Making deals: the public official as politician
Article Abstract:
The senior public servant is characterized as a type of non-elected politician who makes deals. Public servants bargain with information, the 'currency' of government bureaucracies. The art and practice of negotiation has become a major aspect of public administration in both internal relationships and in the fight for jurisdictional recognition. The bureaucrat has an essential role in balancing popular demands and desires and politicians' needs to satisfy them. There are indications that the Canadian tradition of neutral career public service is endangered, with high turnover of public officials increasing with changes of government. The wholesale dismissal of upper-level Saskatchewan public officials during a government change in 1982 is cited as an example of this trend.
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1986
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What is human life worth?
Article Abstract:
The public servant's function is to administer rights as a proxy decision-maker, not to make moves based on his or her personal values. Risk-taking by public servants must develop from a balancing of rights, with emphasis on priority and autonomy. Justice and equality must also be considered. A strictly utilitarian view which assigns a value to human life must give way to the deontological perspective of prevailing social ethics. Uninformed decisions to run risks cannot be justified by saying that lives hang in the balance and calculating their quantity, or by saying that the quality of public life is in danger.
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1986
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Ethics in human resource management: basic bargains and basic values
Article Abstract:
The Canadian Treasury Board has the responsibility for governing the personnel management function of the Canadian public service. The Treasury Board establishes the policies regulating the behavior of public employees, and the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Office of the Comptroller General implement and interpret the rules and regulations. Public employees must meet certain ethical standards in their behavior, some of which are codified and some of which are unwritten. Standards of behavior express the basic values that underlie public service, including fairness, integrity, and professionalism.
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1991
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