Symposium on the Advancement of Public Administration: Introduction

Abstract

This symposium seeks to assess the status of public administration and the steps that should be taken to advance it as a field and enterprise. In addition to providing an overview of the main themes of the symposium, this introduction tackles the question of what “advancement” would imply. In the case of public administration as an academic field, this essay suggests that advancement would feature four characteristics: establishment of jurisdiction over an appropriate domain of inquiry; enhancement of the field's scientific base leavened by informed respect for the art of administration; increased sophistication in the treatment of normative issues; and the multiplication of opportunities for those in the field to speak truth to power. The advancement of public administration as an academic field would provide more fertile soil for enhancing the practice of public administration, but it would not guarantee this development.

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Notes on contributors

Frank J. Thompson

Frank J. Thompson is interim provost of Rockefeller College at the State University of New York at Albany. He has published extensively on issues of health policy, policy implementation, public personnel policy, and administrative politics. His books include Personnel Policy in the City. Health Policy and the Bureaucracy. Public Administration: Challenges. Choices and Consequences. Revitalizing State and Local Public Service, and most recently, Medicaid and Devolution: A View from the States (coeditor and contributor). Thompson is former president of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration and has held offices in other professional associations. He has worked for the City of Oakland, California, and was a fellow with the U.S. Public Health Service. He has also served as consultant to various government agencies, as executive director of the National Commission on the State and Local Public Service, and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. in that discipline from the University of California, Berkeley.