How to stop political corruption

Based on the readings, what could Tennessee do to make political and bureaucratic functionaries more accountable?
Public Administration, but virtue of its role in society, must be held accountable for corrupt and unethical actions. Public administration plays both a vital and integral role within the overall political climate of America and as such, must be held to a high standard. Many voters look to public officials as representatives of their communities and expect them to act responsibility while upholding the values of their constituency. Unfortunately, as recent events in Tennessee have shown, political stakeholders often put their own interest ahead of those who they have sworn to help. As a result, more action should be taken to hold political officials who stray from their mandate to be more accountable.
To begin, bureaucratic accountability is defined as the principle of political accountability that is applied to control bureaucratic power. Therefore, the first element to hold public officials more accountable is eliminating conflicts of interest that could undermine their overall objectivity when making critical decisions about bureaucratic power. A very contentious debate currently underway in America is the idea of public funding of elections for officials. Currently large political stakeholders and bureaucratic organizations have higher access to political officials due to large donations, political contributions, and other arrangements that provide benefits to the official. In these circumstances, the official’s decision making could be impaired based on this relationship. By having publicly funded elections, this could potential hamper some of the conflicts of interest that can arise through large political donations from various bureaucratic stakeholders (Rich, 2015).
Another element to make political functionaries more accountable is citizen engagement. This element is arguable the most important as citizens and the constituents in which the public official serves hold the power. If an official is not properly performing their duties, the constituency can elect an alternative. To increase accountable, individual votes should look for ways to directly access bureaucratic information, monitor government activities, and supply real-time feedback on public service delivery. Real-time feedback is particularly important as the official knows he or she cannot simply get away with unethical behavior (Westenberg,, 2018). The idea that “somebody could be watching” is a strong deterrent to behavior unbecoming of a public official. Citizen engagement also inspires others to become more involved in the political process overall. America, as one of the most developed nations on earth, still has a relative low voter turnout as compared with other develop countries. By engaging individual voters on a constant and consistent basis, political officials will be in a better position to reflect the values of their constituents. A component of a much more engaged voter base is also enacting a culture of ethical enforcement. Here, within any public arena, whistleblowing should be encouraged. First, with higher voter engagement, it is much less likely that unethical or corrupt behavior will go unnoticed. Likewise, voters will be much more attune with the overall political climent and the public official’s response to it. With a culture of whistleblowing established, those inside an organization or department will also be empowered to help protect the interests of the general public. In this instance a much more informed and engage voter based can instill a culture of accountability through proper channels of oversight (Wilson, 2016).
In conclusion, the failures of public administration were brought to the forefront with the scandals of Operation Rocky Top and Operation Tennessee Waltz. Both of which uncovered the extreme lack of oversight and the importance of accountability with the public offices of Tennessee. In order curtail these errors in judgement from occurring in the future, the voter base must first be properly engaged. Here, voters should consistently monitor behavior while also provided real-time feedback. In addition, a culture of whistleblowing must be promoted both within and without all government agencies of Tennessee. Finally, as much as possible, conflicts of interest must be eliminated. Through these initiatives’ government officials will be in a better position to behave honorably while also representing their communities in an ethical fashion.
References
1. Rich, E., & Moberg, J. (2015). Beyond governments: Making collective governance work - lessons from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. New York, NY: Greenleaf Publishing
2. Westenberg, E., & Sayne A. (2018). Beneficial ownership screening: Practical measures to reduce corruption risks in extractives licensing. Natural Resource Governance Institute. Retrieved from https://resourcegovernance.org/analysis-tools/publications/beneficial-ownership-screening-practicalmeasures-reduce-corruption
3. Wilson, C., & de Lanerolle, I. (2016) Test it and they might come: Improving the uptake of digital tools in transparency and accountability initiatives. IDS Bulletin, 47(1), 113–126. Retrieved from http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/40