Study Of Public Administration Research Articles

The EGPA Study Group at 20: Reflections backwards, forwards, and sideways

I was not a founder member of the Permanent Study Group on Informatization in Public Administration, as it was then called. I joined it a few years later, in the early 1990s, and attended regularly for most years until the early 2000s. The Group’s 20th anniversary is a good time to look back and to look forward. I would like to do both, and to give my impressions and views of the Group. I would also like to look sideways, concerning the current situation of studies of privacy within the broader field covered by the Group. As a political scientist interested in public policy, I joined the Group because of my research and teaching involvement in the study of public administration and of the development of information practices which were likely to have a great impact on the public sector. I had begun to do research in this broad area, and had started to publish articles. My particular, more specialist, interest was in matters to do with public access to information and official secrecy, and with the protection of privacy. In the UK, the former had been more prominent in public debate than the latter as ‘information issues’, although in terms of the implications of informatisation, the question of privacy was probably more obviously relevant and, as it has turned out, especially important. Both sets of issues spoke to the changing relationship between citizens and the state, and therefore transcended the research questions of technical and managerial change that, quite properly, animated an interest in informatisation and that formed the basis of the cutting-edge research being done by the Group and its individual members. The development of electronic government, in which I had acquired what has become a lasting interest, was a central research focus for the Group and its members, and gave a great impetus to the Group’s emphasis on empirical and comparative research. So participation in the Group was, for me, one of the most important steps I could take in my own learning. It also proved to be a testing-ground for my own contributions, but this was sometimes frustrating as well, given the particular focus of the research in which I was involved, and in which the Group had little interest. The Group also served as a central node in a network of research relationships that ran across countries and levels of academic positions, so that it was easy to establish contacts outside the confines of the Group’s annual meetings. These networks connected to other kinds of formal relationship and institutional activity within Europe, and these have been of especial value to scholarship, as well as to my interests outside the privacy field. Overall, I believe that I have taken more from the Group than I have contributed, so I have accumulated a large debt. In this brief piece of retrospection, and in keeping with good privacy protection, I will not mention any creditors’ names, although there have been particular individuals whom I have regarded as my mentors in this general field of research. Some have been

5 Public Administration and Organization Studies

The study of public organizations has withered over time in mainstream organization studies research, as scholars in the field have migrated to business schools. This is so even though government organizations are an important part of the universe of organizations—the largest organizations in the world are agencies of the U.S. government. At the same time, the study of public administration, once in the mainstream of organization studies, has moved into a ghetto, separate and unequal. Centered in business schools, mainstream organization research became isomorphic to its environment—coming to focus on performance issues, which are what firms care about. Since separation, the dominant current in public administration has become isomorphic with its environment. In this case, however, this meant the field moved backward from the central reformist concern of its founders with improving government performance, and developed instead a focus on managing constraints (i.e., avoiding bad things, such as corruption or misuse of power, from occurring) in a public organization environment. Insufficient concern about performance among public administration scholars is particularly unfortunate because over the past 15 years, there has occurred a significant growth of interest among practitioners in improving government performance. The origins and consequences of these developments are discussed, and a research agenda for organization studies research that takes the public sector seriously is proposed.

5 Public Administration and Organization Studies

The study of public organizations has withered over time in mainstream organization studies research, as scholars in the field have migrated to business schools. This is so even though government organizations are an important part of the universe of organizations—the largest organizations in the world are agencies of the U.S. government. At the same time, the study of public administration, once in the mainstream of organization studies, has moved into a ghetto, separate and unequal. Centered in business schools, mainstream organization research became isomorphic to its environment—coming to focus on performance issues, which are what firms care about. Since separation, the dominant current in public administration has become isomorphic with its environment. In this case, however, this meant the field moved backward from the central reformist concern of its founders with improving government performance, and developed instead a focus on managing constraints (i.e., avoiding bad things, such as corruption or misuse of power, from occurring) in a public organization environment. Insufficient concern about performance among public administration scholars is particularly unfortunate because over the past 15 years, there has occurred a significant growth of interest among practitioners in improving government performance. The origins and consequences of these developments are discussed, and a research agenda for organization studies research that takes the public sector seriously is proposed.

