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The field of public administration, since its inception, has been beleaguered by questions surrounding its "identity." What is public administration? Is there a "theory" of public administration? Is public administration a discipline? Is public administration an art or a science, or both? These and other questions persist and schismatize public administration from the standpoint of study, teaching, and practice.
At this point in its history, the debate over the identity of public administration may seem somewhat banal, hackneyed, even immaterial (no pun intended). Public administration has a very rich theoretical heritage, which guides its research, teaching, and practice. Few would question the legitimacy of public administration as a full-fledged discipline or field of study. Conflict and dissonance arise, however, over the relevancy of the diverse epistemic traditions that have evolved in public administration. Should the field be regarded as a "science"? Or should public administration be predisposed to at least the "tools" of science, including its analytic methods? The "real" questions - normative ones, to be sure - behind the debate revolve around how we should study public administration and ultimately build theory in the field.
In the mid-twentieth century, Dwight Waldo and Herbert Simon fomented a debate regarding this conundrum over the logic of inquiry in public administration. It created tensions and sometimes ill will among researchers as well as practitioners. The question of whether public administration is an art or science, driven by values or facts, will never be satisfactorily answered, because of a lack of consensus among the community of scholars within the field (Frederickson and Smith 2003; Rosenbloom 1983). The debate has raised questions about the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of public administration that continue to challenge the field even today (see, e.g., Luton 2007; Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill 2008; Raadschelders 2005; Spicer 2007; White and Adams 1994).'
This essay examines the question of what the field of public administration will look like as a scholarly endeavor by 2020. It uses as its basis a review of the broad range of research traditions relied on in public administration today. It argues that all add value to both theory and practice, and that heterogeneity in epistemic traditions will prevail over the next several decades (see Riccucci 2010).
Epistemic Approaches to Study in...