Conflict of Interest and Public Life
Cross-National Perspectives

This volume features a comparative account of ethics in regulations across four Western democracies.

Christine Trost (Author), Alison L. Gash (Author)

9780521881425, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 January 2008

276 pages
23.4 x 16 x 0.5 cm, 0.51 kg

This book is a welcome contribution to the literature and will no doubt stimulate much more work in this extremely important and surprisingly neglected field.
The Law and Politics Review

This volume features a distinguished, international group of scholars and practitioners who provide a comparative account of ethics regulations across four Western democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy. They situate conflict-of-interest regulations within a broader discourse involving democratic theory; identify the structural, political, economic, and cultural factors that have contributed to the development of these regulations over time; and assess the extent to which these efforts have succeeded or failed across and within different branches and systems of government. Collectively, they provide an invaluable survey of the development, function, and impact of conflict-of-interest regimes in public life.

Part I. Theoretical Frameworks: 1. Legal standards and ethical norms: defining the limits of conflicts regulations Giovanni Guzzetta
2. The Watergate effect: or why is the ethics bar constantly rising? Denis Saint-Martin
3. Pluralists and republicans, rules and standards: conflicts of interest and the California experience Karen Getman and Pamela S. Karlan
4. A democratized conception of political ethics Colin M. Macleod
Part II. Cross-National Case Studies: 5. Conflict of interest legislation in the United States: origins, evolution and inter-branch differences Bruce E. Cain, Alison L. Gash and Mark J. Oleszek
6. Conflict of interest in Canada Andrew Stark
7. Conflict of interest in British public life Gillian Peele and Robert Kaye
8. Conflict of interest in Italy: the case of a media tycoon who became prime minister (2001–2006) Sergio Fabbrini.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Social & political philosophy [HPS]