Just have a look at the Electoral Integrity Global Report 2019 – 2021. It is a fascinating read. Electoral integrity in the United States of America is ranked 15th of the 29 countries in the Americas and is the lowest-ranked liberal democracy. The main areas of weakness in the USA are the drawing of the electoral boundaries, the results process, campaign finance and voter registration. Drawing on the Electoral Integrity dataset release 8.0, the report reveals which countries have the strongest elections, as well the parts of the electoral process where there are problems. Continue reading…

Book ban attempts grew by four-fold in the US. A new report shows that people are trying to ban books from the American libraries and schools more than before. ALA, so The American Library Association reports on the state of America’s libraries. There were 729 challenges to the books and activities taking place in libraries in 2021. There are more than 100,000 libraries across America, 9,000 of which are public libraries. 1,597 individual books were challenged by politicians, school boards, parents, political groups, elected officials and more. In Florida, a bill critics refer to as the Don’t Say Gay bill would ban any discussion of LGBTQ+ identities in classrooms from grades kindergarten through third grade, including teachers talking about their own lives, or kids mentioning their parents. In dozens of states across America, Critical Race Theory has been banned from classrooms as well. Lawmakers are passing laws that ban discussing or teaching kids about LGBTQ+ history or so-called Critical Race Theory.

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The European Commission proposed a law to make large companies that are operating in the EU check that their global suppliers respect environmental standards and do not engage in human rights issues such as slavery or child labor. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence law will also oblige directors of European Union firms to ensure that their business strategy aligns with limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius, as agreed under the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading…

From time to time, I will share some knowledge and insights on integrity via the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe. I started The Integrity Talks to connect business and personal. About this initiative: nothing is worth losing our integrity and humanity for. Sharing thoughts, from a variety of closed-up communities to all sorts of business ecosystems and from individual and autonomous choices to joint risk, governance or compliance agreements.

The business world and other ecosystems need to handle many ethical matters on a daily basis. The day-to-day actions, choices and interaction with others – both directly ‘in their face’ and behind their back, when they are not around make people’s integrity tangible. Of course, we do know how many ecosystems are not ethical at all. Besides, we know that when ecosystems want to keep track of the gradation of their ethical climate, there are always individuals who will try to continue to act in an egoistic or even socially sick manner.

The pressure from those individuals on the whole – sometimes indirectly, through using others as chess pieces in their game / battle is one of the symptoms of a socially sick culture. People’s wellbeing literally gets jeopardized. Such pressure can have massive physical and mental health consequences.

Moreover, pressure can come with many losses, including the lack of public successes, favor and mostly recognition that would otherwise have been theirs. In fact, that truly belongs to them, not only due to their content, but mostly because they will never show entitlement the way those bad individuals will – not in their thinking, attitude or behavior. In my work, I always connect reputation management to integrity and wellbeing in a 360 degrees cycle, because pressure will impact all three and because there is not one without the other.

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