Administrative Theory & Praxis

The Disregard for Weber's Herrschaft: The Relevance of Weber's Ideal Type of Bureaucracy for the Modern Study of Public Administration

The great relevance of Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy for understanding modern public administration is insufficiently acknowledged. Critical examination of the claims made to support "new conventional wisdoms" in the study of public administration reveals a remarkable similarity in the arguments made against Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. The currently fashionable public-values approaches replicate neoliberal arguments that downplay bureaucracy to conquer a place in the field. Suc...

The European Employment Strategy and the Governing of French Employment Policies

This article addresses the normalizing and government forms and mechanisms of power implicated in the European Employment Strategy's (EES) attempt to govern French employment policies. It does so by addressing power not as the causal capacity to make France change its political goals and norms, but as the set of actions and forms of knowledge that urge France to reflect upon the adequacy of its policies in terms of the problematic of employment. It is argued that even though the EES is not th...

Politics and Administration: Three Schools, Three Approaches, and Three Suggestions

The question of how public administration fits into the governance process of a democratic society has been of great concern to scholars and practitioners since the emergence of public administration as an academic field of study in the late 1880s. The politics-administration relationship is considered of pivotal importance, as the issue bears important implications for both the disciplinary identity (and autonomy) and the institutional development of public administration. Despite a volumino...

Public Law and Public Administration Theory: Introduction

This symposium of three articles originated at the 2008 American Society for Public Administration National Conference Founders' Forum panel called Transformations in Public Law. It has been apparent for some time that public law has taken a back seat to public management in both research and practice. The articles in this symposium view public law from different theoretical perspectives and critically address recent transformations in government that minimize the role of law. What becomes ap...

Value Conflict and Legal Reasoning in Public Administration

This article explores the idea of value pluralism, the problems it poses for public administration, and how an examination of legal reasoning, as a form of practical reasoning, might help public administrators deal with these problems. It is argued that legal reasoning can be helpful because it is rooted in a process of adversary argument and analogical reasoning that promotes the consideration of conflicting values or conceptions of the good.

Administrative 'Interpretation' As Policy-Making: An Abuse of Discretion by Presidential Administrations

Because it is more difficult to get new statutes passed or to amend statutes that have been adopted, presidential administrations may resort to adopting new "interpretations" of statutes in order to further their policy agendas. In the literature, this strategy has often been among those included within "the administrative presidency." Since the Nixon administration, the administrative presidency approach has become an accepted and expected part of a president's strategy for furthering his ad...

Institutional Reform Litigation in an Era of Governance

This article examines the effects of governance reforms on the role of the courts in institutional reform litigation. It also explores the impact on governance of judicial deference to executive control of local provider networks. The 1999 Olmstead decision and its aftermath illustrate these mutually reinforcing tendencies. State home and community-based Medicaid waiver programs support de-institutionalization but create no legally enforceable rights to services. Conversely, lower federal cou...

Reflections On Camilla Stivers's Bureau Men, Settlement Women: Constructing Public Administration in the Progressive Era-Part 1

The Shock of Recognition: Reflections On Bureau Men, Settlement Women

Bureau Men, Settlement Women: Constructing Public Administration in the Progressive Era, by Camilla Stivers, is reviewed.

Settlement Women Are Alive and Well in Community Development

Perhaps because of the growing similarity to current economic and social conditions, the MoveOn Web-based democracy movement began referring to its 2006 platform for the then forthcoming legislative and presidential elections as the "New Progressive Agenda." As people enter into an era characterized by what many now refer to as a new progressivism, it is apropos to reconsider the brilliant feminist re-reading of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history offered by Camilla Stive...

Echoes of Settlement Women in Public Administration: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

More than a decade ago, Stivers (1993) argued that the state of public administration in Western democracies, although clothed in universal citizenship, expertise, and apparent neutrality, remained structurally male and restrictive to the participation of women. Specifically, public administration in the US during the Progressive Era was predisposed to the teachings, practice, and policies of the men of New York's Municipal Bureau (Stivers, 2000). Women's contributions to the reform movement ...

Theorizing From the Margin for the Center: The Contributions of Stivers to Public Administration

This brief essay extends the author's comments of Camilla Stivers's writings, from her early work as part of the Blacksburg Manifesto to her most recent book, Governance in Dark Times: Practical Philosophy for Public Service (2008), which received the 2008 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration. From her early scholarship through her most recent book, Governance in Dark Times, Stivers has drawn attention to the public nature of administration and the mean...

Moving Toward Justice: Self-Government, Self-Determination, and Decolonization

Moving Toward Justice: Self-Government, Self-Determination, and Decolonization, edited by John D. Whyte, is reviewed.

The Politics of Reconciliation in Multicultural Societies

The Politics of Reconciliation in Multicultural Societies, edited by Will Kymlicka and Bashir Bashir, is reviewed.

Comments On Stefano Harney's Review of Making a Difference: Progressive Values in Public Administration

Making a Difference was written in 2007 and released in the middle of 2008. It was indeed affected by extant conditions, and it uses the Bush administration as an exemplar of cyclical regressive values. A hunger for change was more than evident in American society during the time the author worked on the book. It is intended as a work of applied critical and progressive theory in public administration, as a matter of finding ways that public professionals and scholars who choose to do so migh...

Reflections On a Themeless Conference: Pat-Net 2009, Frankfort, Kentucky

The emphasis of the 2009 Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net) conference was on creativity rather than formality. In celebration of the wide diversity of scholarship available under the umbrella of public administration theory, the conference was opened up in two ways. The first day of the conference consisted of papers and panels with no theme other than "theory." The second and third days utilized an "Open Space" process to allow participants to engage one another on virtually any...