Emerging Conflicts in the Doctrines of Public Administration

As a self-conscious discipline among the cluster of specialties or “fields” encompassed by political science, public administration came late and grew fast. Its recent arrival and rapid growth sometimes obscure the fact that its origins are to be found in a process of experimentation with governmental structure that long preceded the appearance of public administration as a subject of systematic study and is likely to continue as long as the nation exists. This process of experimentation goes on vigorously today, and the development of new forms is generating discord more profound and far-reaching than any that has ever hitherto divided students of public administration. It is with the sources and significance of that discord that this paper is concerned. The central thesis of this paper is that an examination of the administrative institutions of this country suggests that they have been organized and operated in pursuit successively of three values, here designated representativeness, neutral competence, and executive leadership.