Human(e) government: charting a positive path in a hostile world

Abstract

Abstract In an environment of turbulence and an era of intensifying hostility to public servants, how can we chart a more positive pathway for the field of public administration and management? In the 2025 Donald C. Stone Lecture at the American Society for Public Administration, new foundations to inform a more human(e) approach were explored as a way of addressing this question. Important dynamics in the current environment are sketched out, followed by four ideas to shape thinking on the future: positivity, complexity, humility, and empathy. Each of these big ideas is presented as pieces of a broader movement toward a new paradigm of public administration and management.

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 — 6 citations exist upstream.

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