Public administration PhD programmes in Italy: comparing different disciplinary approaches
| Author | Denita Cepiku |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852311399238 |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
77(2) 379–396
Public administration PhD
! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852311399238
different disciplinary approaches
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Denita Cepiku
Researcher and assistant professor at the University of Rome
Tor Vergata
Abstract
PhD programmes in public administration (PA), although contributing to the develop-
ment of the human side of the public sector and being responsible for the production of
the producers of knowledge, are less investigated than other levels of education. Recent
comparative research ascribes differences to the countries’ administrative cultures. The
article aims at reviewing the ‘state of play’ of PA doctoral education in Italy, building on
the hypothesis that differences in the nature, direction and intensity of change are also
influenced by the different disciplinary approaches. The primary source of evidence is
semi-structured interviews with the directors of 14 PhD programmes representing
different disciplines, conducted from January to May 2010. Common challenges include
the insufficient and unpredictable funding, the small scale problem, the pressure to
internationalize and the lack of interdisciplinarity. The article argues that major differ-
ences exist among disciplines in terms of international openness and related strategies,
relevance of curricula training and collaboration strategies. The survey provides a first
evaluation of past reforms and raises some open issues: PhDs in PA are now charac-
terized by more structured programmes that are held back by their small size; collab-
oration strategies are emerging although they are hindered by administrative burdens
and autarchic behaviour.
Points for practitioners
The results have several policy and operational implications: they provide benchmark
information to PA PhD directors on the state of the art of the strategies adopted to
cope with current and future challenges. Having adopted the disciplinary rather than the
country focus makes the conclusions potentially relevant also for other countries.
Doctoral programmes (and doctorate holders) are increasingly considering the wider
job market. For PhD programmes in PA this will require more attention to the public
sector needs and the establishment of different forms of cooperation. On the other
hand, in the public sector, attempts should be made to make the most of people holding
Corresponding author:
Denita Cepiku, Researcher and assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Rome Tor
Vergata, Via Columbia 2, 00133 Rome, Italy
Email: cepiku@economia.uniroma2.it
380
International Review of Administrative Sciences 77(2)
doctoral degrees. Furthermore, as ‘the world of practice has crept into the inner
sanctum of academia: doctoral research’ (Pollitt, 2006: 258), public managers attending
PhD programmes (or willing to do so) may find interesting insights on the types and
expected developments of doctoral education according to the different disciplines.
Finally, the survey offers useful indications to policy-makers and public managers
engaged in the reform of the higher education.
Keywords
academic career, doctoral education, higher education, Italy, teaching, training
Public administration education
Public administration (PA)1 teaching represents an important channel through
which universities contribute to the successful development of the human side of
public administration. Managers – whether private or public – tend to access uni-
versity research primarily through the medium of teaching (Starkey and Madan,
2001: S6) and the dialogue in the classroom is a strong medium of communication
between practitioners and researchers (Fincham and Clark, 2009: 513). Training
leads to changes in public servants’ attitudes and thus promotes change (Nanekar,
1973). On the other hand, ongoing reforms increase the demand of public servants
for training (Stone and Stone, 1978; Davies et al., 1995; Reichard, 1997: 331).
Nonetheless, other factors have to be taken into account when considering
human capital development. These include the selection and recruitment of ‘suit-
able’ public managers; career development and promotion for public managers; a
motivating incentive system; and adequate interaction between public managers,
their superiors and the team of employees regarding leadership, communication
and control (Reichard, 1997: 330). As these elements work jointly towards (or
against) human capital development, it is crucial to investigate PA teaching as a
context-dependent issue.
Two streams of literature were analysed for this article: the literature on doc-
toral education in general and the literature on PA teaching. Regarding the former,
a rich source of information is the European University Association (EUA)
Council for Doctoral Education. In 2008–09, it organized several conferences
addressing issues such as innovative organizational structures; skills training;
improvement of supervision; emergence of new doctorates; joint doctoral pