What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Ethics Regulation in Politics?

Political ethics strengthen the bonds of trust between citizens and their representatives, and therefore matter to the overall quality of democracy. Over the past three decades levels of trust in traditional democratic institutions-political parties, parliaments, and governments-have fallen. Concern to restore political trust has prompted countries to engage in a series of reforms to clarify what ethical standards should guide the conduct of political office holders and how they ought to be monitored and enforced. Political ethics regulatory regimes vary across countries and there is no perfect model Some have set detailed legal standards to political actors, while externalizing their oversight and enforcement. Others have moved towards hybrid regimes, by opening the composition of their internal bodies to outsiders and by creating new independent oversight entities. A few have relied mainly on customary practice, peer pressure and internal disciplinary mechanisms, while outlining minimum legal standards to political office holders. The tendency is for hybrid regimes with internal norm-setting and enforcement but some degree of openness to external scrutiny. The objective of this introductory article is to set a conceptual and theoretical framework for the analysis of different regulatory approaches on political ethics.