Conflict of Interest and Public Life

Christine Trost is Associate Researcher and Assistant Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley. She is co-editor, with Matthew Grossmann, of Win the Right Way: How to Run Effective Local Campaigns in California and co-editor, with Jonathan Bernstein and Adrienne Jamieson, of Campaigning for Congress: Politicians at Home and in Washington. Alison Gash is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include intergovernmental relations, ethics in government, and the costs and benefits of pursuing different policy making strategies. Prior to attending Berkeley, Ms Gash spent several years working in Washington, DC in civil rights litigation. She received a Master's in Public Administration from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. Ms. Gash has worked as a policy consultant for US Department of Labor programs and state and local governments on a range of policy issues. Ms. Gash is a two-year recipient of the Travers Fellowship in Ethics and Politics awarded by the Institute of Governmental Studies at Berkeley.

This book is a welcome contribution to the literature and will no doubt stimulate much more work in this extremely important and surprisingly neglected field. The Law and Politics Review

• Part I. Theoretical Frameworks: 1. Legal standards and ethical norms: defining the limits of conflicts regulations Giovanni Guzzetta; 2. The Watergate effect: or why is the ethics bar constantly rising? Denis Saint-Martin; 3. Pluralists and republicans, rules and standards: conflicts of interest and the California experience Karen Getman and Pamela S. Karlan; 4. A democratized conception of political ethics Colin M. Macleod; Part II. Cross-National Case Studies: 5. Conflict of interest legislation in the United States: origins, evolution and inter-branch differences Bruce E. Cain, Alison L. Gash and Mark J. Oleszek; 6. Conflict of interest in Canada Andrew Stark; 7. Conflict of interest in British public life Gillian Peele and Robert Kaye; 8. Conflict of interest in Italy: the case of a media tycoon who became prime minister (2001–2006) Sergio Fabbrini.