The Importance of Ethics in Policy Analysis

Ethics and Public Policies

Ethics have impacted public policies in many ways. Ethics creates professionalism, accountability between leaders themselves and between administration and public. For example, when leaders adhere to the code of ethics, the public receives their needs equally. The administration headed by the president is kept in toes to ensure integrity is maintained among themselves (Moore, 2017). The community is able to trust their leaders and this environment helps the community to understand that the administration is working to perform best duties towards their interest. Professionalism among leaders is also kept at high standards through ethics. Leaders have guidelines that are necessary to do their duties and even infuses minds of other employees to ensure laws and rules are followed in a professional manner. (Dewey, 2016)

Ethical Guidelines for Decision-Makers and Policy Analysts

Ethical guidelines for decision-makers and policy analyst are important. The first one is integrity. Policy analysts struggle to promote what is good for society and transparency about choices included in their work (Mohamad, 2010). This is informed by differences in religious beliefs. When people practice integrity, they strive to do the right thing to achieve consistency in their actions. People who act on integrity are committed to fairness and honesty and their efforts will produce best results all around. Therefore, it’s important to practice the values of fairness and honesty.

Secondly, respect is a key guideline for policy analysts. This means being appreciative and considerate of other people (Patton, Sawicki, & Clark, 2015). It’s a show of humanity and dignity. Part of being ethical involve listening, loving and able to understand people the way they are. Although challenging, policy analysts gain valuable deeper understanding into designing effective policies by listening to others even when they don’t agree with what they hear. Therefore, decision-makers and policy analysts need to be considerate of lives of people who will directly be affected by the change of policies.

Thirdly, taking responsibility for any outcomes is important. This will ensure that people accept credit and blame in times of good or bad outcomes respectively. Responsible people are accountable and strive to achieve well. In case of bad outcomes, they acknowledge and learn from past mistakes (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). They, therefore, need to investigate policy problems and find ways to solve them. Policy analyst conducts their work in ways that break common wisdom and offer new ways for designing policies when they recognize the trust that decision makers put in them.

References

Dewey, J. (2016). Ethics. Read Books Ltd.

Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.

Mohamad, S. (2010). Ethical Corporate Culture and Guidelines for Ethical Leadership. International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, 1(2), 151-154. doi:10.7763/ijtef. 2010.v1.27

Moore, G. (2017). Virtue Ethics and Organizational Ethics. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198793441.003.0003

Patton, C. V., Sawicki, D. S., & Clark, J. (2015). Basic methods of policy analysis and planning.