The Fragility of Public Service: A Study ofRichard IIandMeasure for Measure

Abstract

Shakespeare dramatizes in Richard II and Measure for Measure his belief that public service is not merely a description of the purposes of public administration, but is also an aspirational ideal that implies commitment to professional standards and qualities of character. This ideal, however, is fragile because of weaknesses in human nature that interfere with development of ideal character, especially power and ambition. These are made worse by the awareness of the inevitable decay common to the human condition. Despite these challenges and limitations, the concept of a public service ethic should not be abandoned, but should instead be supported through professional and institutional norms. Shakespeare implies that these norms are not likely to emerge without extensive and deliberate commitment to ethical governance. This article shows how Shakespeare develops his theme of the fragile and precarious nature of public service and how he displays skepticism about the emergence of durable ethical norms. In order to counter this skepticism, the article concludes with some suggestions for how modern managers can overcome the obstacles Shakespeare presents and thereby help sustain the ideal of public service.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 3 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.