Can Student Philanthropy Help to Address the Current Nonprofit Identity Crisis? A Case Study of a Multiyear, Multidisciplinary Project at Northern Kentucky University

Since the systematic study of public administration began, many different approaches have been taken to make future public administrators aware of the contexts of public agencies and to prepare them with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in such organizations. One of the most recent innovations is student philanthropy, an experiential learning process through which students learn about nonprofit organizations and select one or more to which they award funding. Using survey data from 2000 to 2005, this paper assesses the short-term and long-term effects of Northern Kentucky University’s student philanthropy project and compares the experiences of students enrolled in the public administration discipline versus other disciplines such as art, sociology, education, nursing, and business.

Does Frederick Taylor’s Ghost Still Haunt the Halls of Government? A Look at the Concept of Governmental Efficiency in Our Time

Since the Progressive Era, efficiency has been a cherished administrative value and a key concept in the study of public administration. Despite contemporary attention to other criteria, such as responsiveness and equity, efficiency remains a guiding governmental value and a focus of scholarly writing. Although efficiency is often considered an apolitical value, this article argues that public sector efficiency receives meaning through a political framework. The analysis explores changing definitions of transit efficiency to propose a revitalized, politically attuned concept.

The public administration turn in integration research

ABSTRACT This article highlights how the study of public administration is brought back into the study of European integration and European Union (EU) governance. The public administration turn in integration research has brought generic insights into the broader field of public administration but has also brought theories, concepts and hypotheses from public administration into the field of integration research. The purpose of this overview is to reveal the variegated and rich research agendas in public administration research and to stimulate further research. This public administration turn highlights (i) the impact of the formal organization of core executive institutions such as the European Commission; (ii) the conditional autonomy of subordinate administrative units such as EU-level agencies; (iii) the integration of multi-level administrative systems through collegial structures such as EU-level committees; and (iv) the external penetration and differentiated impact of EU-level institutions on domestic public administration. The lack of systematic knowledge about the impact of administrative structures within EU-level and domestic public administration is thus steadily reduced.

Bringing the Courts Back In: Interbranch Perspectives on the Role of Courts in American Politics and Policy Making

▪ Abstract Understanding the role of law and courts in American politics and policy making is inherently complex. The dominant response to this problem has been to specialize narrowly in Supreme Court decision making. The problem is that American politics and policy making are inherently interactive and thus cannot be easily parsed into component parts. Consistent with this observation, a growing literature assumes that courts must be studied from an interbranch perspective, which holds that American politics and policy making emanate from interaction among overlapping and diversely representative forums. The result is studies that analyze how law and courts fit into broader political and policy-making processes and reveal the political significance of seemingly technical legal matters. By redescribing courts and judicial decision making in political terms, interbranch analysis not only enriches the study of judicial behavior but also promises to bring law and courts back into the mainstream of the study of American politics and public administration—where they belong.[N]o skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces—the legislative, executive, and judiciary. … Questions daily occur in the course of practice which prove the obscurity which reigns in these subjects, and which puzzle the greatest adepts in political science.James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 37 (1788 [1987], p. 244)

Public administration's final exam: a pragmatist restructuring of the profession and the discipline

Michael Harmon employs the literary conceit of a Final Exam, first written in the early 1930s, in a critique of the field's answers to the legitimacy question. Because the assumptions that underwrite the question preclude the possibility of a coherent answer, the exam should be canceled and its question rewritten. Envisaging a public administration no longer hostage to the legitimacy question, Harmon explains how the study and practice of public administration might proceed from adolescence to maturity. Drawing chiefly from pragmatist philosophy, he argues that despite the universal rejection of the politics/administration dichotomy on factual grounds, the pseudo-problem of legitimacy nonetheless persists in the guise of four related conceptual dualisms: values and facts; thinking and doing; ends and means; and, theory and practice. Collectively, these dualisms demand an impossible answer to the practical question of how we might live, and govern, together in a world of radical uncertainty and interdependence. Only by dissolving them can the legitimacy question (Woodrow Wilson's ghost) finally be banished, clearing away the theoretical debris that obscures a more vital and useful conception of governance.

