Indian Administrative Theory: Context and Epistemology

Abstract

Theoretical research in India has unwittingly vacillated around American experience. Early studies, which were largely empirical, explored important policy variables but they missed out on theoretical frameworks, which could explain policy slippages. CAG made the first valuable attempt to define those common variables, which had the potential of explaining critical realities of all societies as an effort towards mutual learning. Its emphasis on “ecology” indicated the scope for further research into issues of identities, domination and privilege. The untimely wound up of CAG blocked theoretical maturity of its research and left public administration undefended for a blitzkrieg by state politics. Poverty reduction and “catching up” made policy structures domains of technical experts who replicated Western models, which contained serious contextual and epistemological inadequacies. Riggs enlightened practitioners about “substantive administration” and critical theory of Habermas and Roy Bhasker explained the “causal forces of society.” In conclusion, the paper brings out the fact that the society is internally related through bonds, which can be called “epistemic” and through quantum mechanics a near objective assessment of the inadequacies of implanted models in governance such as the new public management can be arrived at.

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