Commentary: Codes, Damn Codes, and Laws: Continuing Controversies in Public Administration Ethics

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12258
• Published date: 01 September 2014
• Date: 01 September 2014

Commentary

Stuart C. Gilman is senior partner

in the Global Integrity Group, which has

worked with numerous governments and

organizations on anticorruption campaigns

throughout the world. He retired as head

of the United Nations Global Programme

Against Corruption. He is former president

of the Ethics Resource Center and served

as senior executive in the U.S. Off‌i ce of

Government Ethics. He has also served

on the faculties of St. Louis University,

the University of Virginia, and the Federal

Executive Institute while teaching as

an adjunct at Georgetown and George

Washington universities.

E-mail: scgilman@global-integrity.net

Codes, Damn Codes, and Laws: Continuing Controversies in Public Administration Ethics 571

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 5, pp. 571–572. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12258.

Stuart C. Gilman

Global Integrity Group

With apologies to Mark Twain,1 much of the

conversation about public administration

codes of ethics suf‌f ers from very dif‌f erent

visions of what codes are for and contradictory expec-

tations as to what belongs in them. James H. Svara’s

excellent article, “Who Are the Keepers of the Code?

Articulating and Upholding Ethical Standards in the

Field of Public Administration,” uses the history of

the ethics codes of the American Society for Public

Administration (ASPA) to explain the development of

its most recent code. In so doing, it of‌f ers many of the

arguments about what codes should be and whether

quasi-professional organizations like ASPA should have

codes at all, and it shows how these controversies led

to the adoption of ASPA’s 2013 code. A casual reader

might conclude that most of the controversies discussed

are settled. But too often ignored controversies continue.

Codes for Semiprofessional Organizations

Pressure on ASPA’s leadership led it to adopt a code or

revise it.  e International City/County Management

Association regularly reviews, revises, and enforces its

rigorous code. ASPA, however, is a voluntary asso-

ciation of professionals interested in furthering the

quality of public service through research and applied

work. Most practitioner members of the association

have a “f‌i rst” profession (e.g., accounting, engineer-

ing, or economics), with public administration as

their “second” profession. Many practitioner members

have an ethics code for their f‌i rst profession, a legal

or regulatory code for their government position, and

the ASPA ethics code as well. With so many codes,

are we taking away from their value? Should there be

better linkage between them?

What Codes Are For

Codes do not make bad people good. However, they

can allow good public servants to make better ethical

decisions. Judith Lichtenberg (1996) has presented

one of the most persuasive essays in favor of develop-

ing codes. Interestingly, she claims that a good code

presents a “rebuttable proposition.”  at is, it can

force an individual to defend an action if it appears

to violate an ethical standard. In this way, a code

maintains individual responsibility while providing a

mirror to assist in ethical ref‌l ection.

Ethics codes in public administration have to apply to

the entire range of of‌f‌i cials covered.  e dif‌f‌i culty is

that a particular of‌f‌i cial’s approach to ethical standards

might be dif‌f erent from that of his or her colleagues.

Some individuals seek peer approval as a standard

of ethics, while others simply want to be a “good”

person. Some public servants only want to know “is it

against the law or regulation?,” while others want to

understand what principles underlie specif‌i c elements

of the code (Lewis and Gilman 2012, chap. 8).  e

problem with purely aspirational codes as well as

purely applied codes is that they often ignore these

dif‌f erences. How valuable is the code if it makes sense

to only a segment of the population?  e 2013 ASPA

code has gone back to a less applied and more aspira-

tional model. Is this the right balance? By going back

to an older model, is it more or less inclusive?

How to Develop Codes

ASPA’s founding members wanted to marry the work

of public administrators with that of those who teach

and research in the area. My impression is that only

a few members have played both roles.  e litera-

ture on developing codes suggests that those most

impacted should develop the code (Ethics Resource

Center 2003). Although participation in the ASPA

code revision was open to all members, academics

both led and had the largest voice in creating drafts.

 is is ironic, as the code’s focus is almost entirely

on ethical expectations for practitioners; academic

members’ ethical issues are mostly ignored. Should

the code speak to both practitioners and academics?

Should the association’s code focus on ethical values

the practitioners should demonstrate, or is it a code

for all ASPA members?

Making Codes Relevant

 ere is general agreement that the purpose of codes is

to impact behavior (Gilman and Stout 2005). For some,

Codes, Damn Codes, and Laws: Continuing Controversies

in Public Administration Ethics