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Conflict of Interest in American Public Life
Andrew Stark
Harvard University Press, 2000

Ranging over a wide array of cases, Andrew Stark draws on legal, moral, and political thought--as well as the rhetoric of officeholders and the commentary of journalists--to analyze several decades of debate over conflict of interest in American public life. He offers new ways of interpreting the controversies about conflict of interest, explains their prominence in American political combat, and suggests how we might make them less venomous and intractable.

Stark shows that over the past forty years public opinion has shifted steadily toward an objective conception of conflict: instead of considering case-by-case motivations, we have adopted broadly prophylactic rules barring a variety of circumstances with no regard for whether individuals facing those circumstances would be moved in culpable ways. At the same time, we have shifted toward a subjective conception of interest: where we once focused narrowly on money, we now inquire into various commitments individuals might pursue in ways that could impair their judgment.

In exploring the consequences of these twin migrations--the passage of "conflict" from a subjective to an objective understanding; the transformation of "interest" from an objective to a subjective conception--the author aims to make our debates over public ethics less vexatious for officials, and more lucid for citizens.

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front cover of Soft Corruption
Soft Corruption
How Unethical Conduct Undermines Good Government and What To Do About It
Schluter, William E
Rutgers University Press, 2017
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front cover of Tangled Loyalties
Tangled Loyalties
Conflict of Interest in Legal Practice
Susan P. Shapiro
University of Michigan Press, 2002
In Tangled Loyalties, Susan P. Shapiro charts a journey across the state of Illinois. To explore the role of conflict-of-interest in the private practice of law she looks at a wide variety of law firms, including those located near lakes, rivers, and corn fields; in strip malls, storefronts, and historic landmarks; in town squares, residential neighborhoods, deteriorating downtown areas, and glittering high rises.
This unique, empirical study examines the actual attitudes and perceptions of legal practitioners. The author discusses the realities of the profession--what lawyers face day to day, how they deal with conflicts of interest, and how those experiences vary from LaSalle Street to Wall Street to Main Street, from megafirms to solo practices. In describing how conflicts arise in their daily work, Shapiro sheds light on the nature of legal work--on clients, colleagues, law firm power and politics, economics, markets, malpractice insurance, careers, ethics, values, business judgments, and lawyers' most anguishing moments. In short, we learn what it means to be a lawyer at the end of the twentieth century.
Tangled Loyalties also looks at how these conflicts in law affect other fiduciaries--accountants, doctors, psychotherapists, journalists, and academics--and the way in which they respond to competing interests and the honoring of those interests.
Tangled Loyalties will appeal to readers interested in the legal and other professions, social institutions and relations, and issues of trust, ethics, social control and regulation.
Susan P. Shapiro is Senior Research Fellow, American Bar Foundation.
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