Governing Public Virtue. "Conflict of Interest" in Comparative Perspective

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

From outrage over José Manuel Barroso's post-EU career at Goldman Sachs, to concerns over the scope of Donald Trump's business interests, "conflict of interest" (COI)-defined by the OECD as a "conflict between the public duty and private interests of a public official"-has become a central word of our political age. Despite the pressing challenge that COI poses to many liberal democracies, we know surprisingly little about the history of how COI came to public prominence, and why its dominant policy resolutions took on moral, rather than legal, regulatory clothes. The purpose of this research project is to provide the first account of the historical emergence of "conflict of interest" as a legitimate framework to think about undue influences in public life in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. This research project will thus both bridge a considerable gap in our academic knowledge, and contribute to debates about contemporary forms of governance.Three questions will, more specifically, guide data collection:1) To what extent is COI an American "export" product? The label "conflict of interest", indeed, seems to originate within US legal thought in the 1960s, but arguably developed as a point of contention in public life much later, in the 1990s, in the UK and in France. This research project will thus pay close attention to the dynamics of international circulation of COI and COI policy formulations, and to non-linear modalities of cultural transfers. It will also examine the extent to which international (advocacy) institutions helped bring COI to prominence as an institutional discourse and regulatory structure in the UK and France in the 1990s.2) Who are the entrepreneurs of public virtue? This project will identify the various actors-lawyers, legal counsellors, economists, public policy scholars, policymakers, politicians-who problematised COI, codified the type of 'interests' at stake, and pushed it forward on the political agenda. It will closely examine their mobilisation efforts, their debates, and the various ways in which they helped shape policy proposals. 3) What is the relation between COI and the moralisation of public life? This project will explore what appeared from preliminary investigations as a key mystery: the crystallisation of COI as a "moral" problem, to be solved by deontological guidelines and ethical codes, rather than as a "criminal" issue. This project will thus contribute to our understanding of the relations between state, market and morals.These questions will be answered using a mixed-methodology research design, combining archival research and qualitative interviewing in the US, the UK and in France. Data collection will be focused, in each country, on salient moments and institutions in the construction of COI (see Case for Support). It will draw on the PI's experience conducting research in elite administrative, financial, and governmental contexts.The findings of this research will inform a broad academic audience in sociology, political science, history and public administration. Its academic contributions will be delivered through scholarly articles, conference presentations, and a monograph. This research aims, as well, to contribute to wider policy debates about how to consolidate our democratic regimes through the particular prism of COI and COI regulations. This will be achieved by a) outreach activities (op-eds, public lectures, project-website) meant to educate the general public about COI, and b) professional development initiatives aimed at policy-makers (a course on COI to be taught in schools of public affairs, a conference bringing together scholars and policymakers).