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Top Officials and Accountability: Conflict of Interest Regulation and Practice in Croatia

The conflict of interest policy and regulation and its implementation is considered to be a cornerstone of accountability and legitimacy of politicians and high civil servants, and one of the main anti-corruption instruments. While it has been in the tradition of certain democratic societies to focus on the issues of conflict of interest (while some others still do not have transparent procedures), in the CEE countries the regulation and practice is new and related to the anti-corruption efforts within the broader process of democratization and, as other anti- corruption instruments, is still in the struggling to survive. However, with the greater interconnectedness and social changes, the issue of vulnerability of decision-makers and top managers (as well as political advisors) becomes increasingly important. On one hand, the NPM and greater political instability increased the turnover in the government and at the highest levels of public service, and on the other, the perception of the incidence and omnipresence of external pressures (regulated industries, political interests, private interests) has increased with the availability of information. In addition to the adherence to the ethical norms, the obligations to submit asset declaration, to report the possible conflict of interest, the vetting process or the cooling-off period clauses, constitute the widely known regulatory instruments aimed at preventing the undue influence on top officials, which is also present to a certain degree for the civil servants' positions, and, more increasingly, for the political (policy) advisers. Institutions ensuring preventive measures (asset declarations, monitoring, advice, training), as well as decision-making in specific cases, have been established in many countries as to specific anti-corruption institutions or ethics committee. The variety of the functional and institutional arrangements is a result of the politico-administrative setting, institutional choices, but also the overall level of democratization and the perception of corruption. The research on conflict of interest in Croatia is completely absent and this paper seeks to first, help define the conceptual and empirical aspects of the issue in Croatia, and second, situate the conflict of interest regulation and practice (asset declaration, ethics, revolving door, reporting) within the wider European and global models and typologies. For these purposes, the paper which is based on the ongoing research explores the development, the regulation and the practice of conflict of interest management instruments in Croatian public administration with the focus on top officials. First, based on the review of the existing literature models of conflict of interest are discussed in terms of instruments and institutional frameworks. Second, the development of the conflict of interest regulation in Croatia is presented, with identification of main features and challenges, especially in terms of the scope and positions bound with the regulation (politicians, top officials, managerial roles, political advisors). Third, the main outcomes of the policy and regulation of the conflict of interest are assessed based on the practical implementation evaluated on the basis of decisions on conflict of interest (or the lack of thereof) in the period 2013-2019 adopted by the Commission for the Prevention of the Conflict of Interest.

conflict of interest, top officials, accountability, anti-corruption, Croatia

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