Nearly 50 years ago in Papers on the Science of Administration, I set forth some ideas on the nature of public administration at that time in history. Much has happened since to affect the field of public administration and my analysis of its nature. In this article I shall try to elucidate major dynamics that I consider essential for understanding the nature of public administration today, and for guiding the field into the future. First I shall sketch out some fundamentals about human beings because, after all, governments are constituted of human beings, are run by human beings, and have as their main job helping, controlling, and serving human beings. Then, on this foundation, I will try to identify the dynamic factors with which we deal in the hope of arriving at some constructive lines of action for what now lies before us.
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Luther Gulick (1983) studied this question.