The Public Administration of Politics, or What Political Science Could Learn from Public Administration

Abstract

The purpose of the John Gaus Award and Lectureship is to recognize “scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration.” That tradition has a long and honorable history. Many of the presidents of the American Political Science Association were scholars of public administration (Frank J. Goodnow, Woodrow Wilson, W. W. Willoughby, Leonard White, Luther Gulick, Pendleton Herring, Emmette S. Redford, Carl J. Friedrich, James Q. Wilson, and Matthew Holden, Jr.) and several others made contributions to the literature (V. O. Key, Jr., Charles S. Hyneman, Robert A. Dahl, Aaron Wildavsky, and Elinor Ostrom). Yet a visitor from another planet studying political science and public administration might conclude that these tribes have evolved into two distinct species. Prepared for presentation as the John Gaus Distinguished Lecture, American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, September 1, 2006, Philadelphia. I would like to thank Paul Brace, George Krause, Alisa Hicklin, Larry O'Toole, Jim Rogers, and Michael Thies for their assistance.