The institutional laundry: how the public may keep their hands clean

Kirby, N. (2023) The institutional laundry: how the public may keep their hands clean. Journal of Ethics, (doi: 10.1007/s10892-023-09450-9) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

A number of recent authors have argued for the problem of ‘democratic dirty hands’. At least within a democracy, public officers can be rightly said to act in the name of the public; and thus, as agents to principals, the dirty hands of public officers are, ultimately attributable to that public. Even more troubling, so the argument goes, since dirty hands are necessary for public officers in any stable political order, then such democratic dirty hands are necessary for any stable democracy. Our dirt is the unavoidable cost of democratic survival. In this paper, I offer an argument against this disconcerting conclusion. My central claim is that proponents of ‘democratic dirty hands’ have missed the import of another feature of contemporary governance: public institutions. Public institutions, as organisational agents, intermediate the relationship between public officer and public; and in so doing, the dirt necessary for stability may be ‘laundered’: the public may still gain the benefit of a public officer’s hands, but remain clean of the dirt. I illustrate this case by an extended discussion of the case of La Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (‘CICIG’).

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kirby, Dr Nikolas
• Authors: Kirby, N.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Journal of Ethics
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 1382-4554
• ISSN (Online): 1572-8609
• Published Online: 24 August 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © The Author(s) 2023
• First Published: First published in Journal of Ethics 2023
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license