There are many compelling reasons for bringing insights from political science (PS) into public administration (PA) and vice versa (Peters et al., 2022). Some authors argue that PS is “the mother discipline of PA” (Hustedt et al., 2020, p. 133). Others argue that PS grew from PA (Kettl, 2022). In any case, the two fields have (had) a close relationship in terms of sharing topics, departments, journals, and professional associations. It is well documented that this relationship (with regional variations) has become less close over time (Peters et al., 2022). In Kettl's contribution to this mini-symposium, he asks whether the “marriage” between PA and PS can and should be saved. As shown by Nabatchi (2022—also in this symposium), the argument for a (re)integration of political science and public administration has been a blazing and repetitive row since at least the 1950s. In this essay, I argue that PA and PS should still be closely connected to deliver high-quality, relevant research, but that the relevant metaphor should be close professional partners in a larger collaborative group rather than a monogamous marriage (that may end in divorce cf. Peters et al., 2022). My first claim is thus that although PA and PS need each other, both can benefit from collaborating with other fields and disciplines. My own background is that I am a public administration scholar with degrees in political science working at Aarhus University where PA and PS are situated in the same department, contributing to a joint degree program (and to other programs with specific focus on either public management, public administration, or political science). I am a member of PMRA, APPAM and ASPA,1 and I am study group governor of one of EGPA's permanent study groups and former board member of PMRA. I am coeditor of PAR and IPMJ and have been coeditor of PPMG. As an editor, I have seen excellent combinations of PA and PS perspectives, but I have also seen manuscripts that suffered greatly from unawareness of core PS insights. I suspect that the reverse is also true. I acknowledge that the question about the desirable relationship between PA and PS concerns both the scientific work and the people who perform it. The associations, journals and departments form the social groups where we belong, but these groups should not be opponents, and we should focus on common questions rather than negative perceptions of each other. Therefore, my second claim is that the discussion about the relationship between PA and PS should focus on the purpose behind the (professional) relationship and avoid emotional metaphors. After a brief discussion of how I see PA as a field, I present my most important arguments why PA and PS are relevant perspectives for the same research questions without being the only relevant perspectives. This implies that PA and PS should not be exclusive. I conclude the essay with my reason for preferring a less emotional and more purpose-oriented discussion. Before we dive into the relation between PA and PS, it is relevant to consider briefly what PA is about, where it comes from, and what its ambitions are. While PS has been a (self-declared) discipline for many years (Almond et al., 1962), PA is more of a chameleon (Hustedt et al., 2020). A relevant question is whether it is defined by its aim, theories, methods, or subject. PA is hardly alone in aiming to develop relevant answers to society's biggest issues, such as how we manage democratic government effectively (Kettl, 2022). This suggests that PA is not defined by its aim, although this aim is more central for PA than for other parts of social science. In general, PA scholars collaborate widely with public organizations, and Hustedt et al. (2020, p. 131, see also Bauer, 2018) find that PA is more linked to government practice than PS is. Still, the ties to government practice within PA vary (and have always varied) geographically and between individual scholars, even within the same department. This is another argument against defining PA based on its aim. In terms of theory, PA both borrows theories and has some of its own (e.g., public service motivation). It does not have a unifying paradigm or “grand theory” (Hustedt et al., 2020, p. 132). PA scholars typically apply multiple methods borrowed from different disciplines. The (stereotypical) perception is that while political scientists have a preference for quantitative large-N studies, PA researchers traditionally prefer qualitative small-n comparative or single-case studies of public organizations, policy processes and service delivery (Peters et al., 2022, p. 15). These methodological differences are now seen as mere stereotypes, given that all types of methodology and research designs have gained more attention in PA (as illustrated by the popularity of the methods pre-conference workshops at Public Management Research Conference). Turning to the subject of PA as a potential defining characteristic, the merits of studying public and private organizations as distinctive have long been debated. Publicness as a concept (Bozeman, 1987) has evolved from a dichotomy between public and private ownership to a multidimensional concept that includes ownership, funding, and control (Meier, 2015, p. 16). If public organizations and their employees are unique in some respects, it can define PA as a field. For this reason, I agree with Pollitt (2010, p. 292) that PA is unified by its subjects—the state, the public sector, and the public realm—not its aims, theories or methods. Before we turn to the reasons why PA and PS should be close professional partners, it is worth mentioning that this discussion is neither simple nor new. More than 60 years ago, key stakeholders from the American Political Science Association wrote, “There are also certain complexities in developing working relations between the discipline of political science and such professional fields of instruction as law, business administration, public administration, school administration, social work, and foreign affairs. The desirable relationship between the discipline and related professional fields deserves continuing attention” (Almond et al., 1962). The relationship between PA and PS does deserve attention, but the quote illustrates that if the relationship had been a marriage, PS had been unfaithful from the beginning. Such disciplinary infidelity may be a good thing, because both PA and PS can benefit from other fields and disciplines, which can again profit from the (sometimes combined) insights from PA and PS. I will return to this point after a discussion of why the relationship between PA and PS should be close. Given that politicians are the ultimate leaders on behalf of the people, most publicly owned organizations are inherently political. This is the basic argument made by Peters et al. (2022) in warning against the separation between PA and PS. I agree. The more externally imposed political authority affects an organization, the higher publicness (Bozeman, 1987) and the higher relevance of including insights from both PA and PS when we study an organization, its employees, and the results it creates. I also agree that several upcoming developments can be expected to underscore the political nature of public administration. Furthermore, given that some mix of public and private authority influences most organizations, the combined insights from PA and PS are relevant for all types of social science studies that include organizations. This implies that PA and PS should not be in an exclusive relationship, because other fields and disciplines will then miss their insights. For example, generic management studies might overlook the specific political dynamics in public organizations. Although George