Integrity Education as an Anti-Corruption Practice in China: Patterns, Functions, and Implications

Abstract

Controlling corruption has been a priority for the Chinese Communist Party since its founding in 1921. After several decades of development, the battle against corruption in China has entered a new stage. The most significant change in the recent years is a shift of the anti-corruption strategies from “fighting corruption” to “preventing corruption.” Consequently, integrity education has become increasingly important and plays a crucial role in China’s anti-corruption practice. The existing literature, however, has paid scant attention to the issue. This study attempts to fill the gap by providing a theoretical and practical analysis of integrity education in China, with a focus on its patterns, contents, functions, and limitations. Specifically, it addresses the following questions: What methods of integrity education are employed in China? What are the major characteristics and modes of integrity education? What roles and functions does integrity education play in corruption prevention? How may integrity education contribute to the overall moral development of government officials?

Theoretically, this study draws on behavior modification theories and classifies integrity education into four domains — the direct-external, indirect-external, direct-internal, and indirect-internal (Zigler, 1998). Each domain is examined in light of specific examples of China’s anti-corruption practice to understand the necessity and feasibility of the strategies, methods, and activities associated with it. Direct-external education methods are conducted by outside educators and aim at improving specific behavior, as exemplified by the anti-corruption talk system. Indirect-external educational methods focus on improving educatees’ overall moral sensitivity by external educators as well but in subtler ways. Field work was conducted at five typical anti-corruption education bases to explore this domain. Direct-internal educational processes consist of spontaneous and conscious acts of moral self-enhancement that target specific behaviors, motives and beliefs. To illustrate, 809 repentance letters were selected and analyzed through content analysis. Indirect-internal domain includes self-educational activities conducted by educatees themselves, which help improve their overall moral development and abilities to make correct ethical choices. Reading Procuratorial Daily is considered as an indirect-internal activity in this study, and 38,056 anti-corruption reports from the Daily over the past decade were collected and analyzed to understand this domain of integrity education. The mapping of the integrity education activities in the four domains provides a better understanding of China’s anti-corruption endeavors and illustrates the functions of integrity education in corruption prevention.

The findings of this study indicate that after tortuous development, integrity education has been effectively developed and enriched, and it demonstrates three major characteristics: diversity, pertinence, and consistency. First, integrity education is a complex process, involving various educational activities, each of which can be conducted in different ways. That being said, the educational core of the diverse methods is fixed; that is, integrity education is designed and conducted specifically for improving officials’ moral development. Second, the pertinence of integrity education is reflected in its adaptability to different conditions, namely educating officials according to their aptitudes and in specific contexts. Third, integrity education is a long process, as the moral development of government officials should be supported by consistent and sustainable education over time.

To be sure, integrity education has become a key component of China’s anti-corruption strategy. However, its limitations as well as obstacles to its effective implementation have been acknowledged. These include the lack of good measurements about its effects, the rigid contents of education, its weak institutional foundation, and the concern that integrity education is little more than window dressing. This study discusses these limitations and offers suggestions for improving the future design and application of integrity education in China.

Date of Award	8 Jun 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Ting GONG (Supervisor) & Chuncheng LI (External Supervisor)