Theories and theorizing in public administration: A systematic review

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Fabian Hattke,Rick Vogel
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13730

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Theories and theorizing in public administration:

A systematic review

Fabian Hattke

1,2

| Rick Vogel

2

1

Department of Government, University of

Bergen, Bergen, Norway

2

Department of Socioeconomics, Universität

Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Correspondence

Rick Vogel, Department of Socioeconomics,

Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

Email: rick.vogel@uni-hamburg.de

Fabian Hattke, Department of Government,

University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.

Email: fabian.hattke@uib.no

Abstract

Theories and theorizing are central to scholarship on public administration (PA). Only

a few attempts have been made to review the theories applied in PA broadly and

systematically, to take stock of the theoretical repertoire, and to engage scholars in

critical reflection on how they “do”theorizing. This study analyzes the theoretical

landscape of PA scholarship with a novel combination of bibliometrics and natural

language processing. A “tree of theories”shows how 150 theories merge into one

body of scholarship, with 15 theories at the core. The theories vary considerably in

terms of disciplinary background, methodological choices, geographical settings,

author diversity, and reach beyond academia. While the results indicate the plurality

and vitality of the field, they also raise concerns about how core theories show lim-

ited geographical dispersion and low societal relevance. These concerns are further

fueled by an apparent schism between micro and macrotheories.

Evidence for Practice

•Consider theories as important tools for public administration scholars, not only

in advancing research but also in giving practical advice.

•Do not shy away from theory-driven, method-heavy research articles because

they often present more practical implications than articles that demonstrate

less use of methods.

•Note that the most central theories are primarily informed by evidence from the

Western world, which means that the practical implications may not be general-

izable to other settings.

•Expect theory-driven articles with evidence from non-Western contexts to be

particularly relevant to social and ecological challenges.

•Do not expect practical and societal relevance to be a perfect fit: The more rele-

vant a theory is in practical terms, the less it is relevant for broader social issues

and vice versa.

INTRODUCTION

The important role of theory and theory-building for public

administration (PA) scholarship and practice has frequently

and prominently been acknowledged (e.g., Emerson, 2022;

Frederickson et al., 2015;Riccucci,2010). Theories in this

field describe the many faces of PA, help to explain and

understand it as a real-life phenomenon, and could allow

for predictions of what is likely to happen under which

conditions (Frederickson et al., 2015). These qualities of

good theories make them useful not only in scholarly con-

versations but also in practical advice that scholars give to

public managers and policy makers. Even in a field as

applied as PA, theories are an asset rather than a liability

because, in the best case, they produce reliable knowledge

for an otherwise uncertain and overcomplex world. PA is,

therefore, well suited to prove the famous dictum that

nothing is as practical as a good theory (Lewin, 1943).

In contrast to the broad acknowledgment of theory-

building as an engine of scholarly progress and practical

Received: 15 February 2023 Revised: 22 September 2023 Accepted: 26 September 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13730

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any

medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

1542 Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1542–1563.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar

advice, few attempts have been made to review the theo-

ries that PA scholars apply in their research. Several contri-

butions track the evolution of the field or its subfields, but

their focus is on influential authors, substantive t opics, or

research methods, rather than on theories (e.g., Bingham &

Bowen, 1994; Dunsire, 1999; Miller & Jaja, 2005). Such

reviews often have an additional focus on particular jour-

nals (e.g., Bingham & Bowen, 1994), geographic regions

(e.g., Rhodes, 1991), or text genres (e.g., Miller & Jaja, 2005).

Some books or book chapters focus more decisively on the-

ories but present only a subset of them, such as organiza-

tional PA theories (Christensen, 2022;Harmon&

Mayer, 1986). A closer approximation of the theoretical rep-

ertoire of PA is achieved by collections of seminal contribu-

tions to the field because those editions and volumes

include a range of articles that have paved the way for the-

oretical traditions (Lodge et al., 2016;Shafritz&Hyde,2017).

