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Ethics
•
In
Public
Management
This page intentionally lefi blank
Ethics
•
In
Public
Management
Second Edition
H. George Frederickson
and Richard K. Ghere, Editors
First published 2013 by M.E. Sharpe
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should
be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for
whom they have a professional responsibility.
JF1525.E8E8567 2013
172’.2—dc23 2012038677
Preface vii
1. Introducti on
Richard K. Ghere 3
3. Publi c Serv ice Morals and Ethics: Thin and Thick Dilemmas
in Routi ne and Cri tical Situat ions
Roben Schwartz. 42
,
";
To borrow words from Frank Locsscr, thi s book is the latest product of Ihe
"oldest established p erman ent floatin g" seminar on e thics in public policy and
administration, As Ri ck C herc descri bes in t he introduction of thi s second
edit ion of Ethics in Public MOI/agement, thi s fl oating seminar started twenty
years ago. O ver Ihe years new ethics scholars have joined in and brought
their interests \0 the semi nar. Bul the primary emphases have remained the
salllc-our in sistence that the study of ethics be empiricall y informed and
con textually nailed down. II i s ontable that, as this fl oat ing semi nar has moved
along, the general study of publ ic secto r eth ics has also moved a long a nd , we
arc happy to say, moved generally in the direction of more empiricism and
contex tualizat ion. Compared to twenty years :lgo, eth ics sermons and ethics
as Sunday school lessons are onw less often of u nd in serious cthics scholar-
ship. And contemporary ethics scholarshi p is more applied than it W <l S twenty
ycars ago and is, as a result , more practical and useful.
The subject or field o f publ ic sector eth ics scho larshi p has changed in
another impo rtant way. Our subject or fi eld has found an academic home in
the journal Public Inlegrily , now in its fourteenth year. Published quarterl y by
M.E. Sharpe, Public IllIegril)' is the journal of the Section on Pu blic Sector
Ethics of the A merican Society for Public Admini stration and is supported
by the Counci l on Governmental Ethics Laws, the International Ci ty/County
Management Association, and the Council o f State Governments. Public
Inlegrity is in thecapable edi torial hands of James S. Bowman, editor in
chief, and Jonathan P. West, managing edi tor. The processes of objective peer
rev iew brought to the study of pu blic sector eth ics by Public Inlegrity have
signifi cantl y improved the quality of our scholarshi p.
We thank Harry Briggs, exec uti ve editor at M.E. Sharpe, for encourage-
ment, reminders, deadlines, and unn agging support.
vi i
viii PREFACE
Richard K. Chere
Thi s v olume follows two earlie r projec ts unde rtaken by Frederic kson ( 1993)
and Frederickson a nd Ghcrc (2005) to present collec tio ns of theore tical es-
says and empirical anal yses on ad mini strati ve ethics. T hree years before the
publ ication of the fi rst volume- Frederick son 's Erhics (/Ild Public Adm illis-
m llioll-the National Commi ssion on the Public Ser vice released Leadership
fo r America ( al so known as the Volckcr Comm i ssion Rep0rl) that tatested to
"the quiet rci sis" in government whereby
too many o f the best of the nalion's senior e xec utives arc ready 10 leave
government. and nol enough oftsi rnosl talcntcd young people arc wi lling 10
joi n. Thi s erosio n in the attracti veness in public service al all levels- most
speci fi call y in the federal c ivil scrvice- undermi nes the ability o fgovern-
ment 10 respond effecti vely 10 the needs and aspiratio ns o fthe A merican
people, and ult imately damages the democratic process itself. ( 1989, xiii)
For the Volc kc r Commi ssion, the si sue o f p olit ical legiti macy at that ti me
appeared foundat ional to both the nature of thequiet c risis and proposals to
address il. Spec ifi call y, the commi ssion 's Task F o rce on Public Pe rc ept io ns
of the Public Se rvic e recog nized the causa lity betwecn percept ions of ethical
abuse in government and c halle nges to legiti macy as follo ws : "Co ntributing to
the public's negati ve image of go vernment is the s uccessio n o f ethics scandal s
fa nd simil ar fa ilings] ... The resul ti ng scnse o f laie nation ricochets against
publ ic servants" (1990, 64).
