Path depedence and self-reinforcing processes in the regulation of ethics in politics : toward a framework for comparative analysis
By: SAINT-MARTIN, Denis
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ArticlePublisher: Cambridge, MA : Age publishing, 2005International Public Management Journal 8, 2, p. 135-152Abstract: In some countries, concerns over the erosion of public trust have led legislatures to introduce some form of independent element in their arrangements for regulating political ethics, while legislators in other countries are refusing to make similar changes even if they also face severe problems of declining confidence in politics. Why? To explain these differences, this article explores the fruitfulness of historical-institutionalist approaches, and of path dependence in particular. It suggest that ethics regulation processes are self-reinforcing over time, leading to more rules that are still enforced through self-regulation mechanisms (the no change scenario, as in the U.S.) or to path-shifting changes where legislatures, hoping to break the ethics inflationary cycle, opt for a more depoliticized form of ethics regulation(as in the UK and Canada).
In some countries, concerns over the erosion of public trust have led legislatures to introduce some form of independent element in their arrangements for regulating political ethics, while legislators in other countries are refusing to make similar changes even if they also face severe problems of declining confidence in politics. Why? To explain these differences, this article explores the fruitfulness of historical-institutionalist approaches, and of path dependence in particular. It suggest that ethics regulation processes are self-reinforcing over time, leading to more rules that are still enforced through self-regulation mechanisms (the no change scenario, as in the U.S.) or to path-shifting changes where legislatures, hoping to break the ethics inflationary cycle, opt for a more depoliticized form of ethics regulation(as in the UK and Canada).
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