A Public Ethics of Care for Policy Implementation

Liberal and republican political theorists have not paid much attention to a theory of public administration or policy implementation. To the extent that they have, they have tended to endorse an ideal-typical Weberian model of bureaucracy and impersonal ethics of rules to limit street-level discretion. This article argues that the Weberian bureaucratic ethics is inconsistent with core liberal and republican values and, in fact, dominating at the street level. In order for laws and policies to be implemented in a manner consistent with liberal and republican principles, an alternative public ethics is proposed—a public ethics of care. Building on earlier research, this article argues that a public ethics of care represents an important supplement to liberal and republican ideals, as well as a better alternative to Weberian bureaucratic ethics, for implementing laws and policies at the street level in limited and responsive, nondominating ways.     

"Publics" Administration and the Ethics of Particularity

Ethical orientations that emphasize universal duties, ideals, and values are well known to public administrators. We pay attention to principle, policy, ideals, shared goals, and the provision of a variety of commonly held values, such as clean air and water, mosquito abatement, and public recreation. The word "public" often seems to be a synonym for "universal." However, this article explores particularity in ethics, especially as it applies to the life of the public servant. It identifies three distinct orientations that focus on the concrete—as opposed to the abstract—and it shows how the exceptional cases are not administrative problems; rather they provide a reality check for public administrators who suppose rules, plans, and programs to be their primary orientation toward the management of public concerns.     

The Role of Management and Representation in Improving Performance of Disadvantaged Students: An Application of Bum Phillips's “Don Shula Rule”1

Scholars and practitioners within the U.S. education system have focused considerable attention on developing new programs aimed at raising educational achievement for disadvantaged students. New programs are only one way to improve student performance, however; recent work in public administration suggests that public management and implementation practices might also have a large impact on student performance. Existing research shows that managerial networking, managerial quality, and effective personnel management can significantly improve the quality of the education received by disadvantaged students. Additional work highlights the contribution of representative bureaucracy. Because these research agendas have targeted the public administration literature rather than the education policy literature, this article seeks to bring this research back to education policy. Using data from several hundred Texas public school districts, spanning 1995 to 2002, and focusing on disadvantaged student performance (Latinos, blacks, and low‐income students), this article illustrates how both management and processes to enhance the representativeness of teaching faculty produce benefits for disadvantaged students.     

Integrating ethics into the public administration curriculum: A three-step process

This article provides a three-step process for analyzing public policy dilemmas with ethical implications. A framework is proposed that builds on existing ethics theories and attempts to provide a relevant, usable approach for decisionmaking. A review of current thought in ethics indicates a concern for two areas: (a) responsibilities to relevant constituencies; and (b) adherence to moral obligations. The framework presented herein directly addresses both of these areas of concern. The authors have found this approach to be useful for classroom applications. This process is simple to explain, understand, and apply to a range of administrative situations. Students find the framework a memorable tool, useful in structuring deliberations with ethical implications. Sample applications of the framework provide examples for educators interested in integrating ethics into their advanced undergraduate and graduate courses.     

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Rapid advances in our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information are transforming public administration. This “big data” revolution presents opportunities for improving the management of public programs, but it also entails some risks. In addition to potentially magnifying well‐known problems with public sector performance management—particularly the problem of goal displacement—the widespread dissemination of administrative data and performance information increasingly enables external political actors to peer into and evaluate the administration of public programs. The latter trend is consequential because external actors may have little sense of the validity of performance metrics and little understanding of the policy priorities they capture. The author illustrates these potential problems using recent research on U.S. primary and secondary education and suggests that public administration scholars could help improve governance in the data‐rich future by informing the development and dissemination of organizational report cards that better capture the value that public agencies deliver.     

