The Aims of Public Administration: Reviving the Classical View

Abstract

The discipline of public administration is concerned with the construction, management, and adaptation of institutions that perform essential state functions. Many scholarly enterprises address questions falling within the domain of public administration. This paper compares three enterprises that gained prominence over the last thirty years: Public Management, Statebuilding, and American Political Development. Each of these enterprises has a crisp but limited view of the domain of public administration. These enterprises rarely engage with each other. Consequently, scholars within each enterprise are sometimes unaware of how their view is distinctive and blinkered. Our overall understanding of public administration will improve when barriers between these three enterprises are knocked down. Public Management particularly will benefit from a dialogue among enterprises. Scholars working within Public Management will identify important but neglected problems of public administration, improve their ability to address neglected "big questions," and have a better understanding of the constraints on institutional reform.