Existential Public Value

ABSTRACT

The most existential public value is the maintenance of an environment in which mankind can at least survive. Climate change is an emergent existential threat. This article draws on the author’s contribution to a workshop that examined the understanding of public value and its relevance to theory and practice of public policy. Its methodology links thinking, jurisprudence, and practice in the responsibilities of public officers with the public administration concept of public value. Accordingly, public administration is executed by public officers who have fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of the people represented, and responsibilities under the public trust principle which entrust them with responsibility for the polity’s common good. Selected recent instances demonstrate increasing recognition by superior courts that public administrators have responsibilities to foster the creation of existential public value. Public administration scholars have opportunity and responsibility to promote these responsibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Public value
• climate change
• fiduciary duty
• public trust

Acknowledgements

This article is related to a workshop supported by the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA) and the School of Political Science and International Studies, the University of Queensland (POLSIS).

Notes

1. Note the distinction here between uses of “trust” such as (noun) (1) “firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something” i.e. trustworthy, and (2) “an arrangement whereby a person (a trustee) holds property as its nominal owner for the good of one or more beneficiaries” i.e. an entrusted responsibility. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?client = firefox-b-d&channel = trow&q = trust+meaning.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the This article is related to a workshop funded by the Australian Political Studies Association and supported by the School of Political Science and International Studies, the University of Queensland.