IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/padxxx/v41y2021i4p203-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Barriers to transparency in Bhutan's public administration: A new typology of opacity

Author

Listed:
  • Bertrand Venard
  • Kezang Tshering

Abstract

In democratic emerging countries, transparency can play an important role in reducing corruption, but only if certain barriers are overcome. This investigation contributes to transparency theory by studying the barriers to transparency and proposing a typology consisting of five barriers that lead to opacity. With focus on the public administration tasked to control corruption in the mining sector of Bhutan, we conducted 98 semi‐structured interviews within seven different stakeholder groups in different regions of Bhutan to determine the barriers to transparency in fighting corruption. A qualitative analysis technique revealed first‐ and second‐order themes resulting in five forms of opacity: idiosyncratic (nature of the industry and corruption); systemic (adequacy of information management system); deliberate (willingness to exercise control); organizational (role and process ambiguity); and capacity (sufficient resources to control). This analysis of the mining sector, a high corruption industry, in a unique, low corruption democratic emerging country, Bhutan, provides practical implications to policy‐makers attempting to improve transparency, and hence, reduce corruption. Policy and managerial implications of this research include paying more attention to the national control agencies that could be improved by heeding the five key factors that we have highlighted.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertrand Venard & Kezang Tshering, 2021. "Barriers to transparency in Bhutan's public administration: A new typology of opacity," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 203-216, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:41:y:2021:i:4:p:203-216
    DOI: 10.1002/pad.1967
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1967
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/pad.1967?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4tc33icveb94nokk2rd2ettg0k is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gilbert, Dirk Ulrich & Rasche, Andreas, 2007. "Discourse Ethics and Social Accountability: The Ethics of SA 8000," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 187-216, April.
    3. Bertels, Stephanie & Cody, Michael & Pek, Simon, 2014. "A Responsive Approach to Organizational Misconduct: Rehabilitation, Reintegration, and the Reduction of Reoffense," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 343-370, July.
    4. Gans-Morse, Jordan & Borges, Mariana & Makarin, Alexey & Mannah-Blankson, Theresa & Nickow, Andre & Zhang, Dong, 2018. "Reducing bureaucratic corruption: Interdisciplinary perspectives on what works," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 171-188.
    5. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Rachel M. Gisselquist & Danielle Resnick & Steven E. Finkel, 2014. "The Impact Of Adult Civic Education Programmes In Developing Democracies," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(3), pages 169-181, August.
    7. Neudorfer, Natascha S., 2018. "Commodities and corruption – How the middle class and democratic institutions lead to less corruption in resource-rich countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 175-191.
    8. Bertrand Venard, 2013. "Institutions, Corruption and Sustainable Development," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2545-2562.
    9. Filipe R. Campante & Quoc-Anh Do, 2014. "Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability, and Corruption: Evidence from US States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2456-2481, August.
    10. Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff & Derick W. Brinkerhoff & Susan Ariel Aaronson, 2011. "Limited partnership: Business, government, civil society, and the public in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(1), pages 50-63, February.
    11. Gary S. Becker & George J. Stigler, 1974. "Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of Enforcers," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
    12. Steven Bernstein & Benjamin Cashore, 2007. "Can non‐state global governance be legitimate? An analytical framework," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(4), pages 347-371, December.
    13. Rose-Ackerman,Susan & Palifka,Bonnie J., 2016. "Corruption and Government," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107081208, October.
    14. Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2010. "One Size Fits All? Decentralization, Corruption, and the Monitoring of Bureaucrats," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 631-646, April.
    15. Kolstad, Ivar & Søreide, Tina, 2009. "Corruption in natural resource management: Implications for policy makers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 214-226, December.
    16. Paul Collins & Otwin Marenin & Michael Chin‐Chih Chu & Chin‐chih Chu & Elaine Yi Lu & Chun‐yuan Wang & Ting‐Jung Tsai, 2016. "Grounding Police Accountability and Performance in Context: A Comparative Study of Stop and Frisk Between New York City and Taipei City," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 108-120, May.
    17. Ataur Rahman Belal, 2002. "Stakeholder accountability or stakeholder management: a review of UK firms' social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) practices," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 8-25, March.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/nhjqqngq98lnqqrct2aj93qja is not listed on IDEAS
    19. O’Higgins, Eleanor R. E., 2006. "Corruption, Underdevelopment, and Extractive Resource Industries: Addressing the Vicious Cycle," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 235-254, April.
    20. Petermann, Andrea & Guzman, Juan Ignacio & Tilton, John E., 2007. "Mining and corruption," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 91-103, September.
    21. Roberts, John & Scapens, Robert, 1985. "Accounting systems and systems of accountability -- understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 443-456, October.
    22. Madelijne Gorsira & Adriaan Denkers & Wim Huisman, 2018. "Both Sides of the Coin: Motives for Corruption Among Public Officials and Business Employees," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 179-194, August.
    23. Paul Collins & Alan Doig & Alan Doig, 2012. "Conclusion To The Special Issue: Time To Consider Prevention As Well As Retribution?," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(1), pages 129-135, February.
    24. Luo, Yadong, 2005. "An Organizational Perspective of Corruption1," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 119-154, March.
    25. Florian Schatz, 2013. "Fighting Corruption With Social Accountability: A Comparative Analysis Of Social Accountability Mechanisms' Potential To Reduce Corruption In Public Administration," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 161-174, August.
