Curbing Corruption or Promoting Integrity? Probing the Hidden Conceptual Challenge

For decades corruption has been the primary means through which we have understood unethical behaviour in public life. This has resulted in a helpful focus upon eliminating the worst behaviours from public life. Nonetheless, corruption is conceptually limited if our overarching goal is to increase ethical behaviour more widely, rather than only to reduce the worst of behaviours. Indeed, a focus on corruption does not allow for any consideration of pro-social behaviours at all. This chapter argues that simply being 'not corrupt' is too low of a bar for judging the actions of governors.