Political Ethics And Public Office

Are public officials morally justified in threatening violence, engaging in deception, or forcing citizens to act for their own good? Can individual officials be held morally accountable for the wrongs that governments commit? Dennis Thompson addresses these questions by developing a conception of political ethics that respects the demands of both morality and politics. He criticizes conventional conceptions for failing to appreciate the difference democracy makes, and for ascribing responsibility only to isolated leaders or to impersonal organizations. His book seeks to recapture the sense that men and women, acting for us and together with us in a democratic process, make the moral choices that govern our public life. Thompson surveys ethical conflicts of public officials over a range of political issues, including nuclear deterrence, foreign intervention, undercover investigation, bureaucratic negligence, campaign finance, the privacy of officials, health care, welfare paternalism, drug and safety regulation, and social experimentation. He views these conflicts from the perspectives of many different kinds of public officials - elected and appointed executives at several levels of government, administrators, judges, legislators, governmental advisers, and even doctors, lawyers, social workers, and journalists whose professional roles often thrust them into public life. In clarifying the ethical problems faced by officials, Thompson combines theoretical analysis with practical prescription, and begins to define a field of inquiry for which many have said there is a need but to which few have yet contributed. Philosophers, political scientists, policy analysts, sociologists, lawyers, and other professionals interested in ethics in government will gain insight from this book.

This book provides a defense of democratic politics in American public service and offers the political ethics of public service as a realistic and optimistic alternative to the cynical American view toward politics and public service. The author’s alternative helps career public servants regain public trust by exercising constitutionally centered moral and political leadership that balances the regime values of liberty and equality in governing American society while contributing to the ethical progress of the nation. She identifies three distinct leadership styles of political ethics, enabling career public servants to reconcile their personal loyalties, morality, and consciences with the public and private morality of American society and their constitutional obligations to secure the democratic freedoms of Americans. Recognizing career public servants’ moral and institutional struggles, the book proposes a rigorous leadership development program to acclimate individuals to workplace psychological, moral, and political challenges. The view offered here is that career public servants must be a part of, rather than isolated from, American politics to be effective on the job.

There have been enormous changes in Canadian public life in the past two decades. More and more, politicians and officials are expected to act honestly and in the public interest. Yet, for many, honest politics is still an oxymoron. Using high-profile political scandals as case studies, this book explores the standards of accountability to which Canadian politicians are now being held. The authors discuss conflict-of-interest and abuse-of-trust cases such as Brian Mulroney's receipt at secret meetings of envelopes stuffed with thousand dollar bills; the gas plant scandal in Ontario; Allison Redford's self-serving authorizations of spending in Alberta; Mike Duffy and the Senate expenses scandal; party financing cases such as the Robocalls affair; "dirty hands" examples such as the sponsorship scandal and the Arrar affair; the "cash for access" controversy surrounding Justin Trudeau's fundraisers; and municipal issues including the sagas of Rob Ford and Hazel McCallion. Canada is a leader among countries promoting ethical politics in a democratic society. In this book expert authors from across the country discuss the strengths and weaknesses of measures now in place and point to the most important challenges that remain before Canadians can believe that honesty prevails in public life.

A comprehensive introduction to contemporary political ethics What is the relationship between politics and morality? May politicians bend moral constraints in the name of political necessity? Is it always wrong for leaders to lie? How much political compromise is too much (or too little)? In Political Ethics, some of the world’s leading thinkers in politics, philosophy, and related fields offer a comprehensive and accessible introduction to key issues in this rapidly growing area of political theory. In a series of original essays, the contributors examine a range of urgent political problems: lies and deception, compromise and refusal to compromise, the meaning and limits of political integrity, representation and failures of representation, good and bad democratic leadership, the virtues and excesses of partisanship, administrative ethics, political corruption, whistleblowing, legitimate and illegitimate claims of political emergency, and lobbying. What emerges are realistic but demanding ethical standards—and a clear-eyed understanding of the ethical challenges of political life in the twenty-first century. With contributions by Richard Bellamy, Alin Fumurescu, Edward Hall, Suzanne Dovi and Jesse McCain, Eric Beerbohm, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum, Joseph Heath, Elizabeth David-Barrett and Mark Philp, Michele Bocchiola and Emanuela Ceva, Nomi Lazar, Phil Parvin, and Andrew Sabl.

This first serious empirical work to study administrative ethics refutes the arguments that administrative ethics cannot be studied in an empirical manner and that empirical analysis can deal only with the trivial issues in administrative ethics. Within a theoretical perspective, the authors carefully qualify their findings and take great care not to overgeneralize results. Specific areas addressed include understanding public corruption, ethics as control, and ethics as administration and policy.

Learn to recognize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of moral arguments in the making of public policy with ETHICS AND POLITICS: CASES AND COMMENTS. You'll find coverage of the ethics of process: the morally questionable means--violence, deception, and corruption--that are most commonly used by public officials, as well as the ethics of policy: the valuable but often competing ends that public officials strive to achieve. Conflicting values, scarce resources, and stakes as high as life and death combine with the duties of public office to make choices among policy goals controversial and morally difficult. Each ethical issue is paired with case studies in contemporary American politics. For example, the controversy over the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay; or issues during the campaign and election of 2004.

Drawing on original data, this book is the first account of popular understandings of political ethics in contemporary British politics.

Philp explores how political processes and practices shape political values like liberty, justice, equality, and democracy. Mining the history of political episodes and political thinkers, including Caesar and Machiavelli, Philp argues that through political activity “values are articulated and embraced, and they become powerful motivating forces.”