Altho ugh only a few pecifi
s c references to improving ethics and profession-
alism appear within the broad scope of the commission 's recommendatio ns, the
3
4 G HERE
context of the report related adm inistrative ethics to the problem of political
legitimacy in a manner generall y consistent with thi s logical sy llogism:
Further, the comm ission' s report implied that the rather straightforward
nex us between eth ics and pu blic perception could be underslOod as low-
hanging fru it call ing for immediate attention in rebui lding the public service .
In particular, the report quotes Pres ident George H. W. Bush i n us pport o f
"goal one- rebuildlingJ the public's trust: It's not rea ll y very c omplicated.
It 's a question of knowing right from wrong, avoiding conflicts of interest,
bend ing over backwards to sec that there's not even a per ception of con fli ct
of interest" ( 1990, 14).
Particular references to ethics and the public trust inthe Volcker Commis-
sion Report delineated the scope of con versation about publi c ethics leading
up to the c onference that George Frederickson con vened on the Study o f
Government Ethics at Park Ci ty, Utah , in June 199 1 and to the publication o f
Ethics alld Public Admillislrluioll (based on the Park City papers) in 1993. In
fact, President Bush's remark-as clear and forthri ght as it appears-actually
spoke to some rather complex, dialectical conundru llls that festered beneath
the surface of "government eth ics tal k" as it rclated to poli tical legitimacy.
The president spoke in earnest that "knowing right from wrong" wou ld seem
not :1\ all complicated, but it followed that such awareness mi ght extend be-
yond mailers of law to more generali zed publi c standards and ex pectation s.
In this regard , it could be argued that Leadership fo r America more directly
addressed the extralegal offenses of "deceit and manipulation " associated
with the Vietnam con fli ct and Watergate affair than with particular illegalities,
although these did in 1~lct occur (Jos 1993,365). In r eferring to the obligation
of "avoiding con fli cts of interest, bending over backwards to see that t here 's
not even a eprceptio n of confli ct of interest," Pres ident Bush impli ed that
for the public offi cial, conserving the public trust or legitimacy is asoften a
matter ofsatisfying public perceptions as abid ing by the law.
In his "Conclusion" to Ethics alld Public Admillistratioll , Frederickson
situated eachorlhat volume 's chaptercontrihutions wi thin various theoretical
categories "concerned w ith what we know about govern ment ethics" ( 1993.
243). To varying degrees in eachof the fi ve categories, he revealed the con-
ceptual wrinkles that foll ow from a per ceptual underpinning o f egitimacy
l
as public trust. For ex ample, although the fi rst category "The Nature of Per-
INTRODUCTION 5
sons: Good or Bad" might seem directl y resolvable through tests of Kan tian
imperati ves, Frederickson raised the interveni ng problem o fcomex, related
to ei ther societal or org:ll1izational cult ures as eclipsing Kant 's imperatives.
In et rms of the second category, "Maki ng Ethical Decisions: Doing Right or
Wrong." he borrowed from Herbert Simon to propose a "bounded eth ics"
wherein the public admi nistrator's moral authori ty to make ethical deci-
sions is hemmed in by any number of el gislative and budgetary constrai lllS.
Interpreting that decision-making quandary as a question of accountabili ty,
Frederickson introduced a third category, " Democracy and Eth ics: The Issue
of Aecoulllability," which pits the perceived need to exact accountability as
a bureaucratic control against the ethical warrant t o "take responsi bility"
proactively or claim ex tensive bureaucratic di scretion to fosler ethical gov-
ernance in a democracy. Fourth. Frederickson opened Pandora 's box to deal
with the big questions related to "Policy Ethics and Politics" as di stinct from
the ( more?) "petty ethics" o f govern ment corruption (253-254). Here, he
mused as to whether and to what ex tent appointed public admini strators bear
responsibi li ty for "big" policy questions as distinct from legislators. cle(;ted
executives, and j urists fo rmalt y involved in pol icy processes. In each of these
four discussions, Frederickson traced the contours of the government ethics
dialogue that reOects creat ive tensions in t he dialcctic between the obv ious
and forthri ght (';knowing the difference betwcen right and wrong") and the
more complicated relationship between legitimacy and perception.
Frcderickson's examination of the fifth theoretical category, "Methodology
and Knowledge in Public A dmin istration Ethics," encountered a fundamental
dilemma that accompanies the dialectic between fonhrightlegalism and per-
ce ived legi timacy. CIc:lrly, knowledge :tbout laws, rules, controls, and other
interventions is am enable to
the primary and dominant approach to the study of pub lic administration
[. which] is positivist. rational, and empirical ... To the rational ist. reason
alone can prov ide the knowledge of the existence and nature of theory.
