A Place Like Home : Care and Action in Public Administration
- Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications, March 2005
Public Administration has regulary reached across the divide between public and private to import ideas and practies from private business, yet ideas of home rarely make their way into administrative theory. Inspired by the "city as a home" thinking of progressive-era social reformers, this article explores conceptual barriers and generative possibilities. It suggests, first, that home vivifies aspects of administration that foster caring concern for human development. Second, drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, it argues that despite Arendt's dim view of the household, an ontology of home furthers her vision of action - public spirites speech - in administrative pratice.