5 Ethics and Accountability and the Challenges

CHAPTER 5

Ethics and Accountability and the Challenges

Although the question of ethics in public life has existed from the earliest times of human existence, it has achieved increased prominence as a result of globalization. Globalization has complicated the issues of ethics and accountability by enabling various formal and informal actors, both national and international, to intervene in the affairs of governments. It has also introduced new dimensions to public sector ethics. The chapter analyzes the issues of corruption, accountability, ethical leadership, ethical climate, privacy, organizational politics and global ethics.

The issues of ethics and accountability has existed since the origin of the government. Dubnick (2003) traces the history of ethics and accountability from the Anglican and feudalistic period. Others have traced its roots back to the time of Athenian democracy (Elster 1999). The issues of ethics and accountability have become complicated as a result of changes in the role of public administrators. Denhardt (1988, p. 60), for example, asserts that “the role for the career administrator has changed during the present century in three important ways. First, the administrator has become a policy maker; second, the public has demanded both more responsiveness and more responsibility from the administrator; and third, the bureaucracy has become professionalized.” By contrast, Thompson (1985, p. 556) remarks that “the possibility of an administrative ethics was dependent on rejection of what was termed the ethic of neutrality and the ethic of structure in favor of the ability of a public administrator to serve

© The Author(s) 2018 H.A. Khan, Globalization and the Challenges of Public Administration, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69587-7_5 101

as a policy maker, to be a moral agent and make judgments, and even to be an advocate.” Goss (1996) believes that the tensions between democratic rule and professional expertise and discretion have heightened the ethical dilemmas for public administration.

The spread of the Internet and communication technology has facilitated the widespread availability of global data. The annual data on corruption compiled by Transparency International and other agencies have made it possible for concerned citizens to access the status of their countries on the corruption index. The countries of the world, especially developing ones, are no longer able to hide the corruption. Although many developing countries try to ignore their status on corruption, the governments know that they are under watch by the people of the world, and may be under pressure to do something about it.

Globalization is also transforming the world economy through increasing the interrelationships with other countries through trade and finance. According to one observer, globalization is “driven by a near-universal push toward trade and capital market liberalization, increasing internationalization of corporate production and distribution strategies, and technological change that is fast eroding barriers to the international tradability of goods and services and the mobility of capital, which means a convergence of moral values and in general ethical behavior” (Zekos 2004, p. 633).

The complexity of interdependence has complicated the issue of ethics and accountability. Although a clear violation of ethics such as personal corruption can be considered unethical, many of the activities of public administrators cannot be so easily classified. In the words of Van Wart (1996, p. 526), “much more challenging and relevant to most administrators are the situations in which they must discharge a vague law, balance rival public interest groups, sort out the appropriate organizational interests from organizational ego, consider a higher but costly professional standard, and not overstate or abandon personal interests.”

Issues relating to ethics and accountability are closely linked to the idea of public administration. The measure of ethics is tested in the implementation of public policies. Administrative law and ethics are developed as a field of public administration. According to Frederickson (1997), the key pillars of ethics are transparency, good management, the prevention of misconduct, compliance, and monitoring, accountability and control. Adopting a different classification, Jordan and Gray (2011) have specified five E’s of administrative orthodoxy: efficiency, economy, efficacy, expertise