Unit 6
Ethics in Administrative Governance: The Challenge of Ensuring Democratic Accountability in Public Administration

Unit 6 provides an introduction to democratic accountability and ethics in government. While these issues were once of interest to few beyond scholars of political science and public administration, the scandal that erupted around “Ad-scam” in the final years of Jean Chrétien’s tenure as prime minister riveted the Canadian public. In the elections of 2004 and 2006, the issue of ethics and accountability were central. Since then, a major piece of legislation—the Accountability Act—has been passed by Parliament.

The readings assigned for Unit 6 were all written before the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Ad-scam. The authors do not address the details of that report or the subsequent Accountability Act. All the same, the issues addressed in those readings are directly relevant to these events. As such, the material covered in this unit will assist your understanding of the principle of democratic accountability and of the political controversies regarding ethics and accountability.

Learning Objectives

When you have completed Unit 6, you should be able to achieve the following learning objectives:

1. Analyze and discuss the nature of democratic accountability in a parliamentary democracy
2. Evaluate the potential impact of the NPM on democratic accountability
3. Outline the principles of and potential approaches to ensuring ethics in administrative governance
4. Contrast the viewpoints of competing theories of public bureaucracy on the issue of public-sector accountability