Competing Ontologies: A Redux Primer for Public Administration

• Author: Jeannine M. Love,Margaret Stout
• Published date: 01 August 2021
• Date: 01 August 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740211005047
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740211005047

American Review of Public Administration

2021, Vol. 51(6) 422 –435

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740211005047

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Article

Introduction by ARPA Editors:

Stephanie Newbold and Marc Holzer

In 1948, Dwight Waldo’s seminal text, The Administrative

State, challenged students of public administration to

develop a comprehensive understanding as to how and why

political theory shapes decision-making processes within

public-sector governance. While the application of Herbert

Simon’s (1947) theories, outlined in his formative work,

Administrative Behavior, transformed the study of public

administration more significantly, moving it into a more

scientific, statistical, and quantitative area of intellectual

and practical inquiry, Waldo’s (1948) observations have

remained a salient, grounding force for a field inextricably

linked and committed to upholding democratic constitu-

tional norms and values and adherence to the rule of law.

In their Invited Essay, “Competing Ontologies: A

Redux Primer for Public Administration,” Margaret Stout

and Jeannine Love have built upon and evolved their

thinking for how assumptions concerning the nature of

our existence influence the democratic governance pro-

cess and the decisions produced by the administrative

state. Like Waldo, they ground their thinking in how the

teachings of political philosophy help to inform our phi-

losophy of governance and the roles and responsibilities

of the public policy process.

Stout and Love provide several ontological typologies

that provide insight into public-sector management. The

Governance Typology, which consists of four primary

approaches, aids scholars and practitioners in the consider-

ation of how competing ontological viewpoints assist in

predicting the means by which governing institutions

address the public good. By contrast, the Integrative

Governance Typology requires us to focus on how individ-

uals interact and work with the specific communities they

are engaged in and with on a daily basis. In this typology,

formal and informal sources of knowledge complement

how communities engage in discovery, experimentation,

and evaluation, which, taken collectively, help to inform a

shared understanding of ideas and underscore what we

believe is true. The power of integrative governance is that

it allows groups to achieve their collective goals while also

maintaining strong individualistic principles associated

with choice and autonomy.

Self-reflection is a vital element of democratic governance.

It enables us to incorporate values of transparency and

accountability into public-sector decision-making. It empow-

ers us to determine when government is meeting the needs of

the citizenry and when it fails to do so. Understanding the

relationships between ontological thinking and public action

1005047ARPXXX10.1177/02750740211005047The American Review of Public AdministrationStout and Love

research-article2021

1West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA

2Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Margaret Stout, Associate Professor, Department of Public

Administration, West Virginia University, P.O. Box 6322, Morgantown,

WV 26506-6322, USA.

Email: margaret.stout@mail.wvu.edu

Competing Ontologies: A Redux Primer

for Public Administration

Margaret Stout1 and Jeannine M. Love2

Abstract

Over the last decade, a growing number of public administration theorists have taken up the question of how ontology—

assumptions about the nature of existence—shapes our understanding of governance. This substantially updated primer,

originally published in Public Administration Review, introduces the essay, provides a basic explanation of ontology, describes

the fundamental debates in philosophies of ontology, and discusses why ontology is important to social and political theory

and therefore public administration theory and practice. Using an ideal-type approach grounded in differing ontological

assumptions, a Governance Typology is provided to support analysis of differing public administration theories. An integrative

approach to governance is offered that is grounded in relational process ontology—a foundation that may support a viable

synthesis of the other four primary ideal-types. The essay concludes with a call for personal reflection on the part of scholars

and practitioners regarding their own ontological commitments and an invitation to collaborative inquiry.

Keywords

ontology, governance, public administration theory, integrative process