The Georgia Lottery: Assessing Its Administrative, Economic, and Political Effects

This article examines the Georgia lottery as a “policy laboratory” and its potential effect on state‐level policy diffusion. The authors summarize an extensive research project they directed that included a survey of every state that offers a lottery, a general population survey of Georgia citizen attitudes toward the lottery, and results from an economic model summarizing the economic effects of the lottery. The analysis reveals that the Georgia lottery has been a significant source of revenue for the state's budget and operates in an administratively cost‐effective manner. The analysis also confirms the conventional wisdom that lower‐income households spend a greater proportionate share of their income on the lottery and that African Americans are more frequent players than whites. Furthermore, the Georgia lottery enjoys broad public support, the key to which appears to be the earmarking of lottery funds to specific, new, popular education programs. However, the data reveal that those educational programs promulgated by the Georgia lottery benefit citizens from both high and low socioeconomic status. Finally, the article suggests that lottery‐generated funds may reach a plateau or peak during the first decade of implementation and that state policymakers should design lottery‐funded programs accordingly.     

Paradigm Shift in Public Administration: Implications for Teaching in Professional Training Programs

The decline in popularity of New Public Management worldwide reinvigorated the search for a new paradigm in the field of public administration. Several alternatives to New Public Management, such as the New Governance and Public Value paradigms, have gained prominence in recent years. Despite tensions among these paradigms, exceptional challenges for public administration teaching programs exist. Xun Wu and Jingwei He of the National University of Singapore compiled data on public administration and management courses from 48 top master of public administration degree programs in China and the United States. This essay analyzes how competing paradigms influenced the selection of course content and pedagogical foci in professional training curricula. The authors conclude that in order to take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity provided by the rapid, global expansion of professional education in public administration, there is an urgent need to find a synthesized theoretical framework .     

The effects of state R&D tax credits in stimulating private R&D expenditure: A cross‐state empirical analysis

This is a cross‐state empirical study which examines the effects of state research and development (R&D) tax credits on private R&D expenditure in the states. Other explanatory variables include federal R&D subsidies, public services in higher education and R&D‐targeted programs as well as other control variables. The statistical result shows that the establishment of state R&D credit programs is effective in stimulating more industrial R&D expenditure. In addition, state services in higher education and R&D‐targeted programs also matter in private decision of R&D investment. This policy assessment sends a positive message to state policymakers because it shows the great potential in using R&D policy instruments to promote innovation‐based economic development. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Reporting Without Knowledge: the Absence of Human Rights in US Journalism Education

Journalists play an important role in the realization and protection of human rights worldwide, framing and shaping the public’s understanding of issues. In the United States, however, studies show that media coverage of human rights is inadequate and frequently inaccurate, with US journalists typically framing human rights as an exclusively international issue. This study helps to explain why this is the case through an examination of the human rights content of journalism education in the United States. Journalism education is dominated by undergraduate programs in the United States, yet data from this study show that human rights education is not part of journalism training programs at the undergraduate level (at the top 10 schools, ranked according to the number of graduates, there are no human rights courses for journalism majors) and is not a focus of most graduate-level training programs. Those schools that do teach human rights do so largely with a focus on events and violations abroad. The fact that journalists are not educated about international human rights law and standards or taught to view events through a human rights lens means that crucial opportunities are missed to frame topics as human rights issues, to inform the public, and to hold governments and other human rights violators accountable.     

A Comparative Assessment of Elite Policy Recruits in Canada

Recent case studies and large-N survey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector “policy capacity”. Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for government’s ability to meet contemporary policy and governance challenges. Despite growing attention to these matters, studies have not examined the “elite” policy workers many governments recruit to address these capacity shortages. Using an established survey instrument, this study of two Canadian recruitment programs provides the first comparative analysis of elite policy recruits, as policy workers. Three research questions anchor the study: (1) What is the profile of these actors? (2) What types of policy work do “elite” policy analysts actually engage in? (3) How does their policy work compare by recruitment program? The article provides fresh comparative data on the nature of elite policy work and policy analytical capacity, but, more importantly, a crucial baseline for future comparative study of how elite recruitment may facilitate “supply-side” capacity gains expected from recruitment programs.     

