This article analyses the contradictions that arise when the widely
accepted ethical principles we use as social researchers are applied in
the context of researching the powerful. It does so in order to
encourage a debate about how we might reconstruct a workable ethical
framework in the context of ‘studying up’. This article draws on
prolonged debates on the relevance and appropriateness of ethical codes,
exploring how the concepts and the guidelines that codify them might be
reframed. The paper thus analyses the dominant ethical principles
adopted in professional codes of conduct, foregrounding a twin obsession
with professional (the social scientist) and institutional (the
university) autonomy that hampers the development of a research ethics
that meaningfully contributes to enhancing the public or common
interest. Instead, we argue for a reconstruction of social science
research ethics based on a collectivist understanding of the ‘public
interest’ that is not exclusively defined for and by the academy but
connects to all groups interested in knowing about the closed-off worlds
of the powerful.