Adam B. Masters

Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy

Abstract How is corruption in sport evolving into a global public policy issue? In the past century, four trends have affected sport according to Paoli and Donati (2013) — de-amateurisation at the turn of the twentieth century, medicalisation since the 1960s, politicisation and commercialisation to the point where sport is now a business worth more than US

Making Corruption Disappear in Local Government

141 billion annually. Each of these trends had a corrupting effect on what is generally perceived as a past ‘golden age’ of sport. In the twenty-first century more public funding is being directed into sport in the developed and developing world. As a result this paper will argue organised sport has entered a fifth evolutionary trend — criminalisation. In this latest phase, public policy needs to grapple with what constitutes corruption in what has historically been a private market.

Preventing malfeasance in low corruption environments: twenty public administration responses

Local government corruption is a phenomenon across the world. This article draws upon survey work in Victoria, Australia, to show that citizens believe that corruption exists in local government and experience it, but rarely report it to an anti-corruption agency or elsewhere. Even when reported, tracing the outcome from state-level authorities to the local government becomes an exercise in futility, because the corrupt act is dealt with in policy frameworks that make it effectively disappear. As a result, corruption as perceived or experienced in the everyday life of citizens is different from what is defined in law and dealt with by public bodies. While the data here are Australian, the lessons and principles can be applied in many other countries.

Introducing the Case Study Organizations

Purpose Corruption undermines good governance. Strategies for preventing malfeasance in low corruption environments require a different approach to that applied in high corruption environments. The paper asks if criminological theories and practice contribute to the study and prevention of corruption in public organizations? Do crime prevention techniques help us in preventing corruption? Design/methodology/approach Empirical data demonstrates the overwhelming majority of public officials in rich countries demonstrate high levels of integrity, yet significant sums are invested in anti-corruption agencies and prevention strategies. This paper reports on recent work with an anti-corruption agency, which forced us to re-think how to deliver an anti-corruption agenda in a low corruption environment. We build on our research of public sector corruption in rich countries to develop a set of 20 situational corruption prevention measures for public administrators. Findings The result, with lessons from crime prev...

Global Public-Private Partnerships: Theoretical Perspectives

The historical background, administrative structures and partnerships of the International Telecommunication Union, Interpol and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property have certain path dependency. As technical organizations, diplomatic practices take the back seat as engineers, police and conservators create networks among their peers and partners. Each network has resulted in globalized telecommunications; international police-to-police cooperation; and a multi-national appreciation for the patrimony of humanity. For each organization, Masters undertakes a case-within-a-case of a sample partnership to illustrate how global public-private partnerships form and operate.

Ideology, Ideas and Implementation

Masters defines global public-private partnerships, international government organizations, professional culture and organizational culture to unpack how these concepts interact in global governance. Each case organization – the International Telecommunication Union, Interpol and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property – frame their approach to partnerships through cultural lenses, and use such perspectives to interpret the drivers of new public management (NPM) that have emerged from Anglo-American governance practices. Yet despite these powerful influences, engineering culture, police culture and conservation culture do far more to shape partnerships than do member-states.

Across the Public-Private Divide in the International Sphere

Ideas frame three questionable factors claimed to motivate global public-private partnerships – have technical organizations shifted their ideology from a neo-Marxist to a neo-liberal; has new public management shifted the posture of international government organizations; and have market-like ideas become attractive for IGOs? While these ideas have salience in some instances, they do not always ring true – with pushback from professional and organizational cultures, which have proven sticky. While such ideas have not been rejected out of hand, they have all passed through the cultural lenses of engineers, police and conservators. None of whom hold with the idea that their technical organizations have a political ideology of any colour.

Perspectives on Global Issues

Global public-private partnerships influence our daily lives. They are part of the global governance framework – yet our understanding of them is incomplete. Past research has attributed the existence of these partnerships between state, market and civil society actors variously to the influence of leaders, new management ideas, resource deficits and the proliferation of issues beyond the ability of any single sector to manage. Yet researchers generally focus on the United Nations, and overlook the technical organizations that facilitate a multitude of policy areas between nation-states, their agencies and administrations. This chapter outlines the puzzle drawn from personal experience with such an organization – Interpol, and then briefly outlines the methods employed to analyse the influence of professional culture and organizational culture in technical organizations.

Conclusion: Comparing Cultural Influences

Global issues are often beyond the ability of international government organization to deal with alone. They emerge unexpectedly – the controls of the internet; violently and rapidly – the threat of bio-terrorism; or they are cyclical – the privatization of cultural heritage. These examples Masters has chosen have commonalities – they are global, they require action; member-states are not necessarily in concordance on their importance; and they all require global public-private partnerships by way of response.

Malcolm Turnbull: From Hope to Disappointment

Comparing the case studies along the lines of cultures, leadership, resources, ideas and global issues reveals how culture motivates, maintains and even inhibits partnerships. The engineering and the organizational culture at the ITU has created a regime of maintenance for their public-private partnerships, their long relationship with the telecommunication industry settled into what works, obviating a need for change. Historically, police culture inhibited Interpol’s partnerships. Even today, this cultural trait still plays a hand in partnering with outsiders. Conservation culture – which grew out of ICCROM – remains oriented toward cooperation and collaboration. These cases provide some theoretical insights into technical organizations – a largely overlooked – but critical – element of global governance.