The notion of a public service was embraced by the city’s governing officials and its administrators by assuming responsibility for the care of the indigent, infirmed, aged, orphaned, starving, dying, and dead (Gawthrop, 1998. 85).
As a consequence, this welfare initiative resulted in 1) an increased democratization of the Florentine government stemming from the broader public participation in the policymaking process, 2) a significant increase in the ethical/moral consciousness among the body politic, and 3) a deeply-felt sense of civic obligation to the common good.
According to the article by, Gawthrop, (2009), like the laws of physics, maximum strength is to be found in the process of triangulation. Considered in terms of democratic governance, the triangular linkages of democratic values, virtues, and visions create the essential bond of unity that steers the democratic process toward the common good.
Beetham (1999), defines democracy as a political regime with a high degree of popular control over political decision making, and a high degree of political equality.
According to Vanhanen (2003), democracy means free popular elections to fill positions of power. Brochado and Martins (2005), consider democracy as a system of institutionalized procedure directed to a free political participation and competitiveness. Welzel (2007), defines democracy by constitutional constrain on the power of the state and by popular control over it.
Democracy is an ideal-seeking system that is committed to the common good, the good life, or that state of being where that which is good. This is the ultimate aspiration of democracy. Nonetheless, time and again it has been stated that, short of unremitting anarchy, democracy is the messiest form of government. That is to say, as Richard Stillman so artfully portrays in his article, “The Peculiar ‘Stateless’ Origins of American Public Administration…,” there is nothing tidy, neat, orderly, or confidently predictable about the system of government we so ardently em-
Democracy (Marshall and Jaggers , 2002). The theoretical basis in the reverse causation from economic growth to country‘s propensity to experience democracy lies in the seminal paper of Lipset (1959), who advocates the idea that prosperity stimulate democracy. This phenomenon has been the nexus of most countries, where economic growth is believed to spur democracy.
Africa‘s poor growth record has to do with problems related to its policies and institutions. The idea that governance matters for economic development dates back to Adam Smith (Ndulu & O‘Connel 2008) and was later expanded by new institutional economists led by Douglas North.
The ethic of structure and the ethic of neutrality are constructs designed to absolve public administrators from the heavy load of ethical responsibility that must be assumed if democracy is to be made viable. Responsibility is the fundamental “silent partner” in democracy’s inherent value set: freedom, equality, justice, and responsibility.
If there is no willingness to assume a sense of responsibility to make democracy work, there is no democracy. This is one of the key points that America tries to convey to the emerging nations of the world, and it is this point that Stuart Gilman and Carol Lewis examine in their article on the cross-national or global extension of public service ethics.
In political economy, democracy plays a major role in the electoral process and the legislature through the exercise of franchise. Democracy can also not be achieved in isolation in a country but through government spending, taxation, financial deepening, etc which are also functions of economic growth.
To what extent is public-sector ethics a cross-national concern? Whose ethics is at work on the global level? “Democracy and a market economy depend upon the
