What makes public administration a science? or, are its "big questions" really big?
By: NEUMANN, Francis X
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ArticlePublisher: Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, sep./oct.1996Public administration review: PAR 56, 5, p. 409-415Abstract: What are the appropriate basci research question public administration must address if is to aspire to the status of a science? It is the philosophical nature of the true sciences that those basic questions concern the essential character and origins of their core subject matters. Neumann proposes that the appropriate research question for public administration, those at the level which define the discipline, must concern the structure and dynamics of the public organization. Within the physical sciences, a new paradigm is emerging that view of open systems now obliges public administrators to readdress the dynamics of their own artificial systems - the public organizational theory, public management, and the relationship of the public organization to its environment now need to be revisited under the concepts of complexity and chaos.
What are the appropriate basci research question public administration must address if is to aspire to the status of a science? It is the philosophical nature of the true sciences that those basic questions concern the essential character and origins of their core subject matters. Neumann proposes that the appropriate research question for public administration, those at the level which define the discipline, must concern the structure and dynamics of the public organization. Within the physical sciences, a new paradigm is emerging that view of open systems now obliges public administrators to readdress the dynamics of their own artificial systems - the public organizational theory, public management, and the relationship of the public organization to its environment now need to be revisited under the concepts of complexity and chaos.
Public administration review PAR
Sep./Oct. 1996 Volume 56 Number 5
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