Whistleblowing and Anti-Corruption Behaviors in Public Administration in Developing Contexts: A Case of Local-Governance in Kenya

Abstract

Due to ambivalent conception of administrative-roles, the fluid scalar-chain and horizontal linkages, conflicting due-processes, tasking and ambiguous organizational justice processes, competitive and intricate public-private and organizational interests, whistleblowing attracts little priority in public administration. Drawing on a comparative-analysis to illuminate the broader-scope of anti-corruption reforms and whistleblowing in developing countries, the paper by anchoring on data from Kenya finds that bureaucratic-oversight mechanisms like internal auditing procedures and ethical guidelines, etc. combined with autocratic and parochial-management styles, make whistleblowing anti-organizational, anti-social and an outright-illegality in public administration. Institutional blind-spots typical in local state administration also make it riskier for potential whistleblowers, who resort to silence. Likewise, loose-and-inconsistent legislation hinder individual innovations to whistle-blow and make it problematic even to ethical administrative-executives to pursue legal-actions on corruption. So, the non-performance of anti-corruption reforms also stem from the collective chastisement of whistleblowing. This may-be the primary impediment to collaborative-implementation of anti-corruption reforms in developing-countries.