The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

A summary glance at three centuries of American democracy indicates that attempts have been made to ensure ethics and morality in government by giving primary attention to the issue of whose hands would hold the reins of governance or be responsible for carrying out government's mandates. Four principal periods are identified: 1620-1790, 1790-1828, 1828-64, and 1865-1945. The current period, since 1945, is an extension of the era and assumptions that emerged after the Civil War, with the added features of professionalism and the law as devices for regulating and sanctioning ethical conduct in government.

There is widespread concern for ethics in government, and news reports justify that concern. The public's emphasis, fueled by both accurate and inaccurate reporting, appears to center upon the conduct of elected officials. Some of that reporting is significant, and some is trivial. Professional literature tends to concentrate upon the bureaucracy. This article traces the history in general of ethical thought regarding public service in America and sketches attempts to require adherence to ethical standards. It concludes that—with notable exceptions and despite considerable insightful work from ethicists—the strongest reactions have often come in response to relatively trivial infractions and that prescriptions tend to be entirely negative. Such negative approaches are unlikely to result in significant improvement of ethics in public service, whether judged by standards of personal conduct or the even more important standard of institutional performance and integrity.

A series of highly publicized cases of ethical violations in Congress has produced a concerted reexamination of Congress's ethics processes. This article reviews the key arguments promoted by advocates for reforming Congress and examines the substantive and procedural dilemmas confronting members of Congress as they attempt to respond to calls for reform. These dilemmas are illustrated by examining a number of recent ethical cases in Congress. We conclude that the standards that Congress employs and the procedures its members use to enforce them are strongly influenced by the unique constitutional and political context of the institution. As legislators proceed in their efforts to institute new ethical standards, they will continually attempt to strike a balance between legitimate yet contradictory ethical, political, legislative, and procedural demands.

The ethics of presidents are best understood by looking at the standards they create for those who work for them or the standards that are forced upon them by Congress or the courts. This article attempts to remove the radical distinction between normative values and ethical codes that dominates research in this area. Rather, a more interesting approach is to view codes, executive orders, and ethics systems as ethical metaphors that attempt to capture what presidents think public service is about. The article also focuses on the expansion of ethical standards for public officials and provides a historical sketch of ethics and presidents.

The theme of this article is the use and abuse of power in relation to politics and ethics. The role of the United States Supreme Court as the umpire of the structure of separation of powers is explored through analysis of two relatively recent cases. This is followed, in conclusion, with some reflections on the ethical implications of our constitutional and political principles and on the role of the Court as ethical guide.

The rapid rise of private interest group campaign financing since the 1970s has prompted responses from both citizen organizations and the federal and state governments. The conversion of presidential campaigns from private to public funding has been the most important example of this at the federal level, and more recently, congressional campaign financing has been nearly adopted. The record of campaign finance reform at the state level ranges more widely. Nearly all states have an independent enforcement agency and require candidate disclosure of campaign-financing data. Most states impose some limitation or ban on private groups and organizations in regard to campaign contributions, and many supplement private donations with taxpayer funds, which allows for more stringent restrictions on private groups and candidates. A few states now prevent immediate employment of former public officials in lobbying positions, and others have prohibited all gift and social lobbying outlays.

This article provides an overview and analysis of the practical problems of developing and implementing a code of ethics for public administrators. The article addresses three key issues: (1) What are public ethics and where do they come from? (2) What are the central ethical issues facing public administrators? and (3) Are there practical tools and guidelines to assist public servants to be both ethical and effective public managers? The article concludes with a plea for consideration of ethical issues, and it presents five general ethical principles for public administrators.