The Art of Prescription

This article addresses a perennial controversy in the study of public administration - should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? And, if so, how should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? It is claimed that the answers to these questions lie in the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and action, theory and practice. In consequence it is argued that it is the responsibility of public administration scholars not only to provide explanations and understandings of administrative and political subjects but also to defend bureaucracy and to seek progress through ‘enlightened’ prescription. With these arguments in mind, first a ‘critical approach’ to public administration for reconciling the world of thought and the world of action is presented in which the prescriptive enterprise is used to integrate theory and practice. Second, a set of principles for ‘enlightened’ prescription is formulated to ensure that the knowledge claims that emerge from this process remain as rigorously conceived as possible. And third, a methodology is developed through the use of a logical framework matrix to provide both a practical device for evaluating the utility of public administration research for public action and to draw attention to putative problems in research in terms of theorization, method, data analysis and synthesis - thus demonstrating the benefit of ‘enlightened’ prescription to both the study of public administration and its practice.

The Ulrich Klöti Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Study of Public Policy, Administration, and Institutions

GovernanceVolume 19, Issue 4 p. 689-689 The Ulrich Klöti Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Study of Public Policy, Administration, and Institutions First published: 27 October 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2006.00335.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume19, Issue4October 2006Pages 689-689 RelatedInformation

Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making. Ronald D. Brunner, Toddi A. Steelman, Lindy Coe-Juell, Chistina M. Cromley, Christine M. Edwards, and Donna W. Tucker. 2005. Columbia University Press, New York. 368 pp. $79.50 cloth, $29.50 paperback.

Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making. Ronald D. Brunner, Toddi A. Steelman, Lindy Coe-Juell, Chistina M. Cromley, Christine M. Edwards, and Donna W. Tucker. 2005. Columbia University Press, New York. 368 pp. 29.50 paperback.In Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making, Ronald D. Brunner et al. have outlined some illustrations of progress toward improved public policy. This is documented through five case studies of public lands management and administration. The authors define adaptive governance as a process that integrates scientific and other types of knowledge into policies through a context of open decision-making structures; the goal is to advance the common interest. The purpose of the volume is to clarify how to expedite a transition to adaptive governance for people concerned about the problems of gridlock in natural resource policy and who are in a position to make a difference.

The Art of Governance: Analyzing Management and Administration

The Art of Governance: Analyzing Management and Administration, Patricia W. Ingraham and Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., eds., Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004, pp. 238.What is “governance”? Despite a huge literature, a major journal, and numerous teaching programmes and courses ostensibly dealing with the subject, it is a concept that still inspires much confusion. Many students of political science, among others, see the term as being simply a synonym of “governing,” used to describe what governments actually “do,” or as just a new name for the traditional subject matter of established fields such as public administration and public management, offering little in the way of value-added to those more traditional terms and academic fields. Others, of course, argue that “governance” represents a fundamental new way of “governing,” specifically a much less top-down and hierarchical form than is traditionally associated with studies of public administration, and hence a subject worthy of additional attention and the coinage of neologisms.

Reenacting, Retracing, and Rediscovering History: Making a Connection in the Public Administration Curriculum

The study of public administration is an amalgamation of discoveries from many disciplines, including organizational management, political science, psychology, and sociology (Dahl, 1947; Denhardt, 1989). Curiously, one discipline that is inadequately represented in a complex and multidisciplinary approach to examining public administration is history. This article discusses how history manages to receive minimal attention in the curriculum and why it should gain greater prominence in the classroom, and it suggests teaching mechanisms to assist in recovering and enhancing the significance of our history in advancing our understanding of public administration.

