Abstract
Chapters 2 and 3 locate democratic leadership ethics in a political context, where public administrators work under the direction of the political executive and under the scrutiny of accountability agencies responsible for legislators who can use the power of publicity either to honor or to discredit the reputation of administrators. Neither of these two chapters portrays the leadership role of administrators as something standing alone in public life. Both chapters locate the administrative arm of democratic government under the powerful influence of the political executive, with whom public administrators share whatever public power they possess. Democratic governance delegates considerable power to administrators to advise, revise, and implement public policy, assuming that the public interest is reinforced when the people and their elected political leaders share power with nonelected bureaucratic representatives. Usually this delegation rests on very limited terms and conditions to weaken the discretionary power of bureaucrats to substitute their leadership for that of electors and elected representatives, whose public mandate has greater rhetorical force than any public-interest discretion favored by bureaucrats.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 2015 John Uhr
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Uhr, J. (2015). Leadership Rhetoric: Defining the Terms. In: Prudential Public Leadership. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506498_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137506498_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-70092-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50649-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political Science CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)