Ethics and Public Administration

Since the 1970s there has been a great deal of change associated with the implementation of administrative ethics. These changes have been promoted and motivated by the concept of public administration in the new era. An important position is given to the concept of ethical issues in today’s civil governance. Ethics are the rules that define moral conduct according to the ideology of a specific group. Moreover, ethics in public administration are important for good business conduct based on the needs of a specific town, state or country. Ethics provide accountability between the public and the administration. Adhering to a code of ethics ensures that the public receives what it needs in a fair manner. It also gives the administration guidelines for integrity in their operations. The modern world has seen an increase in interest in the areas related to the ethics of the sovereign good. A number of studies have focused on this subject matter and several academicians have exposed a number of ethical and philosophical dilemmas related to the concept of ethics in public administration. Despite the increasing number of studies that have focused on the importance of administrative ethics, there has been very little effort spent on identifying what exactly constitutes the crux of ethics in administration. The objective of this book is to review the implications of the basic principles of ethics for public administration in the context of new public governance and discuss their impact on different administration imperatives which in turn act as the determinants of ethics in public administration. This book will also focus on some of the traits characterizing the moral functioning of public affairs, in addition to some of the main issues that public administration needs to address in every region of the world. Those include healthcare access, human rights, transparency, corruption and the fair management of public goods and services. With studies devoted to delineate those issues, and a selection of examples defining the role of public administration in them, the book aims at giving the reader an overview of some of the fundamental concepts affecting the ethical development of the current international administrative framework.