Despite much recent interest in the area of urban governance, little work has been done on the changing ethical standards of urban leaderships, 'governing' institutions or the policing of public life. Yet the issue of ethical standards in public life has become a central concern in contemporary public discourse; with issues of public probity, moral order and personal standards re-emerging as central features of political debate. This volume places these debates into their historical perspective by examining the linkages between processes of 'modernisation', urbanisation and the ethical standards of governance and public life. It considers how ethical debates arise as a result of differential access to positions of authority and from competition for public resources. The contributions are drawn from a wide range of scholarly and disciplinary backgrounds and provide a broad analysis of the phenomenon of corruption, assessing how debates about corruption arose, the narratives used to criticise established modes of public conduct and their consequences for urban leadership.

Recognising that corruption is a serious problem in the globalised world of the early twenty-first century, the book takes the reader on a journey – beginning with what corruption is, why its study is important and how it can be measured. From there it moves on to explore corruption’s causes, its consequences and how it can be tackled – before discovering how these things are playing out in the established liberal democracies, in the former communist regimes and in the newly industrialised and ‘developing’ world. On the way it takes a couple of detours – first, to explore corruption’s mechanisms and dynamics and second to survey the scandals to which it may give rise. The book is therefore offered as an informative ‘travel guide’ of potential interest to journalists and policy makers as well as to students and academics.

Drawing on original data, this book is the first account of popular understandings of political ethics in contemporary British politics.

How has corruption shaped – and undermined – the history of public life in modern Britain? This collection begins the task of piecing together this history over the past two and a half centuries, from the first assaults on Old Corruption and aristocratic privilege during the late eighteenth century through to the corruption scandals that blighted the worlds of Westminster and municipal government during the twentieth century. It offers the first account that pays equal attention to the successes and limitations of anticorruption reforms and the shifting meanings of ‘corruption’. It does so across a range of different sites – electoral, political and administrative, domestic and colonial – presenting new research on neglected areas of reform, while revisiting well known scandals and corrupt practices.

A much longer treatment than many would have thought possible of the ethical standards of members of the British Parliament. Based on personal interviews with over 100 MPs, finds four ethical types: puritans who stake out moral territory, servants who advocate for their constituency, muddlers who do not care, and entrepreneurs who use their position for any personal gain not explicitly prohibited. Muses over whether the situation should or could be changed. Canadian call number: C94-900910-5. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This fully revised new edition includes expanded coverage of Parliament's relationship with the courts, devolved assemblies and the European Union. Distinctively, the book goes beyond the usual focus of Parliament-Government relations to encompass policy-makers beyond Whitehall and Parliament's broader relationship with citizens.