Introduction
"Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other."
John, Viscount Morley of Blackburn
"Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique."
James MacGregor Burns
When discussing the subject of ethics and politics, the first question that might come to mind is: “How does one talk about the two without sounding either cynical or hopelessly delusional?” Before elaborating on this question, it would be useful to define the main terms first. Ethics, in its broadest meaning, can be defined as “a set of moral principles that ought to govern a person’s behavior in various domains of human activity.” It is, in words of one prominent legal expert, “knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.” In Islamic tradition, the concept of al-furqān, or "the standard by which to discern the true from the false" , has similar significance. Since ethics encompasses moral principles affecting a variety of human activities, it is natural that the study of ethics would be classified accordingly – hence the existence of personal and corporate, as well as the ethics of business and research. From this follows that what constitutes ethical behavior is, despite some universals, spatiotemporally conditioned. Take the act of killing for instance. Few would argue that the killing of an armed soldier in a warzone is unethical; almost everyone, however, would condemn the killing of children regardless of circumstances. In the context of Islam, this dependence between what constitutes acceptable ethical behavior and spatiotemporal circumstances is reflected in various sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, whereby he allowed some normally forbidden actions in certain circumstances – such as eating pork to stave off death.
Politics, for its part, is one of the most important of human activities. It can be somewhat narrowly defined as “the activities associated with the governance of a country or area” or “the activities of governments concerning the political relations between states.” Politics is studied by political science, a multidisciplinary and methodologically diverse field that finds itself at the intersection of and derives its principles from philosophy, religion, law, history, art, psychology, warfare, and economics, among other disciplines. In simpler terms, political science studies “who gets what, when, and how.” While this may sound too broad, it helps us to appreciate the sheer size of the field political scientists endeavor to study. Subjects as seemingly disparate as defining reciprocal rights between the state and the individual; the efficiency, or lack of it thereof, of a specific legal system; terminology used in history textbooks; day-to-day bargaining between political parties; deciding whether launching a war is legitimate; and determining where to build a bridge or a highway – all of these ultimately come down to politics and, as such, represent legitimate research subjects for political scientists. Given that politics is concerned with so many wide-ranging and interlocking activities, and that policymakers do not make their decisions in vacuum, it would be wrong to claim that ethics of a society has no bearing on its politics.
Yet, definitions do not explain why ethics and politics are perceived as so disparate. Ethical action is by default positive and sometimes even heroic. When the CEO of Lenovo decides to forego his $3 million bonus and distribute it to his lowest-paid workers in China , his action is praised as ethical, not only because Mr. Yang provided 10.000 individuals with $300 in needed extra income, but also because he helped raise the industry’s ethical standards. On the other hand, if action is described as political, the associated meaning is normally negative. To call someone a mere politician is a staple of negative campaigning around the world. To say that someone is putting politics above the national interest is to say that the person in question is harming the society. And when a religious leader runs for a political office, that act is condemned as unhealthy mixing of religion and politics, carrying the connotation of polluting a clean substance with a dirty one.
The disparity in perception can be explained as follows. When ethical action is praised, the tendency is to use individuals or relatively small institutions, rather than intricate networks of people or big corporations. Therefore, finding examples of ethical behavior featuring a lone hero like Mr. Yang is easy; finding ones that praise major corporations the size of Lenovo is hard. In fact, the latter examples are so rare that Jared Diamond, a renowned biologist and author , devoted several pages in his Collapse to Chevron’s unusually ethical environmental policies in Papua New Guinea. Suffice to say, the fewer the number of individuals involved in an activity, the easier it is for observers to judge the activity as ethical or otherwise, since each individual’s contribution can be easily evaluated. Conversely, when many people are involved, the results are usually morally mixed and individuals’ respective contributions – even if profoundly ethical – are harder to isolate. This makes wholesale ethical praise for policies promulgated by companies, political parties, and state governments so exceedingly rare. Put differently, the phrase “ethical politician” is considered an oxymoron not because such individuals do not exist, but because politics, being so far reaching, involves large groups of people with disparate interests, and thereby producing ethically mixed results.
