‘Sobriety, human dignity and public morality’: ethical standards in Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

Kazakhstan, like other post-Soviet countries, is struggling to address residual issues of corruption and weak ethical standards within a wider initiative to promote good governance. From 1997 onwards, it has introduced several iterations of codes of ethics and professional conduct. These efforts have culminated in the appointment of ethics commissioners in each ministry and government agency. This article considers how effective they have been in enforcing ethical standards through primary data collected from three groups: aspiring civil servants; in-service officials; and, ethics commissioners. The research finds that commissioners have much higher tolerance levels towards ethical dilemmas and lack consistency in making judgements, which limits confidence in their roles as enforcement officers.

IMPACT

Ethics commissioners have been appointed in Kazakhstan to oversee the implementation of an ethics code applicable across the public sector. The ethics code is one of several policy instruments being used to tackle corruption in several post-Soviet countries. But commissioners find themselves in a dilemma. They are employed by the same organizations for which they have oversight. To highlight unethical behaviour can be viewed as an act of disloyalty. This article therefore considers how tolerant commissioners are of unethical conduct relative to two peer groups of officials (aspiring civil servants and in-service officials), and raises questions as to their independence.

KEYWORDS:

• Corruption
• ethics
• good governance
• Kazakhstan
• post-Soviet countries
• public sector
• public administration
• public sector reforms

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).