1. Searching for Virtue in the City: Bell and Her Sisters
H. George Frederickson
University of Kansas
Jack W. Meek
University of La Verne
Prepared for the Bell Crisis Revisited Conference,
Chapman University, February 19, 2015

2. Introduction Bell as an echo of earlier city corruption.
The municipal reform movement in the Progressive Era.
The simultaneous emergence of municipal
reform and the great suburbanization of
metropolitan America.

3. Searching for Virtue Municipal reform and the public administration
ethics canon. Searching for virtue.
The details of the canon:
The line.
Ethical management.
Ethics standards and requirements.
Oversight and accountability.
The municipal reform canon as vulgar ethics.

4. Bell in Context Bell in context:
broaden the scope (Bell and her sisters—
eight contiguous cities).
lengthen the time (2000 to 2015).
Two big scandals—Bell and South Gate.
Six smaller scandals.
A “counterfactual.” pp

5. Oversight and Accountability
The line between politics and/or policy and
administration.
Ethical management.
Ethical standards and requirements.
Oversight and Accountability
Summing up.

6. Questions?
Questions

7. Questions? H. George Frederickson, University of Kansas
Jack W. Meek, University of La Verne