Without Blinders: Public Values Scholarship in Political Science, Economics, and Law—Content and Contribution to Public Administration

Gjalt De Graaf,Zeger Van Der Wal

doi:10.1080/10999922.2016.1269277

Gjalt De Graaf, Zeger Van Der Wal

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2016.1269277

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Abstract

How and why are public values studied within public administration’s cognate disciplines? This question is addressed through a qualitative analysis of 50 public values (PVs) publications in political science, economics, and law published between 1969 and 2014. The findings show that political scientists intuitively connect PVs to the actual public rather than to government agencies and employees, whereas legal scholars often view PVs as public interests or rights. Economists are mostly concerned with how PVs can be qualified vis-à-vis private “value” and values. In short, each discipline views PVs in accordance with its key foci and epistemologies; as such, “wearing blinders” is not exclusive to one discipline. Moreover, a citation analysis shows that PVs scholars in the field of public administration seldom engage with literature from these disciplines, and vice-versa, even though doing so provides opportunities for broadening the discipline’s understanding of PVs and how they conflict, across various stages and functions of policy and administration, in the pursuit of good governance.

Highlights

How and why are public values studied within public administration’s cognate disciplines? This question is addressed through a qualitative analysis of 50 public values (PVs) publications in political science, economics, and law published between 1969 and 2014
Moore and others emphasize the importance of PVs in the process of public value creation, PVs may be viewed as inherently moral concepts—“important qualities and standards that have a certain weight in the choice of public action and decision making” (Van der Wal, De Graaf, & Lasthuizen, 2008, p. 468; see De Graaf, 2005)
PVs scholarship is quite different from scholarship on public service motivation (PSM), to name another popular and slightly related topic within public administration (PA), where over 80% of publications use an identical definition and measure, resulting in more conceptual integration and empirical progress (Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016), notwithstanding substantive criticism at the same time (Su & Bozeman, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

How and why are public values studied within public administration’s cognate disciplines? This question is addressed through a qualitative analysis of 50 public values (PVs) publications in political science, economics, and law published between 1969 and 2014. Public values (PVs) have been among the most-studied topics in public administration (PA) since the start of the twenty-first century (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, & De Graaf 2015). Moore and others emphasize the importance of PVs in the process of public value creation, PVs may be viewed as inherently moral concepts—“important qualities and standards that have a certain weight in the choice of public action and decision making” A recent review of PVs publications showed that most PVs scholars do not use (clear) definitions, and rarely build on similar central works (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, & De Graaf 2015). PVs scholarship is quite different from scholarship on public service motivation (PSM), to name another popular and slightly related topic within PA, where over 80% of publications use an identical definition and measure, resulting in more conceptual integration and empirical progress (Ritz, Brewer, & Neumann, 2016), notwithstanding substantive criticism at the same time (Su & Bozeman, 2015)

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