    26. Tim Büthe & Walter Mattli, 2011. "The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9470.
    27. Hess, David, 2008. "The Three Pillars of Corporate Social Reporting as New Governance Regulation: Disclosure, Dialogue, and Development," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 447-482, October.
    28. Davis, Jennifer, 2004. "Corruption in Public Service Delivery: Experience from South Asia's Water and Sanitation Sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 53-71, January.
    29. Mr. Carlos A Leite & Jens Weidmann, 1999. "Does Mother Nature Corrupt? Natural Resources, Corruption, and Economic Growth," IMF Working Papers 1999/085, International Monetary Fund.
    30. Richard Damania & Per Fredriksson & Muthukumara Mani, 2004. "The Persistence of Corruption and Regulatory Compliance Failures: Theory and Evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 363-390, February.
    31. Bertrand Venard, 2013. "Institutions, Corruption and Sustainable Development," Post-Print hal-00874275, HAL.
    32. Craig Smith, N. & Simpson, Sally S. & Huang, Chun-Yao, 2007. "Why Managers Fail to do the Right Thing: An Empirical Study of Unethical and Illegal Conduct," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 633-667, October.
    33. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 200-249.
    34. Di Tella, Rafael & MacCulloch, Robert, 2008. "Gross national happiness as an answer to the Easterlin Paradox?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 22-42, April.
    35. Cordis, Adriana S. & Warren, Patrick L., 2014. "Sunshine as disinfectant: The effect of state Freedom of Information Act laws on public corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 18-36.
    36. Johnston, Michael, 2015. "Making transparency real? Accounting and popular participation in corruption control," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 97-101.
    37. Luca J. Uberti, 2016. "Can Institutional Reforms Reduce Corruption? Economic Theory and Patron–Client Politics in Developing Countries," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 47(2), pages 317-345, March.
    38. Gilbert, Dirk Ulrich & Rasche, Andreas & Waddock, Sandra, 2011. "Accountability in a Global Economy: The Emergence of International Accountability Standards," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 23-44, January.
    39. Ruth Aguilera & Abhijeet Vadera, 2008. "The Dark Side of Authority: Antecedents, Mechanisms, and Outcomes of Organizational Corruption," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(4), pages 431-449, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Moreno‐Jaimes, 2022. "Indulgent citizens: Bribery in Mexico's bureaucratic procedures," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 190-208, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gans-Morse, Jordan & Borges, Mariana & Makarin, Alexey & Mannah-Blankson, Theresa & Nickow, Andre & Zhang, Dong, 2018. "Reducing bureaucratic corruption: Interdisciplinary perspectives on what works," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 171-188.
    2. Michael A. Sartor & Paul W. Beamish, 2020. "Private Sector Corruption, Public Sector Corruption and the Organizational Structure of Foreign Subsidiaries," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 725-744, December.
    3. Mohammad Abdul Munim Joarder & Monir Uddin Ahmed, 2023. "Does natural resource abundance breed corruption? The role of political institutions," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(9), pages 1-43, September.
    4. Robson Fernandes Soares & Edson Ronaldo Guarido Filho, 2021. "Anti-Corruption Enforcement and Organizations: A Narrative Review," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 25(6), pages 190149-1901.
    5. Galletta, Sergio, 2017. "Law enforcement, municipal budgets and spillover effects: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Italy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 90-105.
    6. John Bennett & Matthew D. Rablen, 2021. "Bribery, hold‐up, and bureaucratic structure," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 880-903, July.
    7. CHEN, Xuezheng & GUI, Lin & WU, Tao & ZHANG, Jun, 2024. "A theory of symbiotic corruption," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 478-494.
    8. Henri Atangana ondoa, 2014. "The determinants of corporate corruption in Cameroon," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 938-950.
    9. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Straub, Stéphane & Flochel, Thomas, 2016. "Public Procurement and Rent-Seeking: The Case of Paraguay," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 395-407.
    10. Khan, Muhammad Atif & Gu, Lulu & Khan, Muhammad Asif & Oláh, Judit, 2020. "Natural resources and financial development: The role of institutional quality," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    11. Fernanda Odilla, 2020. "Oversee and Punish: Understanding the Fight Against Corruption Involving Government Workers in Brazil," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 140-152.
    12. Günther G. Schulze & Bambang Suharnoko Sjahrir & Nikita Zakharov, 2016. "Corruption in Russia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 135-171.
    13. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2022. "Dishonesty in Developing Countries -What Can We Learn From Experiments?," Working Papers hal-03899654, HAL.
    14. Maximiliano Lauletta & Martín A. Rossi & Christian A. Ruzzier, 2022. "Audits and Government Hiring Practices," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 214-227, January.
    15. Eric Avis & Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2018. "Do Government Audits Reduce Corruption? Estimating the Impacts of Exposing Corrupt Politicians," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1912-1964.
    16. Raymond Fisman & Yongxiang Wang, 2015. "The Mortality Cost of Political Connections," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1346-1382.
    17. Tsani, Stella, 2013. "Natural resources, governance and institutional quality: The role of resource funds," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 181-195.
    18. Kolstad, Ivar & Wiig, Arne, 2012. "Testing The Pearl Hypothesis: Natural resources and trust," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 358-367.
    19. Moliterni, Fabio, 2017. "Analysis of Public Subsidies to the Solar Energy Sector: Corruption and the Role of Institutions," SAS: Society and Sustainability 259482, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    20. Dávid-Barrett, Elizabeth & Fazekas, Mihály, 2020. "Anti-corruption in aid-funded procurement: Is corruption reduced or merely displaced?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:41:y:2021:i:4:p:203-216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0271-2075 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.