A Code of Conduct for Indonesia: Problems and Perspectives

The purpose of the present paper is fairly straightforward. We want to show that institutional reforms, such as the adoption of a conduct code, represent a necessary albeit insufficient condition to curb corruption and promote good governance. As several scholars have pointed out the success of institutional reform in general and the success of codes of conduct in particular depends, among other things, on ideational conditions. With regard to codes of conduct, parliamentary ethics experts believe in fact that the success of a code of conduct depends on whether the individuals who are supposed to be regulated by the disposition of the code, have a common understanding of what are the problems that the code is supposed to address or of how the code can solve those problems. In other words, it is argued that the success of codes of conduct for Parliamentarians requires homogenous ethical standards and expectations. On the basis of a survey conducted among the members of the ethics council of the Indonesian DPD and DPR, we show that values and preferences of Indonesian MPs are far from being homogenous. Hence, we suggest that in order to make conduct codes successful in Indonesia, it is necessary to homogenize the ethical standards, values and expectations of Indonesian parliamentarians.