PART I
Foundations of the Public Administration Profession
CHAPTER 1
The Public Interests1
âAdvance the Public Interest. Promote the interests of the public and put service to the public above service to oneself.â
â(Code of Ethics, American Society for Public Administration, 2013)
Box 1.1 Chapter Objectives
- Introduce yourself to the public administration profession, including the plural concept of the public interests, definitions of public administration, private versus public administration, and professionalism.
- Define the plural concept of public interests and distinguish between ethical virtue, utility and duty perspectives of the public interests, emphasizing virtue, utilitarian, and deontological ethical theories.
- Compare public interests perspectives of political philosophers, economists, and public administrators, and their contributions to the development of the concept of the public interests.
- Critique the public interest standard regulations by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with applications today to the internet, social media, and digital knowledge.
Introduction
We live in a time of crisis in public service ethics. The 2017 U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee reported that, âOver the past six months, the Office of Government Ethics has received 39,105 inquiriesâup more than 5,000 percent over the comparable period leading up to President Obamaâs 2012 election and first months in office.â While many want change, no one wants live with corruption and sociopathic upheaval of public bureaucrats. This book, The Public Administration Profession, posits a corrective for public service focused on ethics and public interests prescriptions from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Code of Ethics2 and elsewhere. We focus on the plural concept of public interestsâincluding the commons, regime values, ethics of caring, and moral readings of the Constitution. This is not your parentsâ concept of the singular âpublic interest,â which was discarded by skeptics for imposition of the will to power with one right answer to the issues of public goods and services. Instead, this is a return to the etymological root which was always plural for others: pubes + koinon (Greek, âto be mature and take care of othersâ).3 This is also a new pluralistic concept of the public interests emerging from close empirical data that belie the reality of shared meanings of public goods and service, but with variet ies of answers. While we may still use the âpublic interestâ here and there as we continue our analysis in this book, we imply a plural meaning, and seek to use âthe public interestsâ (emphasis added) to make our points. Further, we present an overview of public administration featuring ethics woven into its heart. Rather than push ethics into a back corner, we integrate ethics chapter by chapter with all the typical institutions, processes, concepts, persons, history, and typologies as found in most public administration surveys. We prominently feature one precept per chapter from the ASPA Code of Ethicsâas well as other ethical sourcesâwith full discussion, examples, self-analysis, and applications with professional enforcement mechanisms. Further, unlike other survey texts, we expand coverage of information technology, nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations, hybrid-private organizations, contracting out and collaborations, and greater attention to public service at the state and local government levels. We also include end-of-chapter ethics case studies, lists of key concepts and persons, and local community action stepsâas well as appendices on writing papers, on personal career management, and professional ethics codes. Thus, our text may be useful for pre- and post-integration of ethics as both an introduction and an exit-capstone in helping shape the future public administration profession.
In contrast to our current era of baby-boomer sociopaths, you may have heard about times or places4 in America that people came together for a common goal, and put service to the public above service to oneselfâas in the ethics precept quoted above from the Code of Ethics of the American Society of Public Administration.5 Like World War II, when folks gave up metal or rationed gasoline and sugar to fight Nazi fascists? Or after the tragic terrorism events of September 11, 2001? Or perhaps you recall the efforts of police, firefighters, and other first responders who rescued flooded families in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or in New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy? Or members of the U.S. armed service in the global war on terrorism? Or maybe youâve seen these united, exhausted but heroic public servants on the streets where you live after that nearby memorable but tragic event, e.g., a tornado, a flood, an earthquake, or other massive tragedy? Do you remember how everyone came to each other and tried to work together, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, Right and Left? Do you remember your feelings in seeing people working together in unity who were former bickering political enemies? Do you remember how people tried to see other people as fellow Americans rather than as competitors in the game of life, or as different in race or ethnicity, or viewpoint?
If you can envision these moments, moments of governance after a crisis or tragedy, you remember administration in the public interests. It is in these moments we see good people overcome the looking-out-for-number-one cult of contemporary American culture. It is often during times of great tragedy that we remember other lessons of our youthâlessons of empathy, goodwill toward others, and caring for one another. In these moments we often witness the best in ourselves and in one another.
Of course, we live in times of criticism and complaint about governmentâgovernment canât do this or it wonât do that. Some of this criticism is on target, but we argue much of this criticism is misplaced or overlooks a bigger picture. And we feel its impact throughout our lives. Letâs briefly visit some of how government impacts us daily. Letâs start with you lying in bed, your clock radio clicks on to one of your favorite songsâthe radio station is federally licensed and must operate to established standards. You lift your head off the pillowâalso made to federal standardsâpull back the covers and pop off the mattressâmade to federal standards. In the bathroom you run some waterâprovided to you by standards established by the federal government and usually maintained by your local government. Over to the toiletâmade to federal, state, and local government standards to be low-flow to use less water. On to breakfastâthose food labels are there because of government. And those organic blueberriesâthey canât be labeled organic unless they meet a set of stringent standards. You catch the weather forecast before leaving for workâthatâs from the National Weather Service, a part of the federal government. Off to work, drive or take the bus? The bus is usually operated by local government. But today, weâll drive. The roadsâpotholes and allâgovernment. In fact, just 3.3 percent of the numbers of interstate highways were in unsatisfactory condition in 2014, and the number of traffic fatalities has declined from 51,091 in 1980 to 32,674 in 2014, even though the number of licensed drivers increased from 145 million to 214 million.6 If you drive an interstate highwayâthatâs the federal and state governments. Your car must meet a boatload of federal standards, from mileage standards to dozens of safety requirements. From windshield wipers to the rearview mirror, to seatbelts and airbagsâall required by government. Boring drive to workâcheck your cell phone for textsâmany locales in the public sector wonât let you do that while driving because, based on federal research that found distracted driving is worse than drunk driving, your local government made driving while texting a crime.
So, what is this public sector? Many think of government jobs when they think of the public sector. We popularly imagine some kind of giant âthink tankâ where bureaucrats sit at desks all day behind closed doors in neat rows of cubicles, dreaming up things to regulate. The reality is that most government workers in the public sector arenât bureaucrats. Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and co-owner of USAFacts with his wife (Connie), has found that government workers are really part of a âdo tankâ involved in direct service to the public. In fact, 90 percent of the 23 million public employeesâfederal, state, and local governmentsâare the public servants we come into daily service contact with in hospitals, transportation, parks and recreation, and else where. Nearly half work in education, and roughly 10 percent are active-duty military or involved in police protection.7 And that doesnât include the millions of other public servants who work in nonprofit organizations, e.g., the Red Cross, the local YWCA, or in hybrid-private organizations that provide public services, e.g., the Medicare-supplement insurance company for your grandmother or other elderly relative.
The intention of our first chapter is to provide a meaningful âbig pictureâ understanding of it all by investigation into the âpublicâ of public administrationâthe public interests. We will principally examine it through historical and philosophical lenses, while focusing on working definitions, characteristics, and typologies of the public interests, with application to an ethics case study of the public interest standard in regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Our summary reflections and implications for the public administration profession take us to the following chapters and applications. But, first, we must overview the meaning of public administration as a concept and as an academic discipline. And distinguish public enterprise from private enterprise.
What is Public Administration?
The many definitions of public administration are surprisingly diverse. While only some definitions of public administration explicitly include mention of the public interest(s), all include the closel...