tions on their employees which are often called ôethics codesö or ôstandards of conduct.ö Often these codes emphasize financial conflicts of interest and most include ethical standards governing the dynamics of human relationships.
For purposes of this essay these will be referred to as structural codes. A loose definition of a structural code would be a set of rules or laws which purport to be obligations and that must be observed by officeholders and public employees under specific jurisdictions. In addition, the connotation also includes the systems of guidance, training, and disclosure which implement these codes. Ethics codes at the federal, state and local governmental levels have become increasingly common primarily because of the ôreinventing governmentö movement. Reinvention, reengineering, right-sizing are all terms that bring hope in some sections of the public administration community while producing fear in others. One tangible result of this process is the flattening of organizations and increasing the span of control for supervision. Generally, these initiatives aspire to strip out midlevel management and empower employees. What we forget is why there was a general tendency to ôthickenö government in the first place--creating bureaucratic pigeonholes with limited authority and accompanying intense ov
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