Corruption: When Norms Upstage the Law

It's rather surprising how the article just glosses over the whole issue of enforcement. It goes from "can't you just pass laws" to "well it's about social expectations". Well, what about "can't you just pass laws and then enforce them"? Of course it can be argued that enforcement is itself a social action, but then so is the actual passing of the law. It seems like if you want to push back against the social trend you're going to have to bite the bullet and do things people don't like.

And then later it says an example of a success story is Rwanda, which "tied anti-corruption to national identity through campaigns, while backing it with strict audits and high-profile prosecutions". That sounds like enforcement to me. . .

The idea of informing people that corruption is less widespread than they think seems like a rather weak approach to me. What if it's actually more widespread than they think? Does that mean it's then okay to do more of it?

This isn't to say that social expectations don't matter, but to me a basic characteristic of law is that it's prescriptive rather than descriptive, and a basic characteristic of ethics is that how things should be is a separate question from how things are (oughts aren't ises). Part of what it means to make a change is to make a commitment to do something because you believe it is what you should do, even if it is not how other people do things and isn't what would be easiest.

So..Swiss citizens familiar with their direct democracies' traditional but informal stance on 'revolving doors' please correct me.

It has 'worked' (for centuries--especially in finance & export sector below 'ministerial level'), but recently there has been a renewed focus on formalizing policy due to some 'scandals'

https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/switzerland-must-improve...

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/revolving-doors_swiss-...

(Imho revolving doors are a pillar of a functional state, so the analogous (single-design-multiple-rotor) Jesus pin must be analyzed through a policy lens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut)