Public Administration: The Interdisciplinary Study of Government
"There is a strong tradition in public administration that reflects on the identity of the field, questions the rigor of the research, and suggests paths moving forward on both fronts. [This book] distinctively contributes to that reflective tradition, developing a thoughtful survey of past debates while adding new and thoughtfully developed insights. The author successfully invites a wide range of participation in the book through an inviting style of writing. [The book] delivers on the promise in the title of mapping the way for interdisciplinary study to expand the understanding of public administration. Raadschelders offers insights for researchers, teachers, and practitioners, as well as mapping a path to generate new discussions, to connect the research across disciplines and traditions, and a deep appreciation of the complexity and challenges in the study and practice of public administration."--American Review of Public Administration"In this excellent and provocative book, Jos C. N. Raadschelders strives to explain what the academic study of public administration is. Raadschelders's analysis is sophisticated and complex. He avoids such simplifications as viewing the study as merely divided along lines established long ago by Herbert Simon and Dwight Waldo. He draws on American and European public administration and, in the process, demonstrates encyclopedic knowledge of the literature and study of the field. [The book] provides a major service to public administration scholars, researchers, and educators. It should be eagerly read by everyone who wants to know more about what pubic administration is and how its study may be advanced."--Public Administration Review[Public Administration] is one of the most impressive books written on public administration in a long while and, as its dusk jacket accolades fairly state, a 'landmark' in the field. Raadschelders has been working on the complex matters tackled in the book for over 20 years and his experience with the material is in evidence on every page. It provides the best account to date about the 'nature' of the study of public administration and its identity crises."--Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory"Raadschelders has written a fascinating book. In it, he adroitly frames some of the fundamental conceptual divides afflicting the study of public administration. He pays proper respect to the field's big players as well as its giants with a dense skein of references to inspirations, antecedents, and antagonists. And he offers his own bold synthesis, one that will not summon full consensus but deserves the respectful consideration of anyone who thinks seriously about what it means to think seriously about government. Close engagement with this book will pay off richly for those questing after the sweet spot--along the spectrum from practitioners' atheoretical war stories to pristine high-church theorizing--at which to situate intellectual work on government.Public Administrationis not for everyone. The pace is fast and the landscape vast. If it is not for everybody, however, it is emphatically just the thing for some of us."--Perspectives on Politics"Raadschelders has written a wise and valuable book.Public Administrationrepresents a much needed and highly relevant discussion of what defines Public Administration (PA) as a scholarly field. Raadschelders authoritatively reviews the field and its main epistemological debates; contextualizes PA studies within the broader philosophy of sciences discussions; and employs 'conceptual maps' to capture the main topics that define contemporary PA. This book should be read by anyone interested in learning about PA's historical, theoretical, and epistemological developments. But as in the case of any significant academic contribution, Raadschelders' assessment and argumentation about PA's status and contours also deserve to be further debated."--Public Administration