How honest do politicians need to be?

Political Quarterly

Volumn 81, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 49-56

  Birch, Sarah ^a   Allen, Nicholas ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Corruption; Expenses scandal; Political ethics; Public opinion

Indexed keywords

EID: 77949534903     PISSN: 00323179     EISSN: 1467923X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-923X.2010.02066.x     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. This article is part of a wider project investigating popular understandings of the ethical behaviour of politicians in Britain. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the ESRC (grant number RES-000-22-3459) and British Academy (grant number SG-52322). Further details about the project can be found online at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/ethicsandintegrity/
2. Nicholas Allen, 'A restless electorate: stirrings in the political system', in John Bartle and Anthony King, eds, Britain at the Polls 2005, Washington, DC, Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006.
3. Expenses Poll for the BBC, These figures are taken from Ipsos MORI, , 31 May 2009, poll J36434.
4. The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, For an overview of this literature, see Russell J. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.
5. Stuart Hampshire, Public and Private Morality, ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 9
6. Dennis F. Thompson, Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption, Washington, DC, Brookings Institution, 1995, p. 16
7. Alan Rosenthal, Drawing the Line: Legislative Ethics in the States, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. 15.
8. Parliaments and Legislatures Specialist Group Annual Conference 2009, For an overview of the comparative literature and evidence on the British case, see Nicholas Allen and Sarah Birch, 'On either side of a moat? Elite and mass attitudes towards right and wrong', in PSA, London, Constitution Unit, Department of Political Science, UCL, London, 24 June 2009, available online at: http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/ethicsandintegrity/
9. The Economist, 'Bagehot: "Pants on Fire"', 11 July 2009.
10. Thomas Nagel, 'Ruthlessness in public life', in Stuart Hampshire, Public and Private Morality, ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 75-91.
11. Andrew Porter, 'MPs will not be prosecuted for failing to declare financial interests', Daily Telegraph, 17 July 2009.
12. Onora O'Neill, A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.