘stabilised’ shared meaning. By establishing which interests are to be declared in standardised forms, interest registers define ‘risk areas’ for corruption that might not have been perceived as such previously. Interest registers also carry the idea that the problem relates to an asymmetry of information between elected officials and voters that can be corrected through transparency measures, shifting the locus of problem-solving responsibility to the public.
As academics and practitioners debate the definition of corruption and its causes, my article suggests that the emergence of global anti-corruption toolkits and the international diffusion of ‘best practices’ help to homogenise our understanding of corruption and its risk factors. Indeed, policy instruments are not neutral tools that can prevent corruption in all political and institutional systems. They are imagined in certain contexts and carry specific values and representations. The transfer of instruments not only defines ‘new’ public problems, but also gives shape to new interpretations of problems. In this way, instruments create constraints on implementing actors and target populations, and consequently shape their behaviour and practices as they contribute to the translation of imported ideas.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Wickberg, S. (2023). Can policy instruments shape the policy problems they aim to solve? How interest registers redefined conflicts of interest. Policy & Politics, 51(3), 550-578 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16836210270486
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also be interested to read:
Aydin, U. (2023). Embracing policy innovations from abroad: the role of learning in Chile’s anti-cartel reforms. Policy & Politics, 51(2), 250-270 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16757803181683
Duong, H. (2022). How do policy transfer mechanisms influence policy outcomes in the context of authoritarianism in Vietnam?. Policy & Politics, 50(2), 199-223 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16347665146401
Porto de Oliveira, O. (2022). Global Public Policy studies. Policy & Politics, 50(1), 59-77 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16286279752694
