Using the concepts of thick & thin relationships as the basis for ethical behavior, this paper critiques the emphasis on discretion in the mainstream administrative ethics literature & argues that moral & other dilemmas facing public administrators provide a more useful frame. Two examples drawn from the UK Hutton Investigation into the death of David Kelly are used to demonstrate the relevance & usefulness of this approach. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.
This book offers the most comprehensive consideration of accountability in both government and the contemporary world of governance currently available. Twenty-five leading experts cover varying aspects of the accountability movement and apply them to governments, quasi governments, non-government organizations, governance organizations, and voluntary organizations.
Ordinarily research articles on public sector third-party governance, or the state of agents, turn to the subject of accountability in their conclusions. Rather than leaving it to the conclusions, this article takes up the subject of public sector third-party governance as a problem of accountability. To consider accountability, we studied contemporary performance measurement practices in the federal government, particularly as they are applied in five agencies of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Our findings are presented using a six-part "promises of accountability" heuristic which captured the many and varied uses of accountability in contemporary policy and administration discourse. We found that the characteristics of third parties and the nature of their principal-agent relations are a key determinant of accountability; bureaucratic and hierarchical controls enhance agency and program accountability; building rules and program policies into grants and contracts enhance accountability; agencies that practice lateral trust-based forms of "relational contracting" foster cultures of accountability; auditing and reporting requirements enhance program accountability; federal performance measurement regimes tend to be "top down" and "one size fits all;" federal performance measurement regimes are primarily executive branch forms of accountability; performance measurement often represents attempts to superimpose managerial logic and managerial process on inherently political processes embedded in the separation of powers; there is little evidence that performance-based accountability results in enhancing democratic outcomes or greater justice or equity. Adapted from the source document.
Scholars of administrative ethics have recently been attentive to the problem of so-called administrative evil. The authors argue that evil can be understood as a socially constructed category of agents and acts specific to particular circumstances and moral communities, and the authors apply a framework of accountability to reflect the dynamics of that constructed reality. Selected examples of efforts to hold evil actors accountable or otherwise to account for evil acts illustrate a paradox: Responses to so-called evil may themselves be labeled evil in hindsight or by members of other contemporaneous communities. In light of this paradox and attendant ethical dilemmas, the authors argue that conventional ethical and behavioral prescriptions are necessary but insufficient protections against catastrophic mis-, mal-, or nonfeasance in and by organizations.