Sustainability indicators, policy and governance: Issues for ecological economics

Ecological economics is a major forum for discussion of theoretical and analytical aspects of measuring sustainability. The role of sustainability indicators as an evaluation method for sustainability within the emerging context of governance merits further analysis. Focusing on policy processes surrounding the production of sustainability indicators, this paper addresses two questions: what is the potential utility of indicators for policy; and in what ways can indicators influence governance? The former is addressed by exploring three disciplines with long histories of indicator application: public administration studies, urban studies and environmental sciences. The latter is addressed by distilling key perspectives from public policy literature on knowledge utilisation and policy learning, which become the foundation for clarifying the notion of policy-resonant indicators. This clarification is achieved by canvassing the spectrum of the influences on indicators and the mechanisms of their resonance in policy processes. The final section of the paper brings these arguments together by exploring two major insights in terms of challenges for ecological economics: strengthening indicator theory and practice by addressing four key ingredients; and mobilisation of indicators through their active use within the context of governance.

Public Sector Motivation: Is There Something to Learn From the Study of Volunteerism?

A principal question in the study of public administration is how to motivate personnel to work in public services and to work towards achieving public purposes. The conceptualisation of the notion of ‘public service motivation’ has provided researchers with openings to explain the disinterested behaviour often displayed by public servants. In a similar way other scholars trying to explain what motivates individuals to take up volunteering activities, struggle to explain disinterested or altruistic behaviour This article examines the contribution that the literature on volunteering can make to a better understanding of public service motivation. The article first, outlines major arguments used to explain why people volunteer and second, explores the extent to which these insights provide a fertile ground for public management scholars to further develop theories of public service motivation. The insight into the multi-dimensional nature of volunteering motivation and the notion of ‘impure’ altruism demonstrate that altruistic activities are both complex and rationally driven. This leads to ways of narrowing the existing gap between rational choice and principal-agent theories of motivation and a purely altruistic view of public service. Finally, the article examines what this implies for the development of human resource policies to obtain and retain committed and motivated staff.

A Probe into China's Public Administration Education and the Construction of the Subject of Public Administration

China is in transition from a traditional planned economy to a market economy. It has reached the knowledge economy and information networks stage. This paper discusses the resumption, reconstruction, and development of the study of public administration in China. It explores the construction of the subject of administration in China.

“A Long Way Toward What?”* Sex, Gender, Feminism, and the Study of Public Administration

This article (re)introduces readers to the meanings of terms like sex, gender, and feminism in public administration (PA) scholarship. It asks how far public administration scholarship has come in its understandings of sex, gender, and feminism, offers a typology for published articles in public administration; and asks how far we have come in apprehending the gender of public administration. *The question posed in the title of this article is taken from McIntosh, P. Interactive Phases of Curricular Revision: A Feminist Perspective; Working Paper No. 124; Wellesley College Center for Research on Women: Boston, MA, 1983.

The Quest for Indigenous Administration: Asian Communist, Islamic Revivalist, and Other Models

This paper briefly explores instances of administrative indigenization—defined as native patterns neither imposed nor copied from Euro-centric systems—and implications for the study of Comparative Public Administration. China and Iran—as presented in the Comparative Public Administration literature, broadly defined—are suggested as iconoclastic administrative models which are both viable and interesting and in contrast with Western (Northern) models of study and application. Other emerging models—many of them based on grass-roots movements (not to be confused with terrorist movements)—also provide alternatives to the prescriptions of the New Public Management as well as to the conventional secular, “non-political” hierarchies. Comparative Public Administration needs to accommodate such alternatives on a coequal basis.

The Effects of Managerial Succession on Organizational Performance

The Effects of Managerial Succession on Organizational Performance

Symposium on "The forefront of Study of Public Administration -Research of Culture of the Public Administration of Japan-"

Symposium on "The forefront of Study of Public Administration -Research of Culture of the Public Administration of Japan-"