Measuring and Explaining the Robustness of Party Ethics Self-Regulation

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: de Sousa, Luis; Bertoa, Fernando Casal; Lopes, Hugo Ferrinho; Hanenberg, Lucio
• 署名单位: Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ICS-UL); Universidade de Lisboa; University of Nottingham; Universidade do Minho; Instituto Universitario de Lisboa
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983; 1748-5991
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.70189
• 发表日期: 2026-07-13
• 关键词: ethics; integrity; measurement; Political parties; self-regulation; LOBBYING REGULATION; GOOD GOVERNANCE; CORRUPTION; success; rules; TRANSPARENCY; DEMOCRACY; REFORM; STATES; CODES

摘要

Over the past two decades, political parties have undertaken a series of intra-party reforms aimed at reinforcing ethical standards and restoring public confidence. These regulatory developments have been insufficiently studied and remain a blind spot in the literature. The purpose of this article is to explain, drawing on existing theories of regulation, not only why political parties engage in ethics self-regulation, but also why the robustness of party ethics self-regulation (PESR) varies across 241 parliamentary parties in 34 countries. For that, we will make use of an updated version of a recently developed dataset which congregates public information on self-regulatory efforts developed by political parties to address ethical issues within their organizations. Our results suggest that intra-party ethics reforms are primarily driven by legal tradition, strategic incentives, and risk exposure.