Ethics by Design: The Impact of Form of Government on Municipal Corruption

While trust in government at all levels is at an all‐time low, actual corruption at the municipal level has been declining. One factor often credited with this decline is the introduction of the council‐manager form of government. One of the key reasons the council‐manager form was created in the ea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPublic administration review Vol. 79; no. 4; pp. 591 - 600
Main Authors Nelson, Kimberly L., Afonso, Whitney B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.07.2019
American Society for Public Administration
Subjects
20th century
Corruption
Councils
Ethics
Local government
Machine politics
Political ethics
Politics
Public administration
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Summary:While trust in government at all levels is at an all‐time low, actual corruption at the municipal level has been declining. One factor often credited with this decline is the introduction of the council‐manager form of government. One of the key reasons the council‐manager form was created in the early 1900s was to act as an antidote to the corruption prevalent in the big‐city machine politics of the era. Despite this, no one has tested whether the council‐manager form has in fact influenced the decline in corruption rates. This article uses a rare events logit model to analyze corruption convictions in municipalities between 1990 and 2010 to determine which factors, including form of government, affect the probability that a corrupt act will occur. The findings indicate that municipalities with the council‐manager form are 57 percent less likely to have corruption convictions than municipalities with the mayor‐council form.
ISSN:0033-3352
1540-6210
DOI:10.1111/puar.13050