Integrity and Accountability in Australian Government and Politics

The integrity and accountability research agenda in Australia has been primarily concerned with the problem of corruption in public life. This chapter provides an overview of this scholarship, including its central concepts and motivations, and develops the argument that the anti-corruption research agenda has been heavily influenced by public debates about corruption. Therefore, as the problem of corruption (and, just as importantly, the perceptions of this problem) has changed in form, so too has the focus of anti-corruption research. The chapter tracks the development of this literature against the backdrop of the practical history of corruption in Australia. The author argues that in recent years there has been a significant shift towards a more politicized and less bureaucratic understanding of corruption. This break from the past has serious implications for how corruption might be effectively confronted in the future.