Control of Corruption: Different Tools towards Similar Goals. A Three Country Comparison

Abstract

The Corruption Perceptions Index is published annually by Transparency International and shows the level of corruption in over a hundred and fifty countries. Finland, Australia and New Zealand have placed consistently high and have thus proven to be examples of countries with minimal corruption and ethical public administrations. The control of administrative corruption and administrative ethics were chosen as a subject for this thesis as it is an area that is gaining an increasing amount of attention in the media as well as within the realm of public administration. The study is qualitative in its nature and the sources used include literature review of books and articles as well as official documents and websites of the countries studied and of international organizations.

The aim of this research was to look at three countries that have similar administrative cultures and have placed consistently high in the Corruption Perceptions Index but have chosen different tools to achieve this goal. The goal was to show that different tools can be used to achieve the control of corruption in public administration as long as the method is suitable to the administrative culture and background of the country.

The central findings of the study show that different tools can be used to control administrative corruption as long as the categories of promoting, preventing and watchdogging are covered. It is important that the tools chosen are applicable to the administrative values and culture of the country. The sets of tools used by Finland, Australia and New Zealand can all be used as models for other cultures in creating public administrations with minimal administrative corruption. The methods used by these three countries are different because of differences in the traditions of organizing the public administration, differences in the backgrounds and size of the societies and the levels of decentralization enforced in the control of corruption in the public administrations of these countries.

Different tools can be used to control administrative corruption in the public administration and it is important that these methods and their combinatorial possibilities are studied so that more public administrations can experience minimal administrative corruption.