Additionally, the reputation of politics is not helped by the fact that many, if not most, of policymakers gleefully follow Machiavelli’s advice that "a prudent ruler cannot and should not observe faith when such observance is to his disadvantage.” Put differently, for these individuals, being ethical is a matter of pragmatism rather than principle. For example, take Prince Bandar Sultan, the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States and now the Director General of the Saudi Intelligence Agency. In 2009, he answered a PBS reporter’s question on corruption in Saudi Arabia in the following way:
The way I answer the corruption charges is this. In the last 30 years, we have implemented a development program that was approximately ... close to $400 billion worth, OK? Now, look at the whole country, where it was, where it is now. And I am confident after you look at it, you could not have done all of that for less than, let's say, $350 billion. If you tell me that building this whole country, and spending $350 billion out of $400 billion, that we misused or got corrupted with $50 billion, I'll tell you, "Yes." But I'll take that any time.
The Prince’s answer was unusually honest. Interestingly, at no point during the interview did he try to justify the behavior using Islamic ethical principles – for him, these belonged to a separate sphere. Rather, he matter-of-factly pinned the blame on a more universal category, stating that “we did not invent corruption … [and] this happened since Adam and Eve, this is human nature.” Human nature or not, it ought to be remembered that Bandar Sultan could muse about this openly only because the likelihood of him and whoever else mismanaged those billions being prosecuted was and remains virtually zero.
Another factor that puts politics in disrepute is the policymakers’ perceived disconnect from the ordinary people and cosines with the society’s wealthy. To wit, the recent Libor rigging scandal involving Barclays and other major banks was the largest in history, involving the damage to some $800 trillion in loans. Yet, the only tangible consequences for those involved have thus far been two high-profile resignations and a $453 million fine – an insignificant amount given the bank’s annual profits – paid by Barclays to the U.K and U.S. financial regulators as part of a non-prosecution agreement. Similarly, the public grilling of the now-former Barclays CEO Robert Diamond by the British MPs, failed to provide substantial answers, despite the politicians’ ostensible outrage. One lesson learned here and in other cases was that politicians, being financially dependent on the society’s wealthy, are often reluctant to cut the hands of those who feed them.
Corrupt practices, scandals, elitism, and hypocrisy notwithstanding, it would be wrong to say that ethics of a society has no bearing on its politics. To wit, it is quite clear that policies, principles, and catchwords that were politically palatable several decades ago now carry severe moral and, in some cases, legal opprobrium. A few examples will suffice to illustrate this. For instance, referring to African-Americans as “Negroes” in the context of contemporary American politics is considered outrageous. Sixty years ago, the usage of the term was morally acceptable not only to white supremacists, but also to large swathes of American public, as well as African-Americans themselves. In fact, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech featured the word no less than 16 times. In the realm of foreign policy, too, ethical norms have changed. For instance, no leader concerned about his international reputation can now openly call for the revival of nuclear weapons testing, the practice which went from being perfectly acceptable at the height of the Cold War, to being condemned by the majority of states.
Thus, the practice of ethics lags behind proclaimed principles, even in democracies which have these principles enshrined in law. African-Americans are still discriminated in the United States, if less overtly , and the ban on testing does not prevent the development of nuclear weapons. Worryingly, many of the old practices have simply assumed different, more palatable names – an act of killing innocent bystanders in a warzone like Afghanistan, for example, is now routinely referred to as “collateral damage.” Despite this gap between theory and practice, the silver lining is that the change in practice does not come without the change in stated principle. Some progress can be seen there. To wit, Barack Obama, an African-American, was able to win the American presidency only because of a generation of voters taught to cherish the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement. Similarly, the Global Zero campaign, which calls for a world without nuclear weapons, would have zero credibility had its goals not been endorsed by hard-nosed Cold Warriors such as Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. As for “collateral damage”, while it is true that it still entails unacceptable loss of civilian life, it comes nowhere close to, say, the Allied carpet-bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II. Militaries certainly do not lack the means to carpet-bomb cities; however, the destruction on such a scale – as opposed to periodical “collateral damage” incidents – can no longer be justified to domestic audiences.
