A Whig Interpretation of History?

Since last year (2012) I have been involved in a European Commission research project that seeks to discover which measures aimed against corruption actually work. This research includes a relatively modest historical dimension, in which "lessons learned" from the past is one of the main aims. In other words, the project seeks to discover how some governments or societies learned to break the cycle of corruption and achieve a legal and political system where public integrity is the effective norm. In more concrete terms, it’s about how Romania or Bulgaria can learn from the history of Denmark - a country that has come to serve as a metaphor for impeccable administration, a kind of international gold standard for public integrity.