Book Reviews | City Ethics

Resources & Learning April 8, 2011

Blind Spots V — Informal Norms

Government ethics involves itself primarily with the formal norms set forth in ethics codes. But as the authors of the new book Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It (Princeton University Press), point out, "It is through informal mechanisms that employees learn the 'true values' of the organization."

Resources & Learning April 6, 2011

Blind Spots III — Ethics Training, Ethics Fading, and Ethical Reasoning

"Most of us dramatically underestimate the degree to which our behavior is affected by incentives and other situational factors." This is one of the most important sentences in Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It, a new book by Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel (Princeton University Press).

Ethical Fading

Resources & Learning April 4, 2011

Blind Spots I — Unconscious Unethical Conduct

Although it is not a book about government ethics, Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do about It by Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel (Princeton University Press) is a must-read book for government ethics practitioners.

Resources & Learning March 19, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics VI – Integrative Power

Violence happens. The world is violent. People are naturally violent. This is what people say.

Politicians are all crooks. Government ethics is an oxymoron. Don't be so naïve. This is what people say.

Resources & Learning March 18, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics V – Modeling Corruption

In his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, Michael N. Nagler talks about two models for looking at violence that are also relevant to government ethics, the medical model and the educational model.

The Medical Model

Resources & Learning March 16, 2011

Nonviolence and Government Ethics III – Thinking Outside the Box

Another way in which violence and unethical conduct are similar is the way they are handled by the news media. Just as violence is generally discussed in terms of separate battles and wars, day by day, unethical conduct is discussed in terms of separate scandals and individuals, day by day. And unethical conduct is responded to in the worst possible atmosphere.

Resources & Learning February 12, 2011

Zygmunt Bauman on Responsibility, Trust, Self-Deception, and More

Despite the title of his essay "What Chance of Ethics in the Globalized World of Consumers?" Zygmunt Bauman has some valuable things to say that are relevant to government ethics (the essay appears in his 2009 book, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (Harvard University Press)).

The Purpose of Government Ethics

Local Government Practice January 12, 2011

Hatch Act Problems and a Solution

I've written before about some of the problems relating to the Hatch Act's prohibition of local government employees running for office if their agency gets any funding from the federal government (1 2). Jason C.

January 4, 2011

Littering and Government Ethics

Sometimes concepts derived from one area of study, for one purpose, can be valuable in another area of study, for another purpose. This is true of the concepts of "injunctive norm" and "descriptive norm" derived by social psychology professor Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University for use in the area of persuading people not to do certain things, such as litter.

Resources & Learning November 21, 2010

High Flying in The Fallen

I don't know how I failed to hear about this novel. Maybe I'm the last one on the block to do so, but it's been four years since T. Jefferson Parker's The Fallen was published. This detective novel involves the murder of an investigator for San Diego's "Ethics Authority," who falls from the sixth story of a hotel (must have been at a COGEL conference).

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