However, not all “classics”of PA are associated with a the-

ory that has emerged from them, nor can every theory be

traced to a particular and singular work. Therefore, readers

in search of an overview and systematization of PA theories

are left with only a few textbooks (e.g., Frederickson

et al., 2015;Sharmaetal.,2010) and review articles

(e.g., Thornhill & van Dijk, 2010; van der Waldt, 2017). The

authors of these publications themselves acknowledge that

the collections they present are highly selective, as they

focus on only a few theories they consider to be particularly

important, influential, or promising. Accordingly, they

reflect the authors’idiosyncratic accounts of the field and

dramatically fall short of “the myriad important theories in

use or under study”(Emerson, 2022,p.3).

Besides their scope, the available reviews of theories

in PA have additional limitations that result from their

top-down approach. The authors of such reviews not only

make top-down choices on which theories to include in

the first place; they also decide on how to group them

into families or traditions (van der Waldt, 2017). However,

presenting theories separately and arranging them in a

well-ordered structure conveys a tidy, yet distorted, pic-

ture of the field because theoretical development has

never been as straightforward, nor have theories ever

been as clear-cut as such order would suggest. Emphasiz-

ing differences while neglecting overlap between theories

and the many opportunities they offer for fruitful

exchange might give rise to theoretical silos and episte-

mic barriers, rather than facilitating new insights into

PA. In contrast, revisiting theories where they are used in

the practice of theorizing is likely to reveal a rugged theo-

retical landscape. A bottom-up approach, departing from

the micro-decisions that PA scholars make when they

select and apply theories in their daily work, regardless of

whether these theories originated in PA or in any other

field, will draw this more chaotic picture. A part of the wil-

derness in PA scholarship is the notion of theory itself,

given its various meanings in the literature (Abend, 2008).

Reviewing PA theories more comprehensively and

integratively than before, and doing so bottom-up rather

than top-down, adds value because the process fosters a

reflexive mode of theorizing. Holding the mirror up to

theorists generates awareness of the many alternatives

that any single theory has and directs attention to the

interdependencies between theories. Reflexivity in theo-

rizing also helps researchers to acknowledge the limita-

tions that arise from the situated nature of human

knowledge production. Just like the phenomenon of PA

itself, theorizing about this phenomenon is deeply

embedded in the social world and cannot be detached

from the social context in which it occurs (Carboni

et al., 2019; Riccucci, 2010). Reflexive practices reveal the

contextual conditions under which theories have been

built and thus reflect on the original theorizing process

(Alvesson et al., 2008; Shepherd & Suddaby, 2017). From

this perspective, the questions of when, where, by whom,

and how a theory has been developed and applied are

relevant to its scope and consequences. Reflections on

such boundary conditions may bring the range of theo-

ries into question but also point to where theoretical

reimagination and rejuvenation are possible and

necessary.

The purpose of this article is to facilitate reflexive the-

orizing in PA through a systematic review of the theories

that are used in the field, of the interdependencies

between these theories, as well as of their situatedness in

scholarly and practical contexts. Therefore, we ask: What

theories do PA scholars use in their work? How do these the-

ories relate to each other and merge into one body of theo-

rizing? How are they embedded into contexts that may

affect theorizing? We pursue these research questions

using advanced methods of literature reviewing, combin-

ing bibliometric methods with natural language proces-

sing (NLP). Rather than reflecting our own top-down

choice of theories, this review detects the field’s theoreti-

cal topography as collectively, yet not consciously,

shaped by all scholars who have contributed to the body

of PA literature in the past two decades. Through this

large-scale bottom-up approach, our review provides

broad coverage of theories and thus lives up to the field’s

theoretical plurality that has often been acknowledged

(e.g., Emerson, 2022; Frederickson et al., 2015). Further,

our methods do not risk overestimating the separation

and differences between theories because they also

reveal how scholars repeatedly combine theories in their

research. Patterns of interdependencies also emerge

through the embeddedness of theories in similar disci-

plinary, methodological, geographical, demographic, soci-

etal, and practical contexts. Putting theories into these

contexts encourages reflexive thinking about potential

sources of contingencies in contemporary theorizing

about PA.

In the next section, we limit the outline of data and

methods to what is indispensable for the reader’s under-

standing of our approach, which can best be described as

“NLP-enhanced bibliometrics”(Atanassova et al., 2019).

We present the more detailed technical information

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