Dwight Waldo. Administrative theorist for our times. By Richard J. Stillman II , New York: Routledge. 2021. pp. 321 (including index). $99.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 978‐1‐138‐39085‐0

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Jos C. N. Raadschelders
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13739

in this marvelous book, demonstrates that need not be

the case. The book’s chapters write a game plan for how.

REFERENCES

Martin, Roscoe C. 1952. “Political Science and Public Administration: A

Note on the State of the Union.”American Political Science Review

46(3): 660–676.

Wanna, John, Joanne Kelly, and John Forster. 2000. Managing Public

Expenditure in Australia. London: Routledge.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Donald F. Kettl is Former Dean and Professor Emeritus

at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Email: dfkettl52@gmail.com

Received: 25 September 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13739

Dwight Waldo. Administrative

theorist for our times

By Richard J. Stillman II, New York:

Routledge. 2021. pp. 321 (including

index). $99.95 (hardcover). ISBN:

978-1-138-39085-0

Jos C. N. Raadschelders

John GlennCollege of Public Affairs, The OhioState University, Columbus,Ohio, USA

Email: raadschelders.1@osu.edu

This year, 2023, it will be 75 years ago that Dwight Waldo

saw his 1942-dissertation published as The Administrative

State: A Study of the Theory of American Public Administra-

tion (1948) (nota bene: page numbers in the text refer to

the Stillman volume). I could not help wondering how

many people of the present generation of students and

young faculty have read it. My copy of the second edition,

which Waldo gave me and signed at a symposium at the

Maxwell School convened in his honor (June 1996), is tat-

tered for picking it up frequently and re-reading parts.

But then, I share his interest in historical questions, in

thoughts about the nature of the study of public adminis-

tration (PA), and in philosophical ideas about the position

and role of government in society. On a personal level, I

owe Professor Waldo a debt of gratitude. In 1994, I sent a

draft of my Handbook of Administrative History (1998) to

him. He read it, had several suggestions. Once I had edi-

ted the entire text, I sent it to Transaction Publishers

which initially rejected it. Having read my rewrite, Profes-

sor Waldo send me a quick note on April 14, 1995, as that

he had written the publisher (Mr. Horowitz) arguing

that my book “should be, must be, published.”(letters

between Waldo and Raadschelders, 1994–1998, in posses-

sion of author). And so it happened, after another round

of revisions.

Waldo taught and thought in terms of antinomies or

“paired alternatives.”His scholarship in the classroom

and in writing is informed by what contrasts actually

“tell”(and possibly: teach) us: bureaucracy–democracy;

fact–value; centralization–decentralization; politics–

administration; efficiency–democracy; stability–change.

He believed that thinking in terms of dichotomies was

misleading since “…the two sides of [any] dichotomy do

not stand independently, but rather that each “defines”

the other.”(p. 115). In each of the pieces in this collection,

we can almost “feel”how Waldo “circled”around big

questions and conceptions, never offering a decisive

answer, always weighing one conception against another.

Waldo was fully aware of this. Answering a question from

one of his former students he said “…that students com-

plain that I ask questions and construct lists of problems,

but I don’t answer questions or solve problems. […] I had

no talent for original thought –a rare talent indeed. […]

my main interest has been to open doors between

administration and other realms, and that I should be

judged on the usefulness of this endeavor.”(p. 302; see

also Brown & Stillman, 1986).

What a delight to read Richard Stillman’s anthology of

18 essays written by Waldo. Stillman opens with an over-

view of Waldo’s life and career and then organizes the

various pieces in seven groups: three essays on the nature

of the study, four on alternative approaches to PA, two on

an historical approach to government, three on PA’s cul-

tural context, two on enduring challenges (politics-

administration and ethics), two on teaching PA, and two

on the future of the study. Each of these seven groups

are introduced by Stillman in thoughtful reflection of Wal-

do’s views.

To understand Waldo, he must be placed in his time

and context. When his dissertation was published, the

study of PA had left behind a half-century that attention

was spent on leadership, organization theory, the search

for principles, and dominated by the desire for efficiency

(e.g., the scientific management movement). Frederickson

(2021) characterized “classic”public administration as

one focused on “cleaning up government”and on estab-

lishing a merit-based civil service that is to a good degree

insulated from legislative politics (2021, p. 85). Prewar PA

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