The mass media's influence on the ethics of public life, as characterized by the press's watchdog role in monitoring the conduct of government officials, is assumed to be vital to democracy. The effectiveness of this watchdog role is less clearly understood. Partial answers are found in the evolving institutional history of the press, including its control, ethics, laws, technology, organization, and the content of news stories. Just as reporters rarely discuss their ethics in terms of teleology and deontology, the press does not conceptualize in sophisticated terms its impact on the ethics of public employees. It traditionally finds motivation from the popular belief in watchdog success models from muckraking to Watergate. As partisanship, news values, and reporting techniques evolve, effectiveness varies. Research sheds light on media trends but focuses more on presidents than county clerks, more on political campaigns than government process. Optimism, as new doors and new technology open to reporters, is tempered by competition from the marketplace and the new digital feast promised consumers.

Considerable debate encompasses the contents of public sector ethics presently. There are different schools of thought about what ethics comprises: is it mainly rules and regulations specifying the preferred behavior of civil servants, or is it the obligation to work toward the realization of a different, better life for citizens? In addition, what should be the appropriate behavior for civil servants in various contexts? These differences have engendered a lot of contradictory and imprecise disputation; the result leaves few clear signposts for avoiding moral dilemmas. Educating prospective public administrators about making sense of, and trying to survive in, such an uncertain world begins with aiding them to understand, albeit imperfectly, the often contradictory nature of that world, especially the forces shaping their behavior. This usually comes down to a question of judgment when contradictory or ineluctable values, not to mention obligations, clash and choices have to be made. Early awareness of the inevitability of such choices, and approaching ethics as an important feature of administrators' basic training, can facilitate their learning to anticipate the diverse value contexts that will likely define their public careers.

In seeking to maintain high standards of ethical behavior by public administrators, agencies rely on a wide variety of enforcement mechanisms. These fall into three main categories: (1) codes of ethics, including laws, professional rules, and whistleblower statutes; (2) what might be called ethics police, with specific responsibilities to oversee ethical standards; and (3) cultural strategies, efforts to forge organizational climates conducive to ethical behavior. Though all have proved useful in some respects, none can be considered fully satisfactory, at least not in the sense that it alone can be expected to ensure organizational morality. Codes of ethics need to work hand in hand with proactive managerial strategies, which in turn need to be bolstered by external checks on behavior.

The question of the representative role of public officials is an old one, but one that has become more complex as public administrators have gained quick and easy access to the views of the public through the widespread availability of public opinion surveys. Although they are not directly accountable to the public, nonappointed public administrators are nonetheless heavily involved in policy formation and implementation. This article uses several common definitions of representation to analyze the connection between administrator actions and public desires. It concludes with a suggestion that public administrators should act as enlightened trustees of the public: they should use their knowledge and expertise to make quality decisions, yet never allow the underlying public values to be ignored.

To explain negative perceptions of government ethics, and particularly of the ethics of public administrators, the authors use the paradox of distance and the absence of role differentiation. In the paradox of distance, the public holds negative views of government generally and public administrators in the abstract, but they have favorable to very favorable views of governmental programs with which they interact and favorable views of the bureaucrats whom they encounter. Much of the negative perception of government ethics and the ethics of public officials is based on public observations of the misdeeds of those who are elected or politically appointed. These negative perceptions are well founded. Unfortunately, the public holds similarly negative views of merit civil servants, although these public officials are much less often associated with corruption or unethical behavior. Finally, the authors suggest that several contemporary governmental reforms will, in the long run, result in more rather than less government corruption.

The task of a comparative approach should be to seek commonalities and principles that would be apposite to a wide range of nations and their organizations. Citizen participation is one commonality in maintaining and/or enhancing ethics in the public sector. In the Japanese case, the study focuses on the national police system and the ethics and values integral to it and the national culture. Owing to the radical change in government, eastern Berlin's human relations directors and boards provide a good case study of the foundation of new ethics in this inchoate democracy. The Nigerian citizenry's reaction to the Weberian type of bureaucracy that encompasses Nigeria's massive public sector is instructive as it sheds light on the significance of citizen participation in the people's attempt to maintain ethical norms among public servants. This article closes with some observations related to several theoretical issues concerning ethics in a comparative perspective.