FASHIONS AND FANTASIES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION*

Abstract

The title of this address results in part from discontent with much of the literature of Public Administration and Public Policy. It is mild discontent, and I do not want unduly to depreciate our writings. But I stop reading many books and articles disappointed, at finding old or obvious ideas restated in new words; at seeing a useful idea refined by scholasticism into complex and empirically untestable propositions; feeling that I am being “got at”; worst of all, with a sense that the work casts only a fitful or elusive light on the important problems it claims to deal with. Schuyler Wallace said years ago when I was starting my academic career that administrative study had been mainly built on the basis of half‐truths and fictions,1 and I believe this is still true. If I had remembered this phrase earlier, I might have called the paper “Half‐Truths and Fictions in Public Administration”. If it reflects some real discontents, it is also intended to be a bit jokey. Should the jokes fall flat or degenerate into vulgar abuse, blame the author.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 46 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.