PRUDENTIAL PUBLIC LEADERSHIP

PRUDENTIAL PUBLIC LEADERSHIP

RECOVERING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY SERIES EDITORS: THOMAS L. PANGLE AND TIMOTHY BURNS PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE MACMILLAN: Lucretius as Theorist of Political Life By John Colman Shakespeare s Political Wisdom By Timothy Burns Political Philosophy Cross-Examined: Perennial Challenges to the Philosophic Life Edited by Thomas L. Pangle and J. Harvey Lomax Eros and Socratic Political Philosophy By David Levy Xenophon the Socratic Prince: The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus By Eric Buzzetti Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s Edited by Martin D. Yaffe and Richard S. Ruderman Sexuality and Globalization: An Introduction to a Phenomenology of Sexualities By Laurent Bibard and translated by Christopher Edwards Modern Democracy and the Theological-Political Problem in Spinoza, Rousseau, and Jefferson By Lee Ward Prudential Public Leadership: Promoting Ethics in Public Policy and Administration By John Uhr

PRUDENTIAL PUBLIC LEADERSHIP PROMOTING ETHICS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION John Uhr

PRUDENTIAL PUBLIC LEADERSHIP Copyright John Uhr, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-50648-1 All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-70092-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50649-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137506498 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Uhr, John. Prudential public leadership : promoting ethics in public policy and administration / John Uhr. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Political leadership. 2. Political ethics. I. Title. JC330.3.U47 2015 172 dc 3 2014050146 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: June 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the memory of Herbert J Storing (1928 1977) John A Rohr (1934 2011)

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix 1. Preview: Political Theory and Public Administration 1 Why leadership ethics matter 2. Leadership Rhetoric: Defining the Terms 25 Why leadership needs rhetoric 3. Prudential Leadership: The Power of Practical Reason 43 Why leadership needs prudence 4. Leadership Dilemmas: Debating Dirty Hands 61 Why leaders often get dirty hands 5. Pragmatism: Mill and the Ethics of Impact 83 Why the ethics of utility often works 6. Principle: Kant and the Ethics of Intent 103 Why the ethics of duty can work better 7. Prudence: Aristotle and the Ethics of Virtue 125 Why the ethics of virtue often works best 8. Leadership Accountability: Democracy and Deliberation 147 Why supporters provide accountability 9. Review: Ethics and Leadership in Public Administration 169 Why ethics is about agency References 189 Index 199

This page intentionally left blank

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS T his book draws on my professional experience as a civil servant and a university academic. After obtaining my political science PhD in 1979 from the University of Toronto, Canada, I returned to my country of birth and citizenship to work as a researcher and administrator in the Australian Parliament in Canberra. I worked in and around Parliament for the best part of decade, with valuable detours in executive development training for the political executive and a very rewarding time in Washington, DC enjoying the benefits of a Harkness Fellowship allowing me to study US practices in professional development for civil servants and for legislative officials. My time in Washington was mainly spent at the public policy program of the Brookings Institution, thanks to the friendship and care of Bruce Smith from that program. I also had some association with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), in part because of the courtesy of Howard Penniman (who had edited AEI books on Australian elections) but more substantially because of the generosity of my former PhD supervisor, Walter F Berns, who had returned to the United States after a decade or so at the University of Toronto to teach at Georgetown University and work at the American Enterprise Institute. Berns died in January this year, at the age of 95, and his reputation will survive as an expert in what citizens need to know about the constitutional norms of liberal-democratic statecraft. Berns deserves first mention among those I here acknowledge because he marked out for me the distinctive honor deserved by those rare public intellectuals who can excel both in the university lecture hall and in the public forum, using their special skills as educators and as advocates to deepen public deliberation over political matters. During my time in Washington many years ago, I got to know John Rohr of the school of public administration and policy at Virginia Tech and author of the remarkably influential book Ethics for Bureaucrats. Rohr died in 2011 and I greatly value the many times we spent together, usually at meetings of the American Political Science Association, often exploring the implicit political theory of contemporary

x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS public administration. Rohr and Berns had known each other as distant colleagues, both anchored in the political science world of the University of Chicago which provided them with their graduate education in political science. They each carved out important space in which the classical legacy of Chicago s great political philosopher, Leo Strauss, makes its mark. This book reflects my gratitude to both of them as instructive scholars and engaging public advocates of good government. It can be confusing to mention the name of Leo Strauss in a book published in a series on Recovering Political Philosophy. Readers might expect this book to be an exercise in philosophical recovery modeled on the scholarly commentaries by Strauss in his remarkable recovery of classical political philosophy. My approach is quite different, reflecting the mode of scholarly analysis preferred by the two students of Strauss to whom this book is dedicated: Herbert Storing and John Rohr, whose work in public policy and administration is briefly discussed in chapter 1. An example of their link to Strauss is found in Storing s edited book Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics which includes not only an initial chapter by Walter Berns but Strauss s concluding chapter called An Epilogue (Storing 1962, 307 327). Storing conceded that he and most of his team of empirical researchers simply wanted to get on with the business of direct investigation of politics; yet he acknowledged that such direct investigation was often confounded by prevailing analytical frameworks that distorted their understanding of the practise of politics (Storing 1962, vi). Strauss s concluding chapter included one of his most forceful justifications of the value of Aristotle in strengthening contemporary political studies (Strauss 1962, 308 311; see also Strauss 1964, 1 12; 1968, v ix). This book follows in the tradition of Storing s direct investigators who draw upon Strauss s recovery of Aristotle as they practice their empirical study of political leadership in systems of public policy and administration. In my time at the Australian National University, I have spent many years teaching in the graduate program in public policy and administration which I helped to run for some years before moving to my current role in the school of politics in the same university. Professor Jane Marceau as founder of the public policy program warmly supported my interest in teaching a new course on Ethics and Public Policy which formed the foundation for many of the ideas in this book. Frequent US visitor Beryl Radin taught me to see many connections between public ethics and public management. I owe a great deal of thanks to the many students who taught me much about how professional ethics arises in the world of contemporary government, not only in developed countries like Australia but in strikingly challenging ways in newly democratic

