MPA Ethics and Accountability in Public Administration 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which concept describes the obligation of government officials to answer for their actions and decisions to the public and to oversight institutions?
- Discretion
- Accountability (Correct answer)
- Sovereignty
- Legitimacy
Correct answer: Accountability
Accountability requires public officials to explain and justify their decisions to the public, legislatures, courts, and other oversight bodies, and to face consequences for misconduct.
Question 2: What is a 'conflict of interest' in public service?
- A disagreement between an agency and Congress over policy priorities
- A situation where a public official's personal interests could improperly influence their official decision-making (Correct answer)
- A dispute between two agencies over overlapping jurisdictions
- A policy disagreement between career staff and political appointees
Correct answer: A situation where a public official's personal interests could improperly influence their official decision-making
A conflict of interest arises when a government official has personal financial, professional, or relational interests that could compromise — or appear to compromise — their impartial judgment in official decisions.
Question 3: The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) primarily serves to:
- Protect classified national security information from public disclosure
- Give the public the right to request access to federal agency records (Correct answer)
- Require agencies to publish annual reports to Congress
- Limit lobbying activities around federal rulemaking
Correct answer: Give the public the right to request access to federal agency records
FOIA (1966) establishes a presumption of government openness, giving any person the right to request records from federal agencies, with specific exemptions for national security, privacy, and other limited categories.
Question 4: Which theory holds that public administrators have a duty to go beyond merely following orders and exercise independent moral judgment on behalf of the public interest?
- Objective responsibility
- Subjective (personal) responsibility (Correct answer)
- Hierarchical accountability
- Legal formalism
Correct answer: Subjective (personal) responsibility
Subjective (personal) responsibility, emphasized by Carl Friedrich, holds that administrators must rely on their own professional values and ethical judgment, not just obedience to authority, in serving the public interest.
Question 5: What does the Whistleblower Protection Act protect federal employees from?
- Being required to testify before Congress without legal counsel
- Retaliation for disclosing information about government waste, fraud, or abuse of authority (Correct answer)
- Being transferred to another agency without their consent
- Disciplinary action for political speech outside working hours
Correct answer: Retaliation for disclosing information about government waste, fraud, or abuse of authority
The Whistleblower Protection Act (1989) protects federal employees who disclose evidence of illegal activity, gross waste, mismanagement, or abuse of authority from retaliatory personnel actions.
Question 6: Which ethical framework judges the morality of an action solely by its consequences and outcomes?
- Deontology
- Virtue ethics
- Consequentialism (utilitarianism) (Correct answer)
- Social contract theory
Correct answer: Consequentialism (utilitarianism)
Consequentialism evaluates the rightness of actions based on their results; utilitarianism, the most common version, holds that the right action is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
MPA Ethics and Accountability in Public Administration 1
Which concept describes the obligation of government officials to answer for their actions and decisions to the public and to oversight institutions?