Etos polityków w kodeksach etycznych radnych
Ethos of politicians in codes of ethics for councillors

Author(s): Tomasz Czakon, Danuta Ślęczek-Czakon
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: ethos of politicians; codes of ethics for councillors
Summary/Abstract: Politics and politicians are harshly evaluated. One of the politicians᾽ answers to the accusations and social expectations of following the most important moral principles is adopting ethical codes, in which they declare their good intentions, specify the standards of conduct and commit themselves to comply with them. Ethical codes are adopted by politicians in many countries. The situation is similar in Poland, where parliamentarians, as well councillors of many different local government units have their own codes. The authors᾽ subject of interest are ethical codes of councillors. This is because there are a lot of them and thanks to that it allows the authors to assess the dominant ethos among politicians. That notion is defined as the set of values and norms considered to be binding in politics. The authors assume that there are many similarities between councillors (of various levels of government) and members of parliament (councillors become parliamentarians, parliamentarians become councillors, both councillors and parliamentarians are members of the same political parties or local political organizations), thus by analysing the ethical codes of councillors, the ethos of politicians can be reconstructed.The authors analysed 58 codes from various local government levels from all over Poland (different regions of country). The analysis of the content of the codes was based on the assumption that the ethos of politicians create not only the virtues of politicians, but also the nature of the institutions in which they act, relations with the environment and — especially — with voters. This was also the basis for establishing research questions and hypotheses: some of them concern the formal side of the codes (do they meet the requirements of constructing codes?), however, the majority refers to the declared values and principles that make up the ethos of councillor‑politicians. One of the hypotheses assumed that in the codes of ethics for councillors, who are operating in a democratic state, a politician‑democrat ethos should be revealed. Analysis of the content of codes of ethics for councillors led to the conclusion that the democratic ethos is poorly outlined in them, whereas corruption prevention and autocratic attitude prevail. Democratic values are present only in 1/3 of the analysed codes. The ethos of politicians, implicit in the ethical codes, is a chaotic and inconsistent collection of various values, principles and attitudes.

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