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Political Science and Public Administration: A Note on the State of the Union*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Roscoe C. Martin
Roscoe C. Martin
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
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Extract

By tradition public administration is regarded as a division of political science. Woodrow Wilson set the stage for this concept in his original essay identifying public administration as a subject worthy of special study, and spokesmen for both political science and public administration have accepted it since. Thus Leonard White, in his 1930 article on the subject in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, recognizes public administration as “a branch of the field of political science.” Luther Gulick follows suit, observing in 1937 that “Public administration is thus a division of political science ….” So generally has this word got around that it has come to the notice of the sociologists, as is indicated in a 1950 report of the Russell Sage Foundation which refers to “political science, including public administration….” “Pure” political scientists and political scientists with a public administration slant therefore are not alone in accepting this doctrine, which obviously enjoys a wide and authoritative currency.

But if public administration is reckoned generally to be a child of political science, it is in some respects a strange and unnatural child; for there is a feeling among political scientists, substantial still if mayhap not so widespread as formerly, that academicians who profess public administration spend their time fooling with trifles. It was a sad day when the first professor of political science learned what a manhole cover is! On their part, those who work in public administration are likely to find themselves vaguely resentful of the lack of cordiality in the house of their youth.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1952 , pp. 660 - 676
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1952

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References

1 In his paper titled “Science, Values and Public Administration,” in Gulick, Luther and Urwick, L., Papers on the Science of Administration (New York, 1937), p. 191Google Scholar.

2 Effective Use of Social Science Research in the Federal Services (New York, 1950), p. 27Google Scholar.

3 See the Committee's report, Goals for Political Science (New York, 1951), p. 100Google Scholar. This is the latest of several reports on the state of political science, the first of which goes back almost forty years. It constitutes a very useful analysis of problems and trends in the field. Among other services, it summarizes briefly each of the earlier reports.

4 The Southwestern Political Science Association soon became the Southwestern Political and Social Science Association and subsequently the Southwestern Social Science Association, but none familiar with its origin doubts that political science supplied the stimulus and leadership.

5 Two practices followed in compiling the list serve substantially to depress the figures for administration; first, public administration for the purposes of the listing means public administration in the United States, which automatically rules out dissertations on foreign and comparative administration; second, American state and local government and politics are established as a separate category which naturally includes many studies of public administration.

6 The data for this paragraph are summarized from the several issues of Educational Preparation for Public Administration, of which the most recent edition at hand was published by Public Administration Service (Chicago) in 1948Google Scholar.

7 Public Administration Clearing House, Graduate Assistance in Public Administration, 1951–1952 (Chicago, 1950)Google Scholar.

8 Op. cit. (above, n. 1), p. 49.

9 Anderson, William and Gaus, John M., Research in Public Administration (Chicago, 1945)Google Scholar. This is a report whose modest pretensions give no outward sign of the significance of the activities which it describes.

10 Graham, George A., “Trends in Teaching of Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 10, pp. 69–77 (Spring, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John M. Gaus, “Trends in the Theory of Public Administration,” ibid., pp. 161–168 (Summer, 1950); Charles S. Ascher, “Trends of a Decade in Administrative Practices,” ibid., pp. 229–235 (Autumn, 1950); and Wallace S. Sayre, “Trends of a Decade in Administrative Values,” ibid., Vol. 11, pp. 1–9 (Winter, 1951).

11 See Appleby, Paul H., Big Democracy (New York, 1945)Google Scholar and Policy and Administration (University, Albama, 1949)Google Scholar; see also Macmahon's, Arthur W. review of the latter in Public Administration Review, Vol. 9, pp. 278–282 (Autumn, 1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

It should be observed, at least in passing, that the doctrine of business (industrial) administration likewise has undergone considerable modification since 1940, some of it along lines not unlike those summarized for public administration.

12 See the first essay in his Reflections on Public Administration (University, Alabama, 1947)Google Scholar.

13 Gordon, Lincoln, “Public Administration in Perspective,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 7, pp. 263–267 (Autumn, 1947)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For a summary statement of the first view, see the comment by Lincoln Gordon cited above. For an exposition of the second, see Simon, Herbert A., “A Comment on ‘The Science of Public Administration’,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 7, pp. 200–203 (Summer, 1947)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morton Grodzins, “Public Administration and the Science of Human Relations,” ibid., Vol. 11, pp. 88–102 (Spring, 1951); and Simon, Herbert A., Smithburg, Donald W., and Thompson, Victor A., Public Administration (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.

15 Clapp's, Gordon views on this subject are suggestive. See his “The Long Road to Profession,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 6, pp. 171–174 (Spring, 1946)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Graham, op. cit. (above, n. 10), p. 76.

17 Ascher, op. cit. (above, n. 10), p. 235.

18 Goals for Political Science, pp. 93, 97.

19 Gaus, John M., “Trends in the Theory of Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 10, p. 168 (Summer, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Sayre, op. cit. (above, n. 10).

20 Goals for Political Science contains a suggestive treatment of these trends, particularly in Ch. 6.

21 From an address by President Lincoln before Congress in December of 1862.