To appreciate the scale of this normative change, it is interesting to note that even authoritarian leaders whose power, unlike that of their democratic counterparts, is hardly constrained at home, strive to burnish their ethical credentials internationally. One way of doing that is through extensive PR campaigns in Western capitals. For example, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, Africa’s longest serving dictator (since 1979), went from being a pariah in the United States during the 1990s, to a reliable U.S. ally in West Africa, even getting a photo-op with Barack Obama in 2009. Tangible results of this transformation include roughly $12 billion worth of American investment in Equatorial Guinea’s gas and oil sector and visa-free entry for U.S. citizens. This radical metamorphosis in the bilateral relationship was in no small measure due to extensive lobbying efforts by Washington PR firms and oil companies. Another proven way for authoritarians to show off their ethical side is through endowing various good cause prizes. The case in point is the (now-defunct) $250.000 “Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights” that was awarded annually by the Libyan government since 1989 “for distinguished service to humanity.” Possibly two of the most interesting recipients were Nelson Mandela (1989) and Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2010). The moral here is that the very need to present egregious practices in the most positive light possible, whether it be “collateral damage” or human rights abuses at home in the name of security and stability, indicates that ethical standards which politicians are expected to uphold – democrats and dictators alike – have evolved.
In conclusion, it is safe to say that practitioners of politics strive to ground their behavior, if sometimes only rhetorically, in their respective societies’ ethical norms. These, in turn, evolve, forcing the politicians – democrats and dictators alike – to move along with times. If only to get a photo-op with Barack Obama.
Ethical Traditions and Policymaking
Having outlined basic spatiotemporal interdependence between the two domains, it is now time to take a closer look at ethical traditions in policymaking. As mentioned earlier, politics is by default a group activity, even in dictatorships and authoritarian states. Also, as pointed out earlier, politics is not divorced from ethical considerations. In fact, policymakers are forced to make moral choices and trade-offs all the time in both domestic and foreign policy arenas. These choices are normally guided by one of the two broad ethical traditions – realism and idealism. Let us consider each briefly.
Realism is the older of the two. Its genealogy is rich and includes individuals such as Thucydides, St. Augustine, Sun Tzu, Ibn Khaldūn, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Robert Gilpin, Herbert Butterfield, and Kenneth Waltz. Each of these thinkers is so different when it comes to specifics that political realism is sometimes referred to as a “big [philosophical] tent, with room for a number of different theories.” Nonetheless, all realists base their political thought on several broadly similar philosophical assumptions.
First, they are skeptical about human nature. Realists assume that humans are primarily motivated by self-interest and ready to sacrifice interests of others in pursuit of their own. Put succinctly, someone’s gain is, by default, someone else’s loss. This fact is universal and rings true whether we talk about elections in the United States, trade relations between the EU and African states, or the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “The past [being] a prologue of the future” , politics ought to be conducted based on how human beings are, not on how they ought to be. Therefore, the only way to establish a just and lasting political order – domestically and internationally – is to take this reality into account and balance interests of various political actors. Second, realists assume that politics is structured by power, coercion, and latent conflict. The question of what is morally right is not determined by philosophical debates but realities of power, whereby “the strong do what they can, whilst the weak suffer what they must.” In other words, those who cannot or are unwilling to exercise power will become the victims of those who do. Thus, poorly-funded independent parties yield to Democrats and Republicans in the United States; African states’ exports are not competitive on the EU market due to Common Agricultural Policies; and U.S. soldiers are protected from prosecution for war crimes. As Machiavelli put it, “all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.” Third, realism is state-centric in its approach. Realists do recognize that a multitude of actors vie for influence and shape the balance of power in the political arena. These actors include individuals, religious organizations, civil associations, multinational corporations, transnational movements, NGOs, and a variety of international bodies. However, for realists, the political actor that really matters is the nation state. This is not because nation states have been a default way of political organization since the dawn of the humanity , but because they possess something other actors in the political arena do not – sovereignty. That is, nation states are legally inviolable, independent, self-governing entities that set their own laws and norms within their respective territories, and are not subject to any over-arching authority, including that of other states. This is theory. In reality, not all states are equal and each state’s real degree of sovereignty varies and is determined by its geography, military and economic resource base, technology, as well as legitimacy in eyes of its citizens. To