Working across boundaries

Abstract

We are aware that an important part of the dialogue within the public administration community(ies) is informed by a preoccupation with how we define the discipline or how others define it. To some extent we might be overreacting to the claim that the discipline is in decline and that it has fallen out of fashion or favour. We accept that there are ways in which we might measure the overall success or decline of the discipline by reference to a whole battery of metrics including student numbers, success of specific conferences or academic journals and the volume of activity associated with the journal as counted by the research councils. While we are repeating old ground (our sister journal Public Policy and Administration published a Special Issue on the ‘State of the Discipline’ [27(3)]), we would want to argue that the growth in public management (whether in the public sector/quasi public sector or the not-for-profit sector) globally is a key and real indicator of the longevity of the discipline. Do these debates matter? And are they not part of the inevitable debates/disputes within academic and research communities? We think that they do matter (and yes, they are part of the inevitable background of professional/academic debate or rivalry). They matter because we do need to reassert (from time to time) the connections between research, practice, and teaching and learning. These debates matter (especially for those of us committed to and involved in this journal) because they offer the context within which we can situate these discussions and examine their ramifications precisely because they do bring together different elements of the debate. A core element in this conversation, we think, is the relationship between research, practice, and teaching and learning. We think that the intellectual and pedagogical framework within which we locate these debates does offer something more than a