Rationality is also used to describe the view that reality is a unified, coher-
ent, and explicable system . (255)
Once the notion of a publ ic sphere and public offi ces gains a of othold in
society, these offi ccs can be corruptcd in ways that mayor may not violate
thc law. Thi s isso because these offices and the people who serve in these
offices, because they are public offices and public offi cials, become part of
a d ynamic political process that generates new standards and expectations.
These offi ces become linked to largcr processes and goal s i n a waythat
generatcs new d emands. (364)
In this 1993 essay, los appears to have been prophetic in suggesting that
"legal corrupt ion " could ultimately prove more destructi ve than outright
bribery (363). Aspoli tical theorist Michael Sandel poi nts out in IV/Ill' M Olley
Call " Bu)" infl uence peddli ng and similar legal activities constitutccorruption
as processes that lead to the degradation of government insti tutions:
stablc--cx pcctations vcrsus durable norms) implied that knowledge acqui si-
tion through public ethics research could indeed b e m essy. All the while, the
ethics con versation had become fe rtile and robust.
Although the sccond of the three volume, Ethics alld Public Mallagcmem
(2005), moved Frederickson 's concern for cOllfext forward , it reached out as
well to capture con versation within the academy about what da ministrati ve
ethics arc or should be in r elation to societal issues. The identity con versa-
tion about adm inistrati ve ethics as refl ected through scholarl y research had
been aptly c haracterized in Terry Cooper's commentary " Big Questions in
Administrative Ethics : A Need f or Focused , Collaborati ve Effort" (2004),
which presented the crux o fthe si sue as follows:
More than a passing fad. administrati ve ethics has demonstrated its s us-
tainability a nd its centrali ty to the fi eld. What is lack ing with respect to
these developments is anything like a ocused f effort by groups o fscholars
to study speci fi c sets o f significant research questions in a sustained and
systematic fashion . .. Not inte nded to preclude o rexcl ude other work on
other quest ions, the call here is forthe establishment of acenter of gravity
for the development of admin istrati ve ethics around some focused co[-
[aborative efforts, Di versity o finterests articulated by many from various
areas in public administration are eneded t o ekep lhe fi eld fresh and lively;
focused efforts o fthose mainly committed to study ing administrati ve ethics
may be required t o rpovide s ustainabi[ity. coherence. and suffic ient weight
to a dvance it solidly into the core o fpublic admini stration. (395)
£Il1ics (llId Public Mallagement (Frcderi ckson and Ghere 2005) drew upon
two of thesc qucstions as organi zing criteria; fi ve chapter contributions ap-
peared undcrthc volume section "Organization Designs That Support Ethical
Behavior" and thrce undcr "Admin istrati vc Ethics in G loba[ Pcrspective ." It
is worth noting that thc chapters includcd in the g ol bal perspccti ves section
8 GHERE
corresponded to critical events that had occurred during the pre vious decade,
includi ng g ol bal econom ic activities and controversial trade agreements, the
9/1 I terrorist attacks, the Afghani stan and Iraq wars, and the abusive rt eatment
of pri soners atthe Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention facilities.
But more importan t, editorial efforts in the 2005 volume we re deliber-
ate in assessing whether and how chapter con trib utions related to Cooper's
focus and coherence cri teria (in the " Introduction") and to the overall
comportment of "Adm ini strati ve Ethics in the Twen ty-First Century" (in
the "Conclusion ").
Notwi thstand ing its attentiveness to research focu s and coherence, the
2005 volu me did, at leastimplicitly, address the publ ic ethics- legi timacy
conundrum in chapter con tributions that focused on ( I) the egitimacy
l of ap-
propriately used executi ve power, (2) the variation o f m oral gaency in thick
and thi n accountability e nvironments, (3) the questionable legitimacy o f the
private-sector-oriented new managerial ism, and (4) blind spots inadjudicati ng
responsibi lity in public-pri vate partnerships. I fEthics ill Public Management
(in reference to the 1993 volume) amounted to old wine in new bottles. it is
hard to decipher whether the "old" or "n ew" is desirable to which particu-
lar stakeholders (and why) in conversations about public eth ics. We might
speculate that ad mini strati ve practitioners, along wi th some in the academy,
ex pect lineages of theoretical conti nui ty accompanied by inno vati ve strate-
gies that eli ci t effi cacious behavior; if this is the case, commentaries about
dilemmas and dialectics do li ttle to sati sfy those expectation s. That said, a
number o f critical events have occulTed since Ethics ill Public M(/I/ogemem
was publ ished in 2005 that in some manner reOect alarming levels of political
di scontent, pO];lTization, and mi strust that dimini sh governmental el gi timacy.
