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Abstract:This article pursues the thesis that ethics matter in urban policymaking. Interviews with 95 elected officials in 12 cities revealed the officials' support for-and opposition to-many principles of political morality and political justice. Officials regarded their ethical principles as almost as important as economic constraints on their policy decisions, and much more important than political, legal, jurisdictional, and cultural considerations. The role of ethics in the resolution of 93 issues that arose in their communities varied from minimal to decisive. On some occasions ethical considerations served mainly as justifications for policy decisions made primarily on other grounds. But more often, significant numbers of officials drew largely, and even primarily, on their own moral judgments when casting their votes on community issues. And some policies were driven by consensual moral understandings. issues that arose in their communities, ethical considerations played little role on a few occasions. However, ethical principles were usually of some importance, ranging from being employed as justifications for policy decisions made on other grounds to having a significant impact on policies adopted to resolve issues. On some occasions, collective ethical judgments were at the center of policy resolutions., "Ethics Matter: The Morality and Justice Principles of Elected City Officials and their Impact of Urban Issues." Journal of Urban Affairs, 34: 231-253. Publisher's Official Version available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.

City councils are significant, though seldom central, actors in local policy networks providing public assistance to disadvantaged residents. Mayors and council members in 12 American cities more often support than oppose public assistance initiatives. They claim that their own normative judgments are more important to their preferences and voting behavior on such matters than are public opinion, group demands, or economic considerations. While such elected officials hold a variety of justice principles, the most important of these affecting their positions on public assistance issues is the “floors” principle. A broad ethical commitment to providing social minimums enhances support for living‐wage ordinances, for linking subsidies for economic development to assistance to less advantaged citizens, and for exempting spending on social services from budget cuts. We discuss the implications of these findings for major theories of urban politics and policies—collective‐action theory, regime theory, and pluralism—and for advocates on behalf of the urban poor.

Analysis of interviews with 112 elected officials in 12 American cities indicates that their support for affirmative action is more strongly influenced by the justice principles they hold than by the contextual variables normally emphasized by leading urban paradigms. Allegiance to fair equal opportunity and blocking cumulative inequalities enhances support for affirmative action, whereas allegiance to maximizing aggregate utility and retaining market allocations reduces such support. These results suggest that urban paradigms should include the moral principles of participants as well as variables describing the interests that officials represent and the economic, social, political, and cultural contexts that constrain their decisions.

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