wit, Malawi’s sovereignty is qualitatively different than that of the United States. The latter state encompasses a huge territory, wields tremendous economic influence and military might, and possesses the world’s most advanced technology. The former is small, comparatively insignificant in economic and military terms, and in profound need of advanced technology. Fourth, realists assume that domestic and international political arenas are structured differently and thus ought to be treated with this in mind. The former has clear-cut power relations, is guided by state laws and societal norms, and strengthened by the ideological glue of nationalism. The latter represents an anarchic, Darwinian environment, whereby each state’s chief interest is survival, the protection of which ultimately depends on self-help. This self-help can take many forms, including alliance building, economic and military development, as well as territorial expansion. And fifth, most realists employ utilitarian, ends-based approach when evaluating morality of a given policy. They are suspicious of absolute moral principles – and, by extension, religion – as a guidance for policymaking, and they suggest policymakers be guided by prudence and pragmatism. In other words, morality that guides policymaking should be separated from personal morality. As George Kennan put it:
Moral principles have their place in the heart of the individual and in the shaping of his own conduct, whether as a citizen or as a government official…but when the individual’s behavior passes through the machinery of political organization and merges with that of millions of other individuals to find its expression in the actions of a government, it undergoes a general transmutation and the same moral concepts are no longer relevant to it…[and] may not subject itself to those supreme laws of renunciation and self-sacrifice that represent the culmination of individual moral growth.
Put differently, the most ethical policy is one that best helps preserve national interest and benefits most people, even though it may entail messy moral compromises. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, for example, was wrong when evaluated in terms of personal morality. Yet, it was ethically justified overall because it promoted strategic goals of the United States – ending World War II and saving lives of American soldiers.
Proponents of political idealism would surely disagree with such reasoning, not least because this ethical tradition represents a near mirror-image of realism. Like realism, its proponents are many and include St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, John Stewart Mill, Norman Angell, John Maynard Keynes, and Arnold J. Toynbee. Again, the tradition has given birth to many different strands, albeit a number of common features guiding idealist thought are clearly discernible.
First, unlike realists, idealists see fundamental goodness in human nature. They realize that humans have conflicting interests. However, they emphasize human proclivity to do good. In other words, they argue that one man’s gain need not be another man’s loss. For example, a woman who saves a complete stranger from drowning can hardly be described as self-interested – even though it is clear that both individuals benefit from her action, albeit in different ways. This optimism about human nature shapes idealists’ thinking about collective human behavior, including politics. Rather than seeing the political arena as one of unremitting Hobbesian strife, idealists see opportunities for cooperation and moral progress, holding that human nature “will eventually express its true interests in peace and through a reformed international system.” They may be right. As mentioned earlier, the 19th century discourse that exhorted the utility of slavery, argued that women were incapable of voting, and sanctioned scientific racism towards African, is no longer morally acceptable within the mainstream. More importantly – and somewhat surprisingly – empirical data demonstrates that the world has never been more peaceful in history. Second, while idealists recognize that the world still contains a great deal of social injustice and suffering, they do not blame human nature for this. Rather, these phenomena are byproducts of “historical circumstances, evil leaders, flawed sociopolitical systems, or inadequate international understanding and education.” Put succinctly, doing evil is a matter of choice, rather than genes – and as such can be put to an end. One way of speeding up this end is to ignore realists’ advice to accept things as they are and strive towards how things ought to be. Idealists are aware that their utopian visions will remain just that – utopian. However, they also understand that such bold statements and policies are needed in order to improve moral norms that guide political conduct. For example, what constitutes justice should not be determined by the powerful but arrived at through consensus and “behind the veil of ignorance.” Of course, such a process is not possible yet, but the vision itself opens up tantalizing what ifs that are worth pursuing. What if states applied law equally to everyone – in theory and practice –, regardless of their wealth and political influence? What if human rights violators and war criminals were prosecuted impartially and regardless of whether they are Americans or Malawians? What if we lived in a world where poverty and malaria are yesterday’s stories? And what if all states voluntarily disarmed and pursued perpetual peace as a strategic interest? In idealists’ view, then, the conduct of politics ought to rebel against realities on the ground and move the world towards vision of progress and optimism. Third, whereas realists are state-centric in their approach, idealists emphasize interdependence and