PAR's (and ASPA's) Contribution to Public Administration Internationally

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12890
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Andrew Podger

PAR’s (and ASPA’s) Contribution to Public Administration Internationally 151

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 1, pp. 151–155. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12890.

Viewpoint

Steve Condrey,

Associate Editor

Andrew Podger is Honorary Professor

of Public Policy at the Australian National

University. He was a career public servant,

serving in a range of Australian government

agencies, including as chief executive

of the departments of health and aged

care, housing and regional development,

and administrative services. He was also

public service commissioner before retiring

in 2005 and joining academia. He was

national president of the Institute of Public

Administration Australia from 2004 to

2010.

E-mail: andrew.podger@anu.edu.au

Abstract : The study and practice of public administration vary in each and every country, yet there are many

lessons to be learned internationally. Public Administration Review (PAR) and the American Society for Public

Administration (ASPA) have contributed substantially to these lessons over the last 80 years, including for public

administration in Australia. That contribution has been particularly in organizational theory and behavioral

influence, policy studies, and teaching and research. Australia has tended to emphasize institutions and descriptions

of practice. These differences help explain the more limited involvement of practitioners in ASPA and the Institute

of Public Administration Australia’s too little involvement of scholars. ASPA and PAR have played a leading role

in recent years in expanding opportunities for international learning. Such learning requires an appreciation of

differences in contexts, including of America’s own unique context. Better understanding of Australia’s context might

lead to a more positive appreciation in the United States of Australia’s reform experience. The balancing of scholarly

and practitioner perspectives is also required .

T he study and practice of public administration

concern institutions, cultures, values, social

and economic challenges, and history—factors

that, by their very nature, vary with each and every

country. This means that each country must put

resources into developing and researching its own

variant of public administration, with international

engagement complementing that effort. This helps

each of us frame our own analysis and allows us to

learn from wider experience while also requiring us to

adapt any lessons to our own situation.

There are certainly many lessons to be learned from

more than 300 years of international experience in

the modern era and from the many contributions

of social scientists, in particular the liberal ideas of

the Enlightenment and then the democratic ideas

subsequently forged since the late eighteenth century.

These have promoted not only free markets but also

the crucial roles of government in ensuring universal

education, promoting equal opportunity, and

delivering public goods.

This is a heritage from which so many countries

benefit today, a foundation for twentieth- and twenty-

first century work on public administration both

internationally and nationally.

The field of public administration that has emerged

in the last 150 years may be described as “the

multidisciplinary study of the political-management

system (structures and processes) of public

bureaucracies.” It is not a single discipline but a field

encompassing many disciplines—political science,

economics, law, and sociology, to name a few—and

focusing on the overall operations of government

from the management of policy decision making

to the delivery of public services, from the internal

processes to the external interaction with the public.

It is framed in an overtly political environment with

various checks and balances.

It is this field that Public Administration Review ( PA R )

and the American Society for Public Administration

(ASPA) have contributed to so substantially over

the last 80 years. Australia, like many other nations,

has benefited greatly, and the U.S. influence has

been and continues to be significant. In turn, more

modestly, Australia has had an influence on U.S.

public administration—influence that might be more

positive, however, if the Australian experience were

more fully understood.

Public Administration in Australia

Australia became an independent nation in 1901.

Our constitution was forged after careful study

of international democratic practice in the late

nineteenth century. It consciously draws from the

United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

From the United Kingdom, we have a parliamentary

democratic system; from the United States, we have

a federal system and an upper house with elected

Andrew Podger

Australian National University

PAR ’s (and ASPA’s) Contribution to Public

Administration Internationally