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and of course in wonderfully complex ways in China. One of my mentors in the ANU s public policy program has been Richard Mulgan whose unusual blending of ancient political theory and contemporary public administration is one model for my own looser collaboration of ancients and moderns. Also helpful were close university colleagues Barry Hindess, Peter Larmour, and Norman Abjorensen who helped me understand more about misplaced ethics in the world of government corruption. Recent university colleagues who have helped me understand relevant theories and practices of ethics and policy leadership include former ANU colleague now at the University of Queensland, Ryan Walter, with whom I shared an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project award won in 2013, which has established the research momentum for many parts of this book: I gladly acknowledge our debt to ARC for the Discovery Project DP130104628 on Australian political rhetoric. From this research scheme, Ryan Walter and I jointly edited a book on Studies in Australian Political Rhetoric (Uhr and Walter 2014) which includes two of our own separate chapters as well as a good selection of colleagues chapters from which we have learned much. Ryan Walter and I have also published a number of articles in Australian social science journals, with the hope that more will soon be added to that scholarly source. I owe Ryan more than these few words indicate. Special thanks go to Paul t Hart of Utrecht University who, in his earlier time at the Australian National University, worked with me on a number of leadership projects that resulted in two co-edited books: Public Leadership published in Canberra by the ANU E Press in 2008 and How Power Changes Hands published in London by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011. It was Paul s hope that I would provide him with a textbook on ethics and the civil service; instead, this book of reflection and theory emerged in its place. I hope that this book addresses the practice of public administration in innovative ways. Paul and his University of Utrecht School of Government colleague Mark Bovens provided me with a valuable period of study in Utrecht in late 2013 where many research activities on ethics and democratic governance were put to the test, influenced in important ways by the vigorous energy of scholarly debate in the University of Utrecht s School of Government. Professor David Janssens from Tilberg University was also very helpful advising on forms of political and academic rhetoric in the study of political philosophy. Australian-based students of public leadership have encouraged me to examine the ethics of leadership and to draw upon a wide range of

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS analytical methods from the discipline of political science. Special thanks go to those who have worked with me at the Australian National University: Rod Rhodes, John Higley, Keith Dowding, John Hart, and Andrew Banfield. Colleagues at Griffith University who have been especially influential include Haig Patapan, John Kane, and Patrick Weller. International scholars who have helped me interpret the political philosophy of public leadership include a small number of very gifted political theorists who are exemplars of academic excellence: Christopher Kelly, Arlene Saxonhouse, Patrick Dobel, Stephen Salkever, and especially my Canadian friend and mentor Donald Forbes. Recent PhD students who have helped me think through the challenges of political and administrative leadership include James Mathews, Avinash Kumar, Athol Yates, Brendan McCaffrie, David Court, Jennifer Rayner, Helen Minnican, and Shaun Crowe. Finally, I am very grateful to Palgrave s Recovering Political Philosophy editors Thomas L. Pangle and Timothy W. Burns for their generous interest in my use of political philosophy in the study of public policy and administration. This is not primarily a book of political philosophy but a book based on political philosophy for those interested in the ethics of public leadership in contemporary democratic governance. What I am recovering is the practice of political philosophy in the compromised and flawed systems of public leadership shaped by contemporary governance, with more potential than we might realize to take close note of the political philosophies of Mill, Kant, and Aristotle so impressively studied by Pangle and Burns in their own research projects. I owe much to the professional staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their careful management of the publication process: especially Steven Kennedy for his early courtesy; Leighton Lustig for taking primary control over the production process; Elaine Fan for managing the initial editing with great diligence; and publishing consultant Deepa John for such impressive care of editorial changes up to publication. The index was prepared with speed and professionalism by Karen Clark. Some of my earlier publications preview aspects of the argument revised and elaborated in this book. I thank the editors of the 2014 Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability (Mark Bovens, Robert E Goodin, and Thomas Schillemans) for their support for my chapter on Civil Service Accountability ; the editors of the 2014 Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership (R. A. W. Rhodes and Paul t Hart) for their support for my chapter on Rhetorical and Performative Analysis ; and the editors of the academic journal Administration and Society for their 2014 publication of

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii my article on John Rohr s concept of regime values: locating theory in public administration. Finally, I owe more than I can here convey to Joan and Elizabeth for the loving environment of a perfect family. Our many discussions of political and personal leadership have sharpened as well as rewarded my interest in the ethics of leadership examined in this book.