Contemporary Issues in American Public Administration Education: The Search for an Educational Focus

I t has become customary for social science disciplines to engage in periodic soul-searching, but perhaps more than any other field of inquiry, public administration has done more than its fair share. Given the intellectual nature of the field, this is understandable. John Honey, writing in 1967, put it succinctly: Those in the field are acutely aware of intellectual problems. Is public administration a field, a discipline, a science, a profession? Or is it the process of conducting public business, which requires the knowledge and skills of many disciplines and professions?1 Since Honey posed these questions (all echoed before) debate has raged on about the meaning and purpose of public administration. Despite theoretical approaches taken on how to resolve this issue, and the particular merits associated with each, the nagging issue of how to educate students for careers in public service has always hung precariously in the background. The identity of the field, to a considerable extent, has been inexorably linked to a search for an educational focus in public administration and public affairs in general. The ambiguity that besets public administration as a mishmash of different theoretical and methodological approaches is also reflected in the confusion concerning the kind of education students need for careers in the public service.