Government and Ethics

Americans deserve honest government. This text addresses the need for a comprehensive statement of ethical behavior for public officials and employees at every level of government. While recognizing the need for legal reforms that focus mainly on campaign contributions, the authors examine the broader questions of how we should measure the routine, day-to-day ethics of men and women in public service. By focusing more on attitudes and practices, the authors suggest that the highest standard of both ethics and competence should be demanded of all our public servants.

"[T]his is much more than a conventional reference guide. The 12 carefully written chapters examine significant issues and contemporary views of many of the basic problems in the field. Topics are approaches to the study of ethics in government, ethical dilemmas and standards for public officials, techniques for incorporating ethical considerations in policy-making, and several substantive problems--professional ethics, the ethical use of quantitative analysis, several forms of corruption, and morality in foreign policy-making. The volume assimilates most of the contemporary literature, presents a number of interesting cases, and is ideally suited as a text for upper-division or graduate courses in public administration and public policy. . . . an essential item in any collection that deals with the subject of ethics and public policy." Choice

"Denhard presents a sensible organizational framework that includes (a) the individual administrator and the organizational context; (b) the distinction between process and content ethics, and (c) the dichotomy between deotological and teleological moral claims." Choice

This volume focuses on the ethical and unethical behavior of elected and appointed government officials. Steinberg and Austern discuss the various types of ethical dilemmas that confront public sector managers, offer ways to analyze them, and describe a series of management strategies designed to prevent unethical behavior. The authors also suggest ways to identify the susceptibility to corruption of a jurisdiction and present model policies, procedures, and legislation which could be effective in reducing the opportunity for unethical behavior.

This new collection of essays opens with a pivotal essay, not previously published, on the implications of the moral duties which arise out of concern for the well-being of others. The first part of the book concentrates on the consequences of two central aspects of well-being: the importance of membership in groups - the role of belonging - and the active character of well-being - that it largely consists in successful activities. Both aspects have far-reaching political implications, explored in essays on free expression, national self-determination, and multiculturalism, among others. Against the background of the moral and political views developed in the first part, the second part of the book explores various aspects of the dynamic inter-relations between law and morality, offering some building blocks towards a theory of law.

Recognizing that the quality of governance is a crucial factor in the overall development of a country, experts on government ethics and law enforcement examine the principles that need to be applied to create more effective and efficient governments. While focusing on the approaches adopted by the City of New York, case studies from around the world are also given.

Gortner focuses on public administration ethics theory and how it applies to the lives of managers operating in the middle ranges of public bureaucracy. Through a general review of the literature on public administration ethics and a comparison of that literature to the real-life experiences of civil service managers, he categorizes the literature and measures its "relevance" to the thought processes, decisions, and actions of individuals within a bureaucracy. Gortner's effort to balance theory and practice will interest scholars and practitioners of public administration alike.

A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard's Kennedy School and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate?

Demonstrates how the Congressional ethics process has been transformed into a lethal, partisan political tool, feared by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

This anthology will be appropriate for administrative ethics classes and professional thinking in public administration at both the masters and doctoral levels. It is a collection of administrative ethics articles published in journals of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) from 1941 (the earliest publication) through 1983 (the year that the first ASPA Code of Ethics was established). The articles are organized by themes of enduring importance to the field in order to provide graduate students with ready access to the classic works on ethics in public administration. Reading this collection will enhance student's knowledge and skills to think and act ethically and contribute to their ability to view current practices in light of traditional perspectives. The ASPA Classics volume serves to bridge the practice of public policy and administration with the empirical research base that has accrued and the models for practice that may be deduced from the research