Con sider, for example, the follo wing events:
• the 2008 financial crises in the United States that led to provocati ve
federal assistance to major finan cial in stitutions and auto makers;
ongo ing politi cal acc usation s c harging that governmental age ncies
(such as the U.S. Env ironmental Protec ti on Agency and the National
Ocean ic and Atmospheri c Admini stration) have fabri cated climate
chan ge narrati ves;
the U.S. Supreme Court's 20 10 landmark decision , CirizellS United 1'.
Federal Elecriol/ Commission, that prohibited governmental restric-
tions on poli tical expe nditures by corporations and employee union s as
encumbering First Amendment " free speech" rights;
• an ideological schi sm inthe U.S. Congress, so dysfunct ional as to thwart
vital legislation for federal debt and spending limits in 2011 , resulti ng
in a downgrade o fthe nation 's cred it rating;
INTRODUCTION 9
the [ [2th U.S. Congress (20 [ [-20 [2) having passed the fewest number
o f bill s in forty years (and less than one-third of those passed by the
[ [ [th), some members placing a higher priority o nparing back the federal
government than o n mak ing the nation's laws.
As was the case with the events highlighted in the 2005 volume, these recent
developments as well affect expectation s abolll publ ic roles and respons ibi[i-
tics as profound cha llenges to the essence of govern ment legiti macy or at
[cast to Iradi liona[ logi cs of legi timate govern mental actions. The stridency
and shril lness of these legitimacy cha[ lenges have become commonplace in
the rhetoric of congressional figures. Consider, fo r example. how various
representatives of the majority party of the House of Re presen tatives have
excoriated the Independent Payment Advisory Board, an appointed panel
created through health-care reform legislation to review Medicare costs, as
"a centrali zed board o f bureaucrats to control how health care is allocated"
(Cantor, Vi rginia); "an egregious violation o f pri vacy and patien t rights"
(Gingrey, Georg ia); and " 15 unelected , unaccountable, burea ucrats who
are there for one and on ly one reason and that is to ration health care to our
sen iors and engage in price con trols"(Hensarling, Texas) (USA Today 2012).
Such rhetoric speaks convinc ingly of a highly toxic political culture, which
government scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein-respecti vel y
from prestigious center-left and center-right policy institutions-appraise as
follows in their rccent book I(s Even Worse Thall If Looks:
Trashing others, undermining their very legitimacy, and lying open ly and
repeatedly about individuals and institutions now bring no viable penalty
or public obloquy. In fact. it can mean fame and fortune. Changing the
country's poisonous political cu lture, which has metastasized beyond the
polit ical area, requires first an effort 10 reslOre some semblance of public
shame. (2012. 180)
Efforts that put partisan ideology above national problem-solving and hold
institutions hostage (3- 30) constitute direct assau lts on govern ment legitimacy.
In the words of a party leader in the Senate, " I think that some o f our mem-
hers may have thought the [financial] default issue was a hostage you might
take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn ' t think that. IVh(lf we did learn is
this-it's a hostage worth r{lI/soming" (25 ; emphasis in original).
Reacti ng to Mann and Ornstein's book, Paul Voleker (fonner Federal
Reserve Board Chairman) comments, "More than anytime in my li feti me,
the United States is challenged at home and so our place in the world. When
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein get together to sound a loud alarm about
10 GHERE
the way our system i sbeing ot rn apart, it's time to listen- and li sten hard ..
We beller get to work " (Mann and Ornstein 20 12, back cover). Presuming that
competent public profess ional s wi ll shoulder much of hit s work, an appropri -
ate syllogism l inking fragmen tcd el gitimacy, ethics, and public service JlOW
casts the public admini strator as part ofthe solution rather than the problem
(i n stark contrast to the syllogism of the I990s above):
I. Broken polirica/ institutions in the Uni ted Sta tes are curre nt ly un-
dermining government leg itimacy.