non-state actors’ ability to advance and change moral discourse within states, contribute to the development of international legal norms that states adhere to, as well as help mold supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN. This, in turn, has implications for how idealists view the concept of state sovereignty. Speaking of other actors, take Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for example. These two NGOs might not possess territory or sovereignty of their own, yet their research and policy prescriptions carry significant weight in policymaking discourse. Speaking of international arena, idealists refuse to concede that it is hopelessly ridden with Hobbesian conflict and characterized by lawlessness. Rather than seeing latent state of war between states, idealists stress the ability of states to respect bilateral treaties, adhere to common international legal norms, and work together on solving issues of mutual importance. In other words, “anarchy is what states make of it.” This is no idle talk. For example, India and Pakistan have fought three major wars since 1948. Yet, throughout this period, the immensely important Indus Water Treaty , brokered in 1960 by the World Bank, withstood strains of this relationship. The International Court of Justice, for its part, now wields a real legal power – whether it comes to deciding on the validity of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s charge of genocide against Serbia , or arbitrating the territorial dispute between Qatar and Bahrain over the Hawar islands. And one would be wrong to underestimate the influence the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a host of other non-governmental actors have when it comes to the climate change debate. Importantly, all these factors influence idealists’ view of state sovereignty. They do recognize the importance of the concept. Yet, for them, state sovereignty is more of a state privilege than an intrinsic state right. The implication here is that states can lose their privilege to inviolability in extreme circumstances. When a state experiences state failure, attacks another state, commits genocide, or indiscriminately suppresses its own population, other states and their leaders have a duty to intervene and rein in the aggressor. In practice, of course, this relativistic view of sovereignty has been abused as a pretext for neo-imperial conquests, which is why most realists are skeptical of humanitarian interventions, even while they recognize the human cost of inaction. Fourth, given that idealists do not see international arena as radically different from its domestic counterpart, idealists say that state goals at home should be replicated in its foreign policy. A liberal democratic state, for instance, domestically embraces constitutional structures that allow for nonviolent political change, limited government, the rule of law, consent of the governed, and protection of human rights and dignity. Idealists see no reason why leaders of such a state should not make these principles the backbone of their foreign policy platform:
The plan of the liberal democratic state is based on a formula that seems to beg for application in the international sphere. Might not nations enter into a social contract just as individuals supposedly once did? Why should domestic governments alone be founded on nonviolent principles? Why stop at national borders? Shouldn’t a system of cooperative power, the key to resolving disputes without violence, be extended to the limits of the earth? Thought glides smoothly and easily to this conclusion.
This is the rephrasing of democratic peace theory and one can easily see the logic here. Since liberal democracies do not go to war with each other, the chances of achieving perpetual interstate peace and cooperation get better with the spread of liberal democracy. This is true. However, the actual record of exporting liberal democracy has thus far been mixed to say the least. It worked in the case of Indonesia. However, in other cases, from Rwanda to the Philippines, sudden introduction of democracy without institution building has led to the rise of “democratically elected regimes … [that] are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and freedoms.” And fifth, idealists embrace rule-based deontological reasoning when it comes to evaluating morality of a given policy. Unlike realists, who put premium on prudence and pragmatism, idealists tend to emphasize protection of human rights and consistency in the application of moral principles. In doing so, they argue that common morality ought to guide both the formation and implementation of a policy. A policy that does evil in order to achieve good – like the aforementioned Hiroshima bombing decision – does not pass this test.
A Case Study
Policymakers have to make moral trade-offs every day and walk a tight rope between realist and idealist approaches. Policymakers who fully embrace the former approach risk being considered heartless; those who embrace the latter approach risk upsetting strategic alliances and more. Think of the following sample dilemmas. Should the EU embrace Kurdish right to self-determination despite Turkish, Syrian, and Iranian objections, or should they put premium on interstate trade and joint development of energy projects? Should Russia unilaterally dismantle its huge nuclear arsenal, or adopt a wait-and-see approach and act according to strategic realities? And should China let Tibet go its own way, or integrate it ever more tightly into the Middle Kingdom due to its abundant resources? And was the United States right to resume weapons sales to Bahrain this May, although the country’s unenviable human rights record had not improved much since the violent suppression of protests a year ago? Let us consider the last dilemma in some detail.
