Conflicts of Interest and the Importance of the Organizational Variable: A Comparison Among Canada, the United States and Mexico

ABSTRACT

The aim of this document is to advance our understanding of the costs and perils faced by any country when looking for tackling real and possible conflict of interests among public officials. In effect, there are regulatory, organizational, and institutional difficulties and costs related with the implementation of reforms aimed to combat or prevent real and potential conflicts of interest. This discussion is vitally important above all to developing countries such as Mexico given that the effectiveness, cost and impact of this tool up until now applied to different countries has achieved rather heterogeneous results. The main objective of this paper is to enhance the importance of the organizational dimension whenever a regulatory framework to control conflict of interests is placed or implemented. Public organizations are not merely instruments adaptable to the orders and instructions stemming from regulations and rules. In this sense, the regulatory (both formal and “soft”) framework should take in consideration the concrete organizational effects of the rules and institutions designed to change the behavior of actors. Developing a comparison of regulatory, institutional and organizational strategies applied in Canada, Mexico and USA we seek to show that the organizational dimension is critical in order to understand the “real” net effect achieved when dealing with complex behaviors like the ones which drive social and political actors to face conflict of interests situations.

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