Ethics by Design: The Impact of Form of Government on Municipal Corruption

• Date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13050
• Published date: 01 July 2019

Ethics by Design: The Impact of Form of GovernmentonMunicipal Corruption 591

Whitney B. Afonso is associate

professor of public administration and

government in the School of Government,

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

E-mail: afonso@sog.unc.edu

Abstract: While trust in government at all levels is at an all-time low, actual corruption at the municipal level

has been declining. One factor often credited with this decline is the introduction of the council-manager form of

government. One of the key reasons the council-manager form was created in the early 1900s was to act as an antidote

to the corruption prevalent in the big-city machine politics of the era. Despite this, no one has tested whether the

council-manager form has in fact influenced the decline in corruption rates. This article uses a rare events logit model

to analyze corruption convictions in municipalities between 1990 and 2010 to determine which factors, including

form of government, affect the probability that a corrupt act will occur. The findings indicate that municipalities with

the council-manager form are 57 percent less likely to have corruption convictions than municipalities with the mayor-

council form.

Evidence for Practice

• The council-manager form of government lessens the likelihood of government corruption in municipalities.

• A change in form of government, either to or from the council-manager form, increases neither the risk of

corruption nor the likelihood of uncovering corruption that leads to a conviction.

• Having a mayor elected at-large is found to reduce the risk of corruption.

Trust in government is at an all-time low. In

2016, only 42 percent of Americans polled

said they trusted their political leaders, down

more than 20 percentage points since 2004 (Jones

2016). It is not surprising given the dramatic and

disturbing headlines of mayors arrested for accepting

bribes, municipal staff embezzlements, and managers

accepting gifts to approve contracts. Despite the

shocking nature of such cases, however, they are not

common events within U.S. municipal government.

There is no evidence that supports an increase in the

rate of public corruption over time (Glaeser and Saks

2006). In fact, corruption decreased over the past

century. In the 1800s and early 1900s, corruption was

rampant in American cities, with the levels of election

fraud and graft reaching their peaks in the 1870s. In

the decades since, however, these levels have dropped

sharply, such that the level of municipal corruption

in the 1870s is estimated to be five times higher than

levels in the 1970s (Glaeser and Goldin 2004).

One factor often credited with this decline in

corruption is the reform of local government and

the introduction of the council-manager form of

municipal government in 1908.1 In the council-

manager form, an elected body consisting of a mayor

and council have unified executive and legislative

powers and appoint a professional manager to

run the day-to-day operations of the government.

The development of the council-manager form

was arguably one of the greatest innovations in

local government in the United States. Use of the

council-manager form, today by more than half of

all municipal governments with populations over

2,500, has transformed the way these municipalities

operate.2 One of the key reasons the council-manager

form was developed was to act as an antidote to the

corruption prevalent in the machine politics of the

era. Public Administration Review recognized the

significance of the creation of the council-manager

form by highlighting research on the form during its

centennial. And yet no one has tested whether the

use of the council-manager form has been able to

influence corruption rates in local governments.

Other factors may have contributed to corruption

declines, including more laws and harsher penalties

for public corruption, increasing media scrutiny of

local governments, and greater oversight by state and

federal governments (Glaeser and Goldin 2004). Are

these other factors in fact responsible for the change

in corruption levels, or has the increasing use of the

council-manager form been a part of this reduction?

There are two lines of reasoning that can be used to

Kimberly L. Nelson

Whitney B. Afonso

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kimberly L. Nelson is Albert and

Gladys Hall Coates Distinguished Term

Associate Professor of Public Administration

and Government in the School of

Government, University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill.

E-mail: knelson@sog.unc.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 4, pp. 591–600. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13050.

Ethics by Design: The Impact of Form of

Government on Municipal Corruption

Research Article