Public Sector Ethics: Finding and Implementing Values

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Public Sector Ethics: Finding and Implementing Values Public Sector Ethics Finding and Implementing Values ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC POLICY 1 PUBLIC SECTOR ETHICS Finding and Implementing Values Edited by Charles Sampford and Noel Preston with C-A Bois 2 ETHICS AND POLITICAL PRACTICE Perspectives on Legislative Ethics Edited by Noel Preston and Charles Sampford with C-A Bois Public Sector Ethics Finding and Implementing Values Edited by Charles Sampford and Noel Preston with C-A Bois THE FEDERATION PRESS | ROUTLEDGE 1998 Published in Australia, New Zealand and Published in the United Kingdom and the Papua New Guinea by rest of the world by The Federation Press Routledge 71 John St, Leichhardt, NSW, 2040 11 New Fetter Lane PO Box 45, Annandale, NSW, 2038 London EC4P 4EE Australia Simultaneously published in the USA and Ph: 61 (02) 9552 2200 Canada by Fax: 61 (02) 9552 1681 Routledge 29 West 38th Street New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Public sector ethics: finding and implementing values. Includes index. ISBN 1 86287 298 8 (Print Edition) 1. Civil service ethics. 2. Public administration—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Public officers— Professional ethics. I. Sampford, CJG (Charles JG). II. Preston, Noel. III. Bois, C-B. (Series: Routledge studies in governance and public policy). 172.2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ISBN 0-415-19482-2 (Print Edition) Individual © 1998 Individual contributors Editorial and volume © 1998 National Institute for Law, Ethics and Public Affairs This publication is copyright. Other than for the purposes of and subject to the conditions prescribed under the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise) be repro-duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted without prior written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers. ISBN 0-203-06394-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21732-2 (Glassbook Format) Contents About the Contributors vii Introduction 1 Part I Finding Values 1 Public Sector Ethics: Prospects and Challenges 13 Tom Sherman 2 Against Professional Ethics 26 Hendrik Kaptein 3 Authority, Discretion and Accountability: The Case of Policing 37 Seumas Miller 4 Business Practices and the Public Service Ethos 53 Alan Lawton 5 Clarifying Accountability: An Ethical Theory Framework 68 Mel Dubnick Part II Implementing Values 6 Ethics in Public Service: An Idea Whose Time Has Come 85 Stephen D Potts 7 Corruption in Socialist and Capitalist Countries 91 Young Jong Kim 8 Integrating Ethics 102 Colin Hicks and Gerald Scanlan v CONTENTS 9 Canadian Defence Ethics: Principles and Values 115 Rosalie Bernier 10 Administrative Law and Good Government 122 Roger Douglas 11 Public Sector Managers, Public Sector Workers and Ethics: A Trade Union Perspective 137 Adrienne Taylor and Mike Waghorne 12 Talkin’ ’Bout Hebn 149 David Corbett References 163 Index 173 vi ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS ROSALIE BERNIER is a former Manager, Defence Ethics and Conflict of Interest at the National Defence Headquarters, Canada. She is responsible for the continuing development and implementation of the Defence Ethics Program within the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence and for the administration of the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Codes. A graduate of Laval University, Québec, with a degree in Education, she has held teaching positions and has extensive experience in human resource management, including recruitment, labour relations and training as well as audit. C-A BOIS is currently working in academic publishing. With degrees from the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan, her teaching experience has included political studies and social and economic history. She has undertaken research in government-industry relations, the notion of rights in Asian constitutions and degrees of corruption and partiality in Japanese colonial rule. Since moving to publishing, she has edited works on public sector and legislative ethics, human rights, democracy, postmodern and feminist legal theory, constitutional interpretation and cross-cultural awareness in education. DAVID CORBETT is an Emeritus Professor of Political Theory and Institutions, Flinders University, Adelaide, and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne. A former Commissioner of the Public Service Board in South Australia, he is the author of Australian Public Sector Management (Allen & Unwin, 2nd edn, 1996). ROGER DOUGLAS is a graduate of Melbourne, Yale and La Trobe Universities and a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the School of Law and Legal Studies at La Trobe University, Melbourne, where he lectures in administrative law, equity and civil procedure. His publications include Administrative Law: Commentary and Materials (co- author, 2nd edn, Federation Press, 1996) and Guilty, Your Worship. A Study of Victoria’s Magistrates’ Courts (co-author, La Trobe University Legal Studies Department, 1981). MEL DUBNICK is currently Professor of Public Administration and Political Science at Rutgers University—Newark, USA. Managing editor of Public Administration Review and former co-editor in chief of Policy Studies Journal, his publications include American Public Administration (co-author, Macmillan, 1991) and Thinking About Public Policy (co-author, John Wiley, 1983). An active member of both the American Society for Public Administration and the American Political Science Association, he was recently appointed to a task force to improve the role of civic education in America’s colleges and universities. vii ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS COLIN HICKS is a senior adviser in the State Sector Development Branch of the State Services Commission, New Zealand. He has a background in social work, industrial relations and criminal justice policy development. In recent years, he has focused on ethics in the Public Service. Colin has published a number of articles on the subject, and is asked regularly to participate in seminars and workshops on ethics. He is involved currently in developing ways of managing and promoting ethical values and standards, and in ethics education and training. HENDRIK KAPTEIN is a Lecturer in Jurisprudence in the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Law, and an adviser to REOB, the national organisation for research in legal and political sciences in The Netherlands. A regular contributor to the two leading newspapers in The Netherlands, mainly on criminal law and the bar, he has published a book on methods in ethics as well as articles on ethics, theory of argumentation in law, criminal law and public solidarity. YOUNG JONG KIM is a Professor in the Department of Public Administration, Soong-Sil University, Seoul. He is currently the Chairman of the Korean Association for Corruption Studies and Dean of General Affairs of the University. A ACUCA lecturer in 1991, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University and University of British Columbia between 1994 and 1995. He has published widely in the field of public ethics and corruption, with over 100 journal articles and more than 20 books, including Korean Public Administration and Corruption Studies (Hak Mun, 1996) and Development Administration (Bom Mun Sa, 2nd edn, 1997). ALAN LAWTON is a Lecturer in Public Services Management at the Open University Business School, UK. He has taught at a number of UK universities, specialising in public sector management, ethics and management and policy analysis. His research interests focus upon public services organisations and their managers and include performance management, strategic change and ethics and the public service ethos. His publications have appeared in numerous journals and at conferences and include Case Studies in Public Service Management (co-editor, Blackwell, 1996) and Organisation and Management in the Public Sector (co- editor, Pitman, 1991). He is also editing a series on public services management and authoring its first book, Ethics and Public Services (forthcoming). SEUMAS MILLER is Professor of Social Philosophy and Head, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, New South Wales. He has undertaken research in the areas of public morality, violence and police culture and ethical principles underlying law enforcement. The author of four books and over 100 refereed articles, book chapters and other academic papers, he has published in a large number of international journals, including Mind, Synthese, Philosophical Studies, Nous, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Professional Ethics and Public Affairs Quarterly. His recent publications include Rethinking Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1992) and Police Ethics (Allen & Unwin, 1997). viii ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS STEPHEN D POTTS is the Director of the US Office of Government Ethics. A qualified lawyer who formerly was a partner for almost 30 years in a large law firm and who served in the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, he is also a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency and a voting delegate to the Judicial Conference of the District of Columbia. NOEL PRESTON is the Director of
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