Lex localis - Journal of Local Self-Government_11(1)_January

L EX LOCALIS - J OURNAL OF L OCAL S ELF -G OVERNMENT J. Fedran, B.Dobovšek, B. Ažman & M. Bren: Integrity Plan: A Useful Measure for Curbing Corruption at National and Local Level 169 monopoly power over a good or service and has discretion to decide whether someone gets that good or service or how much a person receives, and there is no accountability whereby others can see what that person is deciding, then we will tend to find corruption.” Shah and Shah (2006) claim anti-corruption efforts need to reduce opportunities for corruption, improve incentives for good performance, and raise awareness about the need for citizens to work with their governments to bring about change. According to Anechiarico (2010), “The international anti-corruption project has focused most time and energy on advocating and assessing efforts made to ensure public integrity at the national level”; hence, it is necessary to pay attention to local government, as well. Shah and Shah (2006) emphasize that autonomy, independence, and decentralization are characteristic of any local government. Brezovnik and Oplotnik (2003) describe it as a system of the relationships between central and local government bodies where local authorities have a certain degree of independence enacted by the Constitution and laws. Furthermore, Shah and Shah (2006) also assert that local self-government is the one level of government closest to the people charged with “The task of representing the meaning and views of locality.” Localization also helps to break the monopoly of power at the national level by bringing decision making processes closer to people. Additionally, localization strengthens government accountability to citizens by involving them in monitoring government performance and demanding corrective actions. However, one must pay close attention to the institutional environment and the risk of local capture by elites. In institutional environments typical of some developing countries, industrial interests dominate, and with institutes of participation and accountability being weak or ineffective while political interference in local affairs are rampant, localization may increase opportunities for corruption. This suggests a pecking order of anti-corruption policies and programs where the rule of law and citizen empowerment should be the utmost priority in any reform efforts. The analysis of corruption cases and interviews at a local level in Slovenia carried out by Dobovšek and Škrbec (2013) make it clear that corruption has a negative impact on the rule of law in local communities, as it diverts the municipalities’ work into ‘a marketing objective’ available for purchase. In any case, with hardly any research on whether corruption is more extended either at a local or a national level, there is, nonetheless, one characteristic they evidently have in common, i.e., it takes integrity to curb corruption (Langseth and Vlassis 2002). Pulay (2014) highlights that “Organizations need to strengthen their integrity and implement integrity controls,” claiming “They can do it by developing their own integrity management system, that is, by defining and consistently communicating an organization’s set of values, and by creating and operating the tools (rules, codes of conduct, ethical principles,