The case of resuming arms sales to Bahrain presented a choice for U.S. policymakers. On the one hand, the Obama administration could have made good on its human rights rhetoric. Indeed, the State Department’s own 2011 Report on Country Reports on Human Rights Practices speaks of Bahrain thusly:
The most egregious human rights problems reported in 2011 included the inability of citizens to peacefully change their government; the dismissal and expulsion of workers and students for engaging in political activities; the arbitrary arrest and detention of thousands, including medical personnel, human rights activists, and political figures, sometimes leading to their torture and/or death in detention; and lack of due process. Other significant human rights concerns included arbitrary deprivation of life; detention of prisoners of conscience; reported violations of privacy and restrictions on civil liberties, including freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and some religious practices. In some instances the government imposed and enforced travel bans on political activists. Discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, nationality, and sect persisted, especially against the Shia population. The government demolished multiple Shia religious sites and structures during the year. There were reports of domestic violence against women and children. Trafficking in persons and restrictions on the rights of foreign workers continued to be significant problems.
This is idealist rhetoric par excellence. Had the U.S. government followed this rhetoric to its logical conclusions – the exertion of more pressure on the Bahraini government and perhaps the placing of economic sanctions –, it would have had won plaudits from human rights NGOs, forced Bahrain’s government to speed up reforms, prevented more short-term bloodshed, and perhaps increased the United States’ moral clout. The downside of such an idealistic policy would have been sending a signal to Bahrain and other authoritarian allies that the United States could not be counted on in a time of need. This, in turn, would force these states to reconsider their alliance with the United States or look elsewhere for protection. In this specific case, State Department officials ignored their own rhetoric and went for a realpolitik approach. The $53 billion weapons deal with Bahrain government – frozen last September – was resumed. The rationale given was that Bahrain needed to “maintain its external defense capabilities”, although the Bahraini opposition and human rights activists read it as the U.S. abandonment. To be clear, from a realist perspective, resuming the deal carried clear benefits for the United States. To begin with, the Obama Administration could not afford to ignore the Bahraini government, an important U.S. ally in a geopolitical “wasps’ nest.” Along with other Gulf states, Bahrain continues to play a critical role in the U.S. security architecture designed to ensure its geopolitical dominance in the region and uninterrupted flow of hydrocarbons through the Straits of Hormuz. Bahrain’s role in this architecture is critical, given that the country hosts the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, along with its Fifth Fleet. Finally, the added bonus of resuming the deal was to boost weapons manufacturing-related jobs in the United States itself, thereby improving Obama’s reelection chances amidst a gloomy economic climate.
As can be seen, the policy has internal logic. But why did realist policymakers prevail in this particular case? Generally speaking, there are three sets of factors that determine the final shape of a policy. First, there are competing audiences – certain ethnic, religious, or class segments of the population; non-governmental organizations, interest groups, and corporations; as well as other states – to whose interests policymakers need to pay attention. Second, there are systemic factors – relative strength of competing state institutions; climate between political parties; the society’s moral standards; international institutions; and interstate relations – that determine available policy choices. And third, there are policymakers’ instincts, management style, ideology, as well as prejudices. All three sets of factors influence the final choice, albeit to a different degree. In this case, policymakers were more interested in pleasing the U.S. arms industry than getting plaudits from Human Rights Watch. Extensive lobbying by the Bahraini government also helped. Systemic factors including bad state of the American economy and fear of Iran limited policymakers’ openness to more idealistic options. And style- and management-wise, the selection of this particular policy was not surprising given the Obama administration’s realpolitik record in Tunisia and Egypt.
Having introduced the topic, delineated two main ethical traditions in policy making, and examined the Bahrain case, it is hoped that the reader now has rudimentary tools to evaluate any policy – domestic or foreign – within rival ethical frameworks.
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