Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction I Conflict 1. The Perils of Prophylactic Law 2. The Topography of Conflict 3. Self-Dealing 4. Undue Influence 5. Abuse of Office 6. Private Payment for Public Acts 7. Private Gain from Public Office 8. The Revolving Door: I 9. The Revolving Door: II Summary II Interest 10. Interest, Bias, and Ideology 11. Limousine Liberals, Country-Club Conservatives 12. On Character in American Politics 13. Self-Generated versus Other-Imposed Encumbrances on Judgment 14. Quid Pro Quo and Campaign Finance 15. Spousal Interests 16. Combination of Roles and Ex Parte Contacts 17. Hold the Interest, Vary the Role 18. De Minimis Summary III Appearances 19. The Meaning of "The Appearance of Official Impropriety" 20. The Legalistic Attack on the Appearance Standard 21. The Political Justification for the Appearance Standard IV Remedies 22. Recusal, Divestiture, Balance, and Disclosure 23. What Is a Balanced Committee? 24. Disclosure and Its Discontents Conclusion Notes Index

Promotional Information

An arrestingly original interpretation of conflict of interest. Stark earns his theory the hard way, the right way: he immerses himself in legal decisions, political conflicts, bureaucratic policy memos, you name it. Working from the ground up, he offers an elegant structure full of novel and mischievous insights. The book belongs on the shelves of lawyers, politicians, and journalists--it represents a powerful new way of working on ethics and policy. -- Don Herzog, University of Michigan Law School Government officials are rightly held to high ethical standards because of their visibility, and hence their potential for teaching good or bad lessons about morality. Andrew Stark's book makes an important contribution to our thinking through the ethical issues at stake in crafting judgments and policies in this area. -- Steven Kelman, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

About the Author

Andrew Stark is Professor of Strategic Management and Political Science, University of Toronto.

Reviews

An arrestingly original interpretation of conflict of interest. Stark earns his theory the hard way, the right way: he immerses himself in legal decisions, political conflicts, bureaucratic policy memos, you name it. Working from the ground up, he offers an elegant structure full of novel and mischievous insights. The book belongs on the shelves of lawyers, politicians, and journalists--it represents a powerful new way of working on ethics and policy. -- Don Herzog, University of Michigan Law School
Stark brings back to our attention a host of Presidential advisers, Cabinet officers and lawmakers who have been accused of, or forced to resign over, conflict of interest...Stark does not sit in judgment on particular individuals; instead, he exposes the laws and particular cases to remorseless and clever reformulation and reinterpretation. In so doing, he highlights the contradictions and inconsistencies of prosecutors and defendants, and those of critics and champions of regulation. The result is provocative and always stimulating. -- Tony Badger * Times Literary Supplement *
[This book is] perfectly poised to benefit from the country's cresting wave of conflict-of-interest outrage...The scandal of 'conflict of interest' as a moral notion, Stark recognizes, is that it's poorly named. All of us have interests that conflict. It's not logical or psychological conflict among them that we seek to eliminate in public officials and umpires. It's decision-making according to inappropriate criteria. -- Carlin Romano * Chronicle of Higher Education *
[Stark] argues that conflicts of interest, real or imagined, are rife these days because of a combination of 'legal liberalism' and 'political liberalism'...[He] probes such matters with great care and thoughtfulness. His prose is superbly readable, his analysis relentless...Among other things, he offers the reader the wry pleasure of watching all the tools of Oxford philosophy deployed to decipher a legal regime designed to prevent abuses by Chicago ward heelers and Washington lobbyists. -- John O. McGinnis * Wall Street Journal *
Government officials are rightly held to high ethical standards because of their visibility, and hence their potential for teaching good or bad lessons about morality. Andrew Stark's book makes an important contribution to our thinking through the ethical issues at stake in crafting judgments and policies in this area. -- Steven Kelman, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University