DUDLEY, Larkin S.

Introduction - New York : Marcel Dekker, 1998

In this Introduction, Larkin Dudley and Gary Wamsley reveal a dual intent in this project: to reprint the famous Papers on the Science of Administration and to celebrate critically Luther Gulick's contributions to public administration in order that the critique will help us understand ourselves and our conditions. Gulick's contributions as a man of action are praised, but his misplacement of an organizational conception upon a polity with a distinct constitutional design is questioned. In Dudley and Wamsley's view, American public administration is the study and practice of a key component of our governance process, misfounded on a concept of management in monocentric, hierarchical settings and on a focus of power of an elected executive. From the work of the other writers of this symposium, the authors tease out further some of the contradictions in hierarchy and democracy. Finally, they note that Gulick himself at the age of 93 published a repudiation of his early notions of organization based on hierarchy and, instead, called for a more democratic and participatory system in all agencies.