Conflict of interest regulation in the public service: Brazilian experience. (Part one)

The paper argues that the existing model of civil service anticorruption reform by importing “best practice” of conflict of interest regulation in the public service does not help to tackle or minimize corruption, but creates a vicious circle both in theory and practice. Corruption studies artificially segment corruption onto independent macro- and micro-levels, and research contributing to one of the levels does not improve our understanding of corruption of other ones. Failed long-lasting or, having unexpected results, administrative reforms clearly demonstrate insufficiency of “importing the model” as an anti-corruption measure. The model of corruption markets, presented in the article, explains the insufficiency of importing best practice, and demonstrates that the “good enough governance” tactic is able to minimize national corruption market. “good enough governance” has a good implication for unsolved problems of the Russian public service: one could never become Singapore by importing Singapore’s “best practice” regulations. Russian “good enough governance” of conflict of interest regulation in the public service is adapting experience of Brazil’s anti-corruption reform of the civil service (as the one that solved the same problems with the similar lack of resources). The paper presents a thorough analysis of the anti-corruption reform in Brazil, based on the study of regulations introduced by Cardoso and his successors (mid. 1990s-2015) and structured according to the aims of the reform. Three mutually reinforcing groups of measures were introduced: decreasing politicization of the Brazil civil service, regulating conflict of interests in the most “sensitive” areas (such as public procurement) and ethic regulations. The research conducted has practical implications for the Russian public service - incremental mechanism for reforming the national public service and, consequently, minimizing the national corruption market. First part of the paper explains why Brazilian experience of anticorruption reform is relevant for Russian public service, analyzes Brazilian style of “new public management” and key measures in reforming electoral campaigns.