Boyne and Kenneth Meier (2009) published their article in Journal of Management Studies and wrote about environmental change and organizational turnaround, they used their combined PA and PS insights to emphasize the importance of the political feasibility of strategies for change. They also stress that failure and success in the public sector “are judged not on ‘objective’ financial criteria but according to the preferences of powerful groups in the political system” (2009, p. 841). This exemplifies how PA and PS can contribute to other disciplines and fields. Peters et al. (2022, p. 1) argue that the “bifurcation of Political Science and Public Administration … tends to provide a partial view of the reality that it seeks to capture”. I agree, but all views on reality are partial, and considerations of parsimony mean that not all disciplines and fields can be involved in answering all research questions. Addressing real world problems requires collaboration across academic disciplines and fields of study, because the complexities of the real world seldom correspond to the boundaries of a single field or discipline. This implies that we need to include the most relevant perspectives. Instead of conducting yet another literature analysis, I will present theoretical arguments both for broader collaboration among the social sciences and for a close partnership between PA and PS within this broader collaboration. The argument for broader collaboration comes from integral theory (Wilber, 2000). It uses a simple framework to synthesize various perspectives on individuals, behavior, collective consciousness, and societal organization. As shown in Table 1, it uses a grid with four quadrants (defined by the distinctions between interior and exterior and between individual and collective) to illustrate how different perspectives on the social world are necessary to achieve a full understanding of a phenomenon (see also Tønnesvang et al., 2015 for a very useful description of the model). The model allows for theorization of the relationship between concepts and insights from different disciplines and fields and thus systematizes the study of complex social phenomena (such as leadership credibility, see Jakobsen et al., 2022) that cannot be reduced to one or two quadrants and that are relevant for multiple fields and disciplines. My point is that all social science disciplines need to be aware of all four types of perspectives, but they are not equally strong in each perspective. They may also have assumptions and habits that hinder an integrated analysis—unless they work together. The broad picture is that the discipline of economics focuses on the behavior and interactions of economic agents (the upper right corner). Psychology is the scientific study of the individual mind (both conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts) and is most strongly positioned in the upper left corner. PS focuses on politics, systems of governance and power (the lower right corner). Still, parts of PS focus primarily on political behavior, illustrating that specialties within a discipline may have different positions in Table 1 (compared to the broad picture). Sociology focuses on patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture (the lower left corner). We could go on with law and all the other disciplines and fields, but the key point is that the different fields and disciplines need each other. This is especially true for PA, which focuses on implementation of government policies and programs as well as the behavior, norms, and motivation of public employees (and beneficiaries of public services) and therefore has to collaborate with many other disciplines and fields to understand its subject—the state, the public sector and the public realm. It can also be important for PA to collaborate with management, which studies organizations, whether it is businesses, non-profit organizations, or government bodies. This collaboration already happens to some extent. Andrews and Esteve (2015) find that the influence of generic management theories on certain PA journals and scholars has grown. Despite the inherently political nature of the subject of PA, it is not only political. The insight from management can inspire PA-scholars if they do not automatically state that public and private management are only alike in unimportant respects (Allison, 1980). Similarly, given that most complex organizations (also businesses and non-profit organizations) have at least some degree of publicness, management can also learn from PA. Parallel to the argument presented by Peters et al. (2022) just for other disciplines, Burgi (2020) and Bezes (2020) argue that the potential for cooperation between PA, administrative law, and sociology is very important and indispensable for PA. In line with this, Bouckaert and Jann (2020, p. 461) criticize current PA for being “too much dominated by a single discipline (which could be law, or economics, or management, or politics)”. The logic of the quadrant model—that a phenomenon can be seen from interior and exterior perspectives focusing on the individual or the collective—supports this if the different disciplines and fields have different strengths and weaknesses in relation to the quadrants. This implies that it is very important that a greater mutual engagement between PA and PS does not happen at the expense of other interdisciplinary contributions (e.g., with psychology, sociology, and economics). Interdisciplinarity will be even more important in the future, and this means that PA may have an advantage because of its existing collaborations across disciplines and fields. This suggests a strong partnership between PA and PS, but not a monogamous marriage. Given current developments in the literature, what are the prospects for greater mutual engagement between PA and PS scholarship? I think that Peters et al. (2022) have already given a lot of good input to answering this question, so I will only add one thing. Let us stop treating the relationship between PA and PS as an emotional arrangement (the affective side of the marriage metaphor—I have already argued that the relationship should not be exclusive). In the introduction, I argued that PA and PS should be “close professional partners” in a larger collaborative group rather than spouses in a monogamous marriage that may end in divorce. The desirable relationship between PA and PS concerns both the scientific work and the people who perform it. These people are members of different associations, they submit their work to specific journals, and they work in different departments. In other words, they belong to different social groups, typically identifying strongly with their ingroup. Emotions are a central driver of behavior toward such groups, and people react differently toward an outgroup member depending on their emotional state. This can amplify intergroup conflict and competition and increase the bias against outgroup members (Smith & Mackie, 2015). If we discuss the relationship between PA and PS as a private relationship—and talk about divorce—we focus on emotions rather than on the purposes behind the professional relationship. Instead of seeing an overlap, some people may start to see the groups as being in conflict with each other, given that much of our identity as scientists is connected to our field and discipline. As Kettl (2022) writes, we should rather create a consensus that connects the silos with focus on a shared set of common, important problems. Our professional relationships (including the relationship between PA and PS) should thus focus on answering relevant, important questions.
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Apr 23, 2024
Tamir Moustafa 