America's Misunderstood Welfare State: Myths and Realities

To listen to the critics, one would think that the nation's social welfare programs were an abject failure–ungovernable, unaffordable, and undesirable. But though widely believed by Americans of every political persuasion, the perception of failure is false. As the authors demonstrate, America today has all the institutions of a mature welfare state, while still regarding "welfare statism" with deep suspicion. The authors seek to explain this paradox and to set the record straight about the actual workings and accomplishments of the nation's welfare programs – social security, public assistance, and medical care –and it shows that the gloom and doom that surround so much public discussion in this area stems from simple, attractive–and false–ideas about what these programs are and how they work. Above all, they argue that American social welfare policy has been shaped by certain enduring commitments which most Americans believe in whether they realize it or not.     

Who Governs in God’s City?

After clearing away some misconceptions about the power of the religious right in Colorado Springs, this article will examine three areas, education, medical marijuana, and gay rights, where the city’s religious conservatives have tried to influence public policy. With each area their efforts have only been partially successful. While the reasons for this uneven success are often particular to each policy dispute, taken together these issues point to discernible changes in the political behavior and ambitions of the city’s religious conservatives. Most importantly, religious conservatives have become far less confrontational and have turned away, to a significant degree, from direct political action and are focusing much more on community outreach programs. The paper will conclude by discussing some of the reasons for those changes and how they might have national implications for religious and social conservatives.     

Documenting Disparity in Minority Contracting: Legal Requirements and Recommendations for Policy Makers

The challenge of advancing policy goals and public administration is compounded when legal compliance rests on data and complex analysis. This is true of disparity studies that support local government‐sponsored minority contracting programs. How can local governments prepare to work with such programs in this complex environment? The authors analyze several court cases challenging minority contracting programs and illustrate the difficulty of administering public programs at the juncture of public policy goals, subtle changes in law, and demands for quality statistical analysis. Many public agencies, especially at the local level, are not prepared to address the data requirements demanded by these programs. To help with this challenge, the authors develop a set of guiding principles to help practitioners satisfy the legal requirements and meet the policy goals of minority contracting and similar programs. This includes a new emphasis on continuous gathering of valid, local‐level data.     

Government transparency and policymaking

We argue that making lawmakers more accountable to the public by making it easier to identify their policy choices can have negative consequences. Specifically, we analyze a model of political agency with a single lawmaker and a representative voter. In our model, the lawmaker has better information than the voter about the appropriateness of alternative policy courses. In addition, the voter is uncertain about the incumbent's policy preferences – specifically, the voter is worried the incumbent is an ideologue. Our model suggests that when lawmakers expect their policy choices to be widely publicized, for those lawmakers sufficiently concerned about reelection, the desire to select policies that lead the public to believe they are unbiased will trump the incentive to select those policies that are best for their constituents. Hence, lawmakers who would do the right thing behind close doors may no longer do so when policy is determined in the open.     

Administration of human rights

It is puzzling that although human rights pervade nearly all actions that affect the public, so little attention is devoted to their administration. The absence of books, chapters or even courses describing human rights administration is a silent reproach to our profession. To suggest how such a study might proceed, this article considers three questions: (1) how rights like those outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are converted to policies; (2) how human experiences can suggest priorities in their administration; and (3) how to improve the performance of the ‘virtual bureaucracy’ that is carrying the related administrative responsibilities. Serious studies of human rights administration must deal with three critical problems: their complexity as they infuse other public policy issues; their universality as they interact at all levels of public and private society; and their ubiquity, which renders coherent bureaucratic structures and reforms difficult. Such studies are justified because large‐scale efforts to provide education in rights administration can make important contributions to the realization of human dignity. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE HUMAN EQUATION IN EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION AND WARNINGS

For natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornados, prediction systems and public warning programs have been operational for many years. Earthquake prediction, however, is only an emerging technology. Given the potential for catastrophe in a large earthquake and the great difficulty in specifying time, location and magnitude of impact, certain substantial policy problems emerge; hence, the maximum benefit of scientific earthquake predictions is realized. Policy planners must concentrate on public education and the creation of organizational linkages which would comprise the public warning information system (i.e., how and what is said, and monitoring public response to any warning). Most important is that the issue of prediction-warning be addressed now since planning can produce benefits even if no predictions are issued.     

Is LEO ‘Orwellian'? Earnings,Willetts, OfS,Creative Arts,and the Cost of Higher Education

The cost of higher education to the taxpayer is determined in part by the choice of subject and institution made by students. The Augar report on higher education noted that there was an oversupply of ‘low value' courses and called on the government to ‘bear down on low value courses' and ‘target courses better aligned with the economy's needs'.¹ Until recently there was no reliable data to identify such courses or the institutions supplying them. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has utilised recently available longitudinal education data on earnings, courses and institutions to rectify this deficiency. Many of the lowest earning courses are in the creative arts. Not everyone is happy with using earnings to measure the value of courses. This paper discusses the IFS estimates of graduate earnings and the public cost of higher education, as well as the criticisms of using earnings data to measure the value of courses and institutions.     

Explaining Self‐Interested Behavior of Public‐Spirited Policy Makers

Public choice theory (PCT) has had a powerful influence on political science and, to a lesser extent, public administration. Based on the premise that public officials are rational maximizers of their own utility, PCT has a quite successful record of correctly predicting governmental decisions and policies. This success is puzzling in light of behavioral findings showing that officials do not necessarily seek to maximize their own utility. Drawing on recent advances in behavioral ethics, this article offers a new behavioral foundation for PCT's predictions by delineating the psychological processes that lead well‐intentioned people to violate moral and social norms. It reviews the relevant findings of behavioral ethics, analyzes their theoretical and policy implications for officials' decision making, and sets an agenda for future research.     

Women Offenders and the Gendered Effects of Public Policy1

At 17%, women represent a significant proportion of all offenders under criminal justice supervision in the US. Drawing on the findings from their report, “Gender-Responsive Strategies: Research, Practice, and Guiding Principles for Women Offenders,” the authors maintain that public policy has ignored the context of women's lives and that women offenders have disproportionately suffered from the impact of ill-informed public policy. This discussion of the implications of gender within the criminal justice system is based on a simple assumption: responding to the differences between women and men in criminal behavior and to their antecedents is critical to gender-responsive policy. Building on the pathway theoretical perspective, we find that in addition to the gendered impact of the war on drugs, policy changes in welfare reform, housing, and other social policy arenas combine to create a disparate impact on drug abusing women and women of color. Key policy areas affecting the lives of women offenders and their children include welfare benefits, drug treatment, housing, education, employment, and reunification with children. We conclude that addressing the realities of women's lives through gender-responsive policy and programs is fundamental to improved outcomes at all criminal justice phases. A blueprint for gender-responsive policy development is described through six guiding principles and their policy implications.     

Exploring Aggregate vs. Relative Public Trust in Administrative Agencies that Manage Spent Nuclear Fuel in the United States

Trust is a key component of democratic decision‐making and becomes even more salient in highly technical policy areas, where the public relies heavily on experts for decision making and on the information provided by federal agencies. Research to date has not examined whether the members of the public place different levels of trust in the various agencies that operate within the same policy subsystem, especially in a highly technical subsystem such as that of nuclear energy and waste management. This paper explores public trust in multiple agencies operating within the same subsystem, trust in each agency relative to aggregate trust across agencies that operate within the nuclear waste subsystem, and trust in alternative agencies that have been suggested as possible players in the decision‐making process. We find that trust accorded to different federal agencies within the nuclear waste subsystem varies. The variation in trust is systematically associated with multiple factors, including basic trust in government, perceptions about the risks and benefits of nuclear energy/waste management, party identification, and education. These findings have significant implications for research on public trust in specific government agencies, alternative policy entities, and for policy makers who want to design robust and successful policies and programs in highly technical policy domains.