Vigilance against corruption and New Public Management

Abstract

Even in a ‘least corrupt’ case like Sweden, scholars have begun to argue that rapid NPM reform has increased the risks for corruption. With the aim of scrutinizing this argument, this article sets out to map the degree to which the risk for corruption is brought to attention by politicians and civil servants in Swedish municipalities. The article concludes that corruption is a much more salient issue in municipalities with far-reaching NPM-reforms than in municipalities lacking such reform. It is concluded, furthermore, that corruption is likely to become an increasingly important issue on the political agenda if municipalities, regardless of their population size, have a history of client-choice models. Accordingly, the article shows that corruption is framed as a political problem precisely in those contexts where theory predicts that problems ought to be most extensive. Even though the results cannot say anything about the actual levels of corruption in Sweden, they indicate that politicians and civil servants with more extensive experience from NPM appear to acknowledge the increased risks for corruption pointed out by scholars.