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Institutional Corruption Conference III: Cultures of Loyalty and Mutual Trust
Friday, February 10th, 2012
Robert Wechsler
At the Institutional Corruption Conference sponsored by Harvard's
Safra Center last Saturday, Bruce Cain, a professor at UC Berkeley,
pointed out that the permeable boundary between government and
business (and, I would add, business law) brings into government
many individuals who have a different concept of ethics. That is, in
the business world, loyalty to one's supervisors (or clients) and to
the company is the most important thing. In government, loyalty
should be to the public. Of course, this is not loyalty as we know
it, so loyalty should be suppressed as much as possible. But
political appointees brought in from the outside are unlikely to put
their loyalty aside, and those who hire them are unlikely to want
this to happen.
Cain also added a third element to the usual bad apple-bad barrel dualism. He added the water in which a barrel floats, that is, the culture or ethics environment. He noted that the common adversarial culture of business and law creates the sort of bonding that leads to the loyalty problem.
Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor best known for his book Bowling Alone, suggested that we should focus less on trust and more on trustworthiness, that is, warranted trust. What is truly bad is not a lack of trust, but unfounded trust on the one hand and cynical distrust on the other. The goal should be to enhance trustworthiness.
In a study he did of Italian regional governments, he found that the public's level of trust was, on the whole, very realistic. But he found that the level of mutual trust and the norm of reciprocity in the region were the most important indicators of whether a regional government would be trustworthy. The levels of corruption and of tax evasion are closely tied to these indicators, as well. In other words, a poor ethics environment in government usually reflects a poor ethics environment in the community.
Of course, citizens are just as inclined both to denial and to justification of their misconduct as government officials are. So it is not surprising that citizens would be no more likely to admit to a poor ethics environment in their community than an official would be regarding a poor ethics environment in his government.
Despite what Putnam found in Italy, there are occasions where there is low trust but high trustworthiness. Mahzarin Banaji (a Harvard psychology professor), on the following panel, gave the example of Indian villages run by women, which are more effective, and yet the women leaders are not trusted because they are women.
It is important to recognize that solutions differ where there is low trust but high trustworthiness, where there is low trust and low trustworthiness, and where there is high trust but low trustworthiness.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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Cain also added a third element to the usual bad apple-bad barrel dualism. He added the water in which a barrel floats, that is, the culture or ethics environment. He noted that the common adversarial culture of business and law creates the sort of bonding that leads to the loyalty problem.
Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor best known for his book Bowling Alone, suggested that we should focus less on trust and more on trustworthiness, that is, warranted trust. What is truly bad is not a lack of trust, but unfounded trust on the one hand and cynical distrust on the other. The goal should be to enhance trustworthiness.
In a study he did of Italian regional governments, he found that the public's level of trust was, on the whole, very realistic. But he found that the level of mutual trust and the norm of reciprocity in the region were the most important indicators of whether a regional government would be trustworthy. The levels of corruption and of tax evasion are closely tied to these indicators, as well. In other words, a poor ethics environment in government usually reflects a poor ethics environment in the community.
Of course, citizens are just as inclined both to denial and to justification of their misconduct as government officials are. So it is not surprising that citizens would be no more likely to admit to a poor ethics environment in their community than an official would be regarding a poor ethics environment in his government.
Despite what Putnam found in Italy, there are occasions where there is low trust but high trustworthiness. Mahzarin Banaji (a Harvard psychology professor), on the following panel, gave the example of Indian villages run by women, which are more effective, and yet the women leaders are not trusted because they are women.
It is important to recognize that solutions differ where there is low trust but high trustworthiness, where there is low trust and low trustworthiness, and where there is high trust but low trustworthiness.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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