Accountability and the Evil of Administrative Ethics

Abstract

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.

The Content and Context of Organizational Ethics

“…That is, when decisions are nontransparent, inefficient or out of accordance with certain rules and regulations, this deviation must be accounted for at all stages. Thus, the interview statements make clear why accountability, a common core value in the quantitative study (see table 1) and a concept that deserves more and more attention from PA scholars in different shapes and forms (see, for example, Koppell 2005; Dubnick and Justice 2006), is so crucial in both sectors, and why, in difficult situations, it becomes even more important than transparency, incorruptibility, lawfulness, efficiency and effectiveness. When, for whatever reason, other values cannot be fully actualized, this failure must be accounted for at all times independent of the circumstances and conditions involved.…”

Reaping What You Sow

“…What must be acknowledged is that empires create messes all over the place, but "empires with colonial administrations have the machinery in place to clean up these messes," whereas the United States, "as an empire without colonial administration, does not clean up after itself" (p. 237). The continuing challenge will be to ensure the development of public administration institutions and practices that deal with past, present, and future wrongdoing and the neglect of imperial responsibilities without generating their own collateral damage, blowback, and wrongdoing (Dubnick & Justice, 2006). Apparent within Johnson's proposals are the anti-imperialist and antimonopolistic positions of classic liberalism (Ho, 2004).…”

It's about time: policy time

“…When an organisation has to respond to a given situation, there will be a tendency to respond on the basis of past experience in order to shape the future according to the past (Freeman 2007). Past decisions go on shaping political and organisational patterns for a long while (Durnat 2007); indeed, many of the wrongs we perpetrate today come about as a reaction to yesterday's wrongs (Dubnick and Justice 2006). Concepts of the future are also influenced by the wish to avoid uncertainty; thus, as a rule, one of the characteristics of public policy is to 'avoid uncertainty' (Hofstede 2001, Eglene andDawes 2006).…”

“…Returning to the past in order to correct the present is described in the research literature on situations in which the future is moulded in terms of the past (Freeman 2007), and the wrongs being done in the present are a reaction to the wrongs of the past (Dubnick and Justice 2006). But what was conveyed in this research was the 324 M. Moshe attempt to correct the injustice and not let past wrongs serve as justification for future wrongs: Today (Tuesday) the High Court of Justice, sitting with an extended panel of nine judges, ruled unanimously that the clause in the law that prevented Palestinians from suing for damage done by military action in Judea-Samaria is unlawful, and is therefore void.…”

“…The centre, the periphery and the policy concept of time Strategies and tactics are sometimes referred to as one and the same notion (Durant 2007, Lens 2007 and sometimes as two different concepts (Dubnick andJustice 2006, Yang 2006). This article takes the view that a distinction must be made between strategy and tactics; whereas strategy has to do with comprehensive Policy Studies 325 planning for the future, including uncertainty, tactics restricts itself to planning solutions for immediate problems.…”