Public Administration Ethics for the 21st Century

This volume establishes a foundation for a uniform code of professional ethics for public administrators in the United States.Public Administration Ethics for the 21st Century lays the ethical foundations for a uniform professional code of ethics for public administrators civil servants and non-profit administrators in the US. Martinez synthesizes five disparate schools of ethical thought as to how public administrators can come to know the good and behave in ways that advance the values of citizenship equity and public interest within their respective organizations. Using case studies he teaches American administrators how to combine the approaches of all five schools to evaluate and resolve complex ethical dilemmas within the constraints of the U.S. democratic values set.Martinez enunciates the common ethical principles that guide public administrators in their practice within the specific ethical parameters and organizational cultures of a myriad entities at the federal state and local levels of government in the United States as well as in non-profit organizations. Along the way Martinez addresses a number of crucial issues including personal gain conflict of interest transparency democratic impartiality hiring hierarchical discipline media relations partisan pressure appointments by elected officials and whistle-blowing. The striking high-profile case studiesNathan Bedford Forrest Adolph Eichmann Lieutenant William Calley and Mary Ann Wrightillustrate ethical dilemmas where for better or worse the individual was at odds with the organization.