2. Perception s of broken politics delegi timizc at/millisrralil'e institutions
nonetheless.
3. Therefore, public sector professionals can help reg<lin legitimacy by
doing erhics.
deserve respect from others (and o neself) and pliable enough to accomplish
ethical objecti ves" (quoted in Bowman, West, and Beck 20 10, 92). In this
reg:lrd, it :lppears importmll to direct :IS much attention to what ethics do or
ca ll do for the professional as to what eth ics are or call be as a unified body
of theory and research. And if the spirit ofpublic admini stration is ultimately
contingen t on the courage (or more crudely s tated , the guts) of thecommitted,
dialog ue could turn to w hat it means to hu ild eth ical competency stich that
consummate professionals can do democraL)' under trying circumstances. In
th is respect, Bowman, West, and Beck elaborate upo n the necessi ty to build
ethical competence as follows:
Ethics is asystem that determines right or wrong in soc iety and prov ides
a means by which individuals C:ln beh:lve accordingly. It is a quest f or,
and underst:lnding of. the "good life." Ethics. therefore. is not primarily
about staying out oftfouble; it is about creati ng strength in individuals and
organizations. (20 10. 73, 75)
in order to probe legitimacy questions about po wer 1/I(111ifeSled Ihrol/ gll nll-
ics. For these authors, the indi vidual i s in herentl y fUllgible, "subject to the
powcr articulated as moral knowlcdge" conveyed through an "appropriate"
admin istrative ethics in sync withorgan ization control, r:ltherthan proactivcl y
pliable (Bai ley's [1965] desired attribute).
To reiterate, Part II : Reassessi ng Corruption in the Twenty- First Ccntury
embraces the proposi tion that perfectly legal forces and actions that degrade
the quality of public lifc, civic di alogue, and institutions amount to corrup-
tion as corrosive to poli tical el giti macy as (or perhaps even more corros ivc
than) patently illegal abuses of power and misappropriation s o f fund s. In
th is section , George Frederickson call s attention to the el gitimacy of "pub-
licness" in the fo rms of citi zen cngagement and grassroots participation
emerging globally as part of the new publi c service. In regard to the virtue
of consistency, he ex presses concern as to w hether the traditional public
admin istration canon (or basic set o frules) wi ll carryover to th is new publi c
service o f contracted-out governance and quasi-governmental enti ties. In
terms of teaching ethical competence, Frederickson is impartial as to the
pedagogical approach fo llowed so long as students of public affairs engage
in learn ing (however directed) that inculcates fundam ental public values to
be applied in various public arenas, whether "new" or "old." Relating to the
trepidations of con tracted-out governance, Frank Anechi;lrico and Gjalt de
Graaf examine entangl ed conundrums- some constituting illegal corrupt ion
and others that arc legal but toxic in relation to the public tru st--concerning
military contingency contracting in Afghanistan and Iraq. In t heir comparative
case study o fU. S. and Dutch contracting behaviors, thesc scholars undertake
analysis that encounters fund amental leg itimacy questi ons that "reveal an
ex panding g ray-area, between public and pri vate, between sovereign identi ty
and pri vate prerogative, in which public ethics and civic values arc al rgely
absent. The result is a fr ee- noat ing zone of uncertainty, where the ever-larger
disbursement of public fund s is met wi th increasingly inadequate reg ulation
and assess ment." In stark contrast t o Bailey's interpretation of pli abili ty as
an eth ical virtue,govcrnment "fl ex ibility" in these contracting contexts (such
as the el eway to subeontract with a brothel servicc) amounts to a recipe for
corruption.
Although it might appear odd to include Patrick Dobel's chapter on col-
legiate athleti c amatcurism in a section devotcd to publ ic corruption, there
is reason to associate the degradation of the amateur-athlete ideal- and the
communal life surround ing college sports- with the forces of comm ercia liza-
tion that crowd out thc publi c good and that drive offi cials inuni vcrsities and
related organizations toward corrupt practices. Regarding ethical competence
and pli abili ty, Dobel concl udes that thesc officia ls should take the ini tiati ve to
14 GHERE
"do eth ics" by rethinking the natureof amatcurism (and rccalibrating mlcs) by
factoring in the currcn t-day realit ics o f tudcnt
s life and thc various (in some
cases, hiddcn) costs incurrcd in simultaneous pursui ts o f tah letic excc llcnce
and acadcmic success.
