Elite Ethics: Comparing Public Values Prioritization Between Administrative Elites and Political Elites

Abstract

In this article, we compare how administrative and political elites in The Netherlands, the European Union, and the United States perceive and prioritize four key public values—responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness, and transparency. Our data from 94 in-depth interviews show that political elites and administrative elites differ most in their perception and prioritization of expertise and transparency and less in responsiveness and lawfulness. Interestingly, these politico-administrative value differences largely hold across the institutional settings we study. Theorizing on our results, we formulate eight propositions for future studies. Our study contributes to public values research by using qualitative methodology and including politicians.

Keywords:

• public values
• government elites
• political–administrative relations
• ethics

Notes

² Representatives and executives are taken together here because no political executives were interviewed within the EU and only one within the United States. Moreover, absolute numbers for each group in these settings are too low to enable meaningful comparisons across settings.