Managing Politics? Ethics Regulation and Conflicting Conceptions of “Good Conduct”

• Published date: 01 January 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12135
• Date: 01 January 2014
• Author: James Downe,Karen Morgan,Richard Cowell

Richard Cowell is researcher and

lecturer in the School of Planning and

Geography, Cardiff University. His research

interests cover theoretical and political

aspects of the relationship between public

policy and sustainable development, includ-

ing governmental strategies for resolving

sociospatial conf‌l icts. He has written widely

on issues of policy integration, public

participation, and trust, with a particular

interest in ethics regulation in English local

government.

E-mail: cowellrj@cardiff.ac.uk

James Downe is a reader in public

management in the Centre for Local and

Regional Government Research, Cardiff

Business School. His current research

interests include local government perform-

ance regimes, political accountability, public

trust, and the ethical behavior of local

politicians. He has more than 10 years of

experience conducting evaluations on local

government policy and has published widely

in international journals.

E-mail: downej@cardiff.ac.uk

Karen Morgan is lecturer and

researcher in the Gender Violence Research

Centre in the School for Policy Studies,

University of Bristol. Her research has exam-

ined domestic and/or sexual violence, social

housing provision, the ethical framework

governing local councillors in England, the

needs of homeless women, and ethical food

choices. Karen is also associate lecturer

with the Open University and serves on the

Academic Advisory Panel of an educational

charity, the Vegan Society.

E-mail: karen.morgan@bristol.ac.uk

Managing Politics? Ethics Regulation and Conf‌l icting Conceptions of “Good Conduct” 29

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 1, pp. 29–38. © 2013 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12135.

Richard Cowell

James Downe

Cardiff University, United Kingdom

Karen Morgan

University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Concern for fostering trust in public institutions has

prompted many governments to invest in systems of

ethics regulation, embracing various dimensions of good

governance.  is article assesses the impact of ethics

regulation on the conduct of English local politicians

using Foucauldian perspectives on government, power,

and resistance.  e research f‌i nds that ethics regulation

encountered problems when politicians resisted the models

of political identity and behavior that it was perceived

to promote. Particular concentrations of misconduct

complaints were identif‌i ed in which politicians believed

that changes to political management structures, designed

to make local governance more ef‌f ective, caused a loss of

voice for elected representatives. Ethics regulation itself

sometimes served as a device for controlling others and

ef‌f ecting resistance.  e article concludes with ref‌l ections

on how far we should expect political conduct to be man-

aged by such regulatory practices.

Across the globe, there has been growing interest

in the promotion of good governance, includ-

ing the achievement of high ethical standards

of conduct in public institutions.  is is ref‌l ected

in the widespread rolling out of codes of conduct,

statements of values, and processes for addressing

misconduct allegations (Fording, Miller, and Patton

2003; West and Davis 2011). In many countries, this

is driven by the urge to address serious cases of cor-

ruption and dishonesty. However, this enterprise often

goes much wider, as governments seek to cultivate an

array of ethical behaviors in the public sector moti-

vated by broader desires to improve public trust.

While ethics regulation has become pervasive in

Western democracies and a growing focus of pub-

lic administration research, analysis of the impacts

of such practices is underdeveloped (Helin and

Sandström 2010; Van der Wal 2011; West and Davis

2011), and existing studies have given more atten-

tion to public of‌f‌i cials than to elected politicians, who

are the focus here.  ree questions drive this article:

First, can dif‌f erent dimensions of good conduct for

politicians—such as treating others with respect,

not working for self-interest, or using institutional

resources appropriately—be promoted ef‌f ectively by

ethics regulation? Second, how do ethics regulation

and the principles of good conduct that it embodies

interact with other factors that shape how politicians

behave? Finally, are there facets of political conduct,

as an exercise in the representation of interests and

mobilization of power, that make it especially resistant

to formal ethics regulation?

England is an interesting context for the analysis of

ef‌f orts to promote positive public values in political

conduct.  e Labour governments of 1997–2010 can

be characterized by their ef‌f orts to restructure modes

of governance across the state, notably, measures that

strengthened central control and expanded the use of

managerial forms of coordination (Newman 2001).

Local government was a particular target, through

a program of reforms badged as “local government

modernization,” which included an intensif‌i cation

and centralization of ef‌f orts to regulate the conduct of

local politicians (commonly known as “councillors”

or “elected members”). Major components of what

became known as the “ethical framework,” which ran

for 10 years from 2000, were the introduction of a

model code of conduct and processes for investigating

and adjudicating complaints of misconduct. However,

resistance to the ethical framework by local politicians

from across the political divide, as well as the election

of a coalition government in May 2010 with policies

to promote “localism” and reduce bureaucracy, saw

the almost complete abolition of the framework.  e

dynamics of resistance of‌f er important opportunities

for analysis and show how conf‌l icts between concep-

tions of “good conduct” are tied up with disputes

surrounding the practices by which political conduct

should be regulated.

A number of theoretical frameworks are available to

examine how ethical governance arrangements are put

to work, including perspectives based on actor-net-

work theory and the “travel of ideas” literatures (Helin

and Sandström 2010; Jensen, Sandström, and Helin

Managing Politics? Ethics Regulation and Conf‌l icting

Conceptions of “Good Conduct”