Pari IU : Ind ividual Voli tion in Publ ic Institutions s tiuatcs Frederickson 's
( 1993) concern s for the naTllre of persons: good or bad and making ethical
decisions: doing rig/II or wrong in a moreexpansive range of inqui ries that
probe individual behavior and di scretion. James Bowman and Jonathan West
propose a psychological approach t o indi vidual decision-making as an alter-
native to more philosophical. rule-based orientations refle cted in traditional
expectations of legitimate government. These authors encourage moral actors
to relyon a psychological modcl thattri angulates among results o fan action
(consequentiali sm or teleology), pertinent ru les (duty ethics or deontology),
and p ersonal integrity or character (virtue eth ics) to resolve ethics con undrums.
Bowman and West argucthat th is ct chniquc "cnables thc managemcnt o f ethi-
cal ambiguity and provides help in making thc incvitable comprom ises. When
choices are guided by bencvolence, creativity, and an cthic of compromi se- a
moral tcnet of dcmocracy- there isat Icast the satisfaction that the problem has
been full y examincd and that the decision can be rationall y defended." Such
moral reason ing al ys the groundwork for ethical competence that "reSJX'nds
to thc complexity ofthc human condition." In a related chapterthat homcs in
on varying interpretations ofcOl/flier oj il/leresr, Andrew Stark demonstratcs
how both psychological and political undcrstandings of ocnflict and o f intercst
havc chnnged over t ime. Although Stnrk docs not address questions o fpoli ti-
eal leg itimaey per se, it could be snid that his findin gs impli citly chnraeteri ze
legitimacy in flu x-such that competent profess ionals need to rccognizc and
negotiate the multiple meanings nnd ex pectations auachcd to cvcn the most
basic of ethic al standards in governmcnt.
In her provocati vc chaptcr on gllerrilla gOllemmelll, Roscmary O ' Lcary
in essencc quest ion s the cffi cacy of some indi vidual mot ives to "do good"
in public burcaucracics in spitc o f pcrccived in stit utiona l barri ers to doi ng
so. Can personal passion, zeal , an d o utrage bc reconc iled with legitimate
opcrat ions in governmcnt age ncies, or are thcy in fac t t he pri mary ingred i-
e nts of ethi cs abu sc? O ' Lcary's gucrrill as arc clearl y pliable in that "thcy
arc not a fraid to reach into new tcrritory and ofte n sec k to drag the rest
o f thc systcm with the m to cx plore new poss ibil ities ." Yet presum ably,
that courage needs to be caI vened b y an cthi cal competcncy thatdi scern s
betwecn pcrsona l an d public mora lities (see Bo wman , Wcs t, and Bcc k
20 10,84- 85).
Raymond Cox and Suchcta Pyakuryal introduce re aders to the emcrging
fi el d of knowledge man agemcnt an d its potentia l for understandin g the
INTRODUCTION 15
init iati ves innorthern and sub-Saharan Afri can coun tries . G eneral ly, these
allempt s to embed integrated frameworks that support tran spare ncy and
democrati c processes arc ye t at an awareness- ra ising stage o f normative
development, anti cipating atime w henthose values can be in stitu tionalized
as enforce ment mechan isms. Implicitl y, Yoder and Cooper' s contribu ti on
addresses legitimacy questi ons related to adialecti c betwecn a stron g
cult ure of communal harmony ( through the traditiona l valu es of II b llllfll
and serifi ) and the current con text of destabilizin g fo rces attributable to
global economic malai se, go vernmen t downsizing. and forei gn initiati ves
to eXlract nalUral resources fo rm the continent. In hi s study o f global (i.e .,
development, humanitari an, hum an ri ghts, and regulatory) organi zation s,
Ri chard Ghere examines how leaders rel y upon manipul ati ve rhetoric to
establi sh and main tain leg it imacy (or claim " the moral high ground")
in exertin g pol icy power in international di scourse communities. Since
most if not all rhetoric is manipulati ve (Le., persuasive) by natu re, ethical
competence cal ls fo r the s peaker to abide by parti cular fa irness guidelines
that govern ho w messages arc con veyed to global audi ences.
This section tracks e achof these themes to the four questions Tcrry Cooper
(2004) proposed for lending theoretical coherence topublic ethics rcsearch-
relating to (I ) normat ive foundation s, (2) Amcri can administrative norms in
global contexts, (3) organi zation designs to support cthics, and (4) the treat-
ment of equals and unequals. What follows offers some indication of whether
emphases on institutional el gitimacy in the s tudy o f elhi
cs align wilh ordi verge
from current trends in public ethics theory and research.
Firsl i n the 1993 volume, George Frederickson clarified boundedness of
ethics as follows : "In bounded ethics the adm inistrator fun ctions within the
limits of enabling el gislation. with limited budgets. u suall y ad vocating o r
at least supporting the purposes of the agency. Fundamental questioning o f
INTRODUCTION 17
the purposes and practices of the agency, on the basis of issues of morali ty,
is seldom found and rarely cncouraged" (249). Th is particular theme relates
directly to Cooper's "big question" about the Jlormarive/ol/Ju/arioJls a/pub-
lic admillisTratioll ethics, but the alternat ive foundat ions he identi fi es would
lead to starkly different opinions on the appropriateness of these constrain ts.
On the one h:md, most interpretations of regime values (see Rohr 1989) as a
legitimate foundation wou ld du ly align th is bounded ness with constitutional
theory. Clearly, th is s tandard would castigate the secapades of government
guerrill as (O'leary. Chapter 10) asegreg iously unethical. On the other, those
who advance virtue as the foundation of eth ical obligation would argue that
bounded ness merel y refl ects a profess ional (ethics) agenda to reduce the
scope of one's personal moral ity. Cooper quotes one such virtue philosopher,
Ed mund Pincoffs, as follow s: " It is o urdail y business to assess. to appraise,
to judge persons. It is atask so mportant
i and central in li fe that it takes on a
li fe o f its own" (in Cooper 2004, 398). Thus, Pincoffs wou ld likely applaud
Dobcl's conclusion (in C hapter 7 ) that uni versities and related organi zations
(particularly the NCAA) need to take the initiative to rework the amateur-
ath lete ideal--certain ly in eaction
r to the increasing boundedness of com-
mercia lism and market power in U.S. soc iety (Frederickson in Chapter 5;
Kearns in Chapter 13).
Ethical boundedness relates as well to Cooper's third question about how
organizations can be designed to suppOrt ethical condllct. Here the institu-
tional nature of thi s boundedness issue fru stnltes some ethics reformers intent
on imposing instrumental designs (see O·Kel ly and Dubnick in Chapter 4)
since dysfun ct ional behavior is often learned fr om cu lture inside and beyond
the organ ization (Jurkiewicz in Chapter 2 ; Cox and Pyakurya l in C hapter
11). Incssence, ethics reformers wou ld do well to acknowledge the eth ical
boundedness of the individual psyche as it relates to vari ous interpretat ions
of appropri ateness and honesty ( Bowman and West in Chapter 8; Stark in
Chapter 9).
Second , the institutional dialectics related to raw power and ex ploi tation
resonate through each o fCooper's fou r big quest ions. Again, a nonnati ve
foundation steeped in virtue wou ld obligate one to "build stron g ethics cul-
tures in organi zations" and "sustainable, responsible social in stitutions" in
the face of power (Adams and Balfour in Chapter 12). But the question of
powcr concern ing the viabi I ityof A mericall global vallles ill global cOlITexts
becomes dicey regarding (I) the dominance of market ideology cmbedded
with in " global governance values" that some g ol bal organi zations impose on
de veloping societies (Ghere in C hapter 15), (2) the di srupti ve effects of such
" universal " moral standards on ethical bonds of relationship within particular
cullllral trad itions (Schwartz in Ch apter 3), and (3) the differences of rules
18 GHERE
(as indicated above) between the institutional themes outli ned here and core
theoretical questions (such asCooper's), the question nonetheless appears
diffi cult to answer- at least at the beginn ing of th is volume. What possibl y
nags at practitioners and scholars alike may well be the s ometimes fa int but
often-present dialectical character t hat an insti tutional perspecti ve brings to
public cthics in part icular and public admini stration in gcnera l. The conclusion
(Chapter 16) of thi s volu me fi rst demonstrates how competent adm inistrators
do elhics in ways that respond effecti vely to institutional problems in their
midst; second. it rev isits concern about how particular sensiti vities toward
legitimacy affect theoretical coherence in public eth ics research.
References
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