Ethics in Public Administration: Cooper's Responsible Administrator
This paper reviews key chapters of Terry L. Cooper's The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role, focusing on how public administrators navigate ethical responsibilities. The paper explores tensions between internal and external organizational controls, the problem of authority overreach, and Cooper's concept of "constitutional bureaucracy." It also examines the principal-agent relationship, conflicts of loyalty between superiors and the public, the risks and moral necessity of whistle-blowing, and Cooper's model of responsible administration. The paper demonstrates how objective and subjective responsibilities interact across organizational levels, arguing that ethical accountability must be distributed throughout an organization rather than concentrated at its top.
- Introduction: Ethics and Responsible Conduct: Cooper's framing of ethics and negligent behavior
- Internal and External Organizational Controls: Organizational controls and biased hiring practices
- Authority, Constitutional Bureaucracy, and Accountability: Authority limits and constitutional bureaucracy model
- Ethical Autonomy and Conflicting Loyalties: Principal-agent theory and loyalty to the public
- Whistle-Blowing: Risks and Moral Responsibility: Personal risks and moral duty of whistle-blowers
- A Model of Responsible Administration: Cooper's integrated model of responsible administrative conduct
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper closely follows Cooper's chapter structure, grounding each analytical point in specific page citations, which demonstrates careful engagement with the primary source.
- It connects abstract ethical concepts — such as objective vs. subjective responsibility — to concrete examples like the police hiring scenario and the Nuremberg Tribunal reference, making the argument accessible.
- The paper maintains a consistent evaluative voice, not merely summarizing Cooper but assessing the practical implications of his arguments for real administrative contexts.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models effective textual analysis of a nonfiction academic work: it moves chapter by chapter while synthesizing overarching themes, uses direct quotation strategically to anchor claims, and integrates the author's framework (principal-agent theory, constitutional bureaucracy, the four levels of ethical contemplation) into its own analytical narrative rather than listing chapter contents passively.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a framing statement about Cooper's central concern — responsible conduct from a manager's perspective — then proceeds through chapters six, seven, and eight in sequence. Each section addresses a distinct ethical dimension: organizational controls, authority limits, loyalty conflicts, whistle-blowing risks, and finally a synthesis of Cooper's model. The conclusion ties the chapter-level analysis back to the broader argument that ethical accountability must be distributed across all organizational levels.
Introduction: Ethics and Responsible Conduct
Terry L. Cooper's book The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role examines the problem of maintaining responsible conduct from the manager's viewpoint. Managers are often left feeling confused when they are unable to achieve the results they want as rules, policies, training, laws, and other organizational arrangements change (Cooper 164). Cooper points out that even though we often think of unethical behavior and willfully insufficient work performance as two very distinct problems, both are forms of negligent behavior. As Cooper writes, "Both represent a diverting of the public's resources from the fulfillment of its preferences and demands" (164).
Internal and External Organizational Controls
Chapter six examines the conflicts that exist between internal and external controls. The chapter offers the example of a police force that was prepared to hire a certain officer, until speculation arose that he might be gay. Even after being reminded that the police force was an equal opportunity employer, the hiring personnel still admitted that bringing this man on could potentially cost the force a significant amount of money — not to mention that many officers would be unwilling to work alongside him due to deep-seated prejudice. This illustrates that those entrusted with hiring decisions need to hold values that genuinely reflect the law. When individuals in hiring positions are biased against certain groups, equality across society is inevitably undermined.
Organizations need to be managed in an efficient and ethical manner. Simply eliminating hierarchical structures is not a solution, but responsibility must come from every corner and level of an organization.
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