Integrity in democratic politics

The complaint that many professional politicians lack integrity is common. However, it is unclear what such a judgement amounts to. Taking various codes of political ethics in the United Kingdom as my starting point, I examine the extent to which we can understand political integrity as a matter of politicians adhering to the obligations that official codes of ethics prescribe and, in a more general sense, the public-service ethos that underpins these codes. I argue that although this way of approaching the issue usefully draws our attention to an important class of positional duties that apply to politicians, commitment to principled political causes plays a further, indispensable role in coherent assessments of political integrity. In consequence, I claim that politicians of integrity succeed in furthering their deepest political commitments while avoiding malfeasance or misconduct. As such, the ascription of political integrity can often only be made when assessing a long train of action

The political phenomenology of war reporting

Drawing on interviews with war correspondents, editors, political and military personnel, this article investigates the political dimension of the structuration and structuring effects of the reporter’s experience of journalism. Self-reflection and judgements about colleagues confirm that there are dominant norms for interpreting and acting in conflict scenarios which, while contingent upon socio-historical context, are interpreted as natural. But the prevalence of such codes masks the systematically misrecognized symbolic systems of mystification and ambivalence – systems which reproduce hierarchies and gatekeeping structures in the field, but which are either experienced as unremarkable, dismissed with irony and cynicism, or not present to the consciousness of the war correspondent. The article builds on recent theories of journalistic disposition, ideology, discourse and professionalism, and describes the political dimension of journalistic practice perceived in the field as apolitical. It addresses the gendering of war correspondence, the rise of the journalist as moral authority, and questions the extent to which respondent reflections can be defensibly analytically determined

Honesty above all else? Expectations and perceptions of political conduct in three established democracies

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the ESRC (grant number RES-000-22-3459) and British Academy (grant numbers SG-101785 and SG-52322). They would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions

Standards of conduct in the House of Lords Summary

Chairman: Lord Neill of Bladen, QCSIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m01/22802 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Local public spending bodies Further and higher bodies (including universities); grant-maintained schools; training and enterprise councils and local enterprise companies; housing associations

Second report of the Nolan CommitteeSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Standards of conduct in the House of Lords Issues and questions

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/21042 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Local public spending bodies Summary of the Nolan Committee's second report on standards in public life

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:GPC/08946 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Standards in Public Life The funding of political parties in the United Kingdom volume 1: report

Vol. 1 of 2: Fifth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life; Command paper Cm 4057-I; CD of text in OPSIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:OP-CM/4057-I / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Reinforcing standards Review of the First report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life; summary

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/14650 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo