ETHICAL REASONING IN A TIME OF REVOLUTION - A STUDY OF LOCAL OFFICIALS IN POLAND

What system of moral reasoning is characteristic for newly appointed a nd elected officials in post-Communist Poland? In extensive structured interviews with 485 local officials who experienced the transition fr om communism to democracy we expected to find a strong preference for principled reasoning when making ethical decisions in the work setting . In fact we found these officials to be remarkably similar to their U .S. counterparts in their preference for ''law and duty'' as the basis for decision making Few of the factors established in research an U.S . public administrators traditionally thought to be related to variati on in moral reasoning had significant impact here. The two striking ex ceptions in Poland were gender and attitude toward the issue of decomm unization, both of which showed significant relationships with a tende ncy to reason at a principled level. Follow-up focus group sessions il luminated these findings.