Ethics for Bureaucrats

Ethics for Bureaucrats

It has become common to condemn government bureaucracy as wasteful and inefficient. According to the chapters "Ethics for bureaucrats" and "The problem of professional ethics" from the book Public service, ethics, and constitutional practice, the creation of the civil service system was not a historical accident, and remedied as well as caused problems within modern political life. But given the new political and social pressures of government agencies, and the expanded responsibilities of government bureaucrats, it is essential that unelected civil servants develop a responsive code of professional ethics to guide their work, to ensure that they behave in a democratic fashion, obeying the will of the people as well as fulfilling their professional duties.

Analysis:

First of all, what are bureaucrats? Bureaucrats are policy makers who are neither elected nor appointed. This method of selection is supposed to isolate them from political pressures when they make decisions, so they serve the interests of the people and their office. Their insulation from the electoral process has had both positive and negative effects. The professional nature of bureaucracy means that individuals who move up through the civil service learn with experience over time, and provide stability to the current regime (3). Democrats and Republicans may come and go, but the essential character and makeup of the civil service remains. The existence of the civil service also ensures that during a change of administration, there is some human continuity between past and present governments.

The current exam-based method of selecting civil servants was originally designed to reduce the influence of patronage, and was a response to Jacksonian-era corruption. It also reflected 19th century notions of governing as a 'science.' Civil servants were supposed to have demonstrated their ability to master the knowledge and science of government, in a way that transcended partisanship. However, simply because bureaucrats are isolated from the electoral process does not mean they are isolated from the political process, contrary to the notion of the 'neutral' bureaucrat (4). After all, the types of entities and the aspects of modern life those bureaucrats are supposed to regulate often force bureaucrats into political debates, such as the regulation of foods and drugs, transportation, and morality (5). These elements of modern life are not only politicized, but are extremely controversial, thus there is no 'cookie cutter' formula or rulebook that a bureaucrat can follow to determine, for example, if the risks of an experimental drug outweigh its potential benefits in the future. There is ambiguity even in science.

Furthermore, as the dispensation of "federal largesse" began to grow in the 1930s, the discretion of bureaucrats to dispense with federal funds likewise began to increase and their role and influence in the political system (6). Ironically, the responsibilities of handling large sums of money derived from the people fell into the hands of unelected bureaucrats rather than elected officials. This is one reason, the chapters suggest, that the role of the civil service is problematic in a democratic society. After all, is not one of the core principles of a democracy that those who have great influence upon politics must be elected? A bureaucrat who is casual or sloppy or overly self-serving in his or her department's interest in approving a new drug or subsidy for a particular farm crop will not be held accountable like a representative.

The previous defense of the civil service in a democratic society was that such jobs only dealt in realms that governed according to scientific principles of analysis, an idea that was always questionable at best, and is certainly not the case within the modern system of government. Yet too much scrutiny of the political beliefs of civil servants runs into the danger of re-creating the pre-Jacksonian 'spoils system' of appointing individuals according to their political beliefs and connections alone, or worse, using ideological purity tests, as was the case during the McCarthy era. This could also be dangerous, as it could mean that people with better political connections, but little real knowledge could be making life-altering decisions about the drugs Americans use, the food they consume, and detailed foreign policy decisions that require sensitive knowledge about small nations abroad. Still, at minimum, bureaucrats must understand that they are, in fact, policymakers, and develop a system of ethics to deal with the demands their duties require, even if they do bring specialized knowledge to their work. This idea of the essential nature of ethics is, granted, not new or radical, but it is a paradigmatic deviation from the morally neutral model of bureaucratic conduct favored before. (7).

Although systems of ethics are often viewed in a derisive fashion as mere formalities it is important that bureaucratic ethics have teeth and muscle behind them, to foster a sense of public trust. The hostile attitude of bureaucrats as living red tape may derive from their extreme unresponsiveness to the world outside of their bureaucratic territory, and their arrogance regarding public sentiment.

Critique

The author seems to make a valid point when he notes that bureaucratic principles exigencies must be defined. In other words, there must be some universal principles which bureaucrats are supposed to serve, and a notion of a greater public good to which bureaucrats must be responsible. Anyone who has ever dealt with a bureaucracy has been confronted with a civil servant who seems to value procedures more than people. A public servant's duty is clear -- he or she is supposed to serve the public, and an official who does not will fail to get reelected. However, in the current system, it is all too easy for someone who is an efficient bureaucrat to get promoted, even if he or she does not care much about 'the people.' Given the difficult situations faced by bureaucrats there must be a balance between just responding to situational exigencies and on the other hand, and simply proceeding according 'to the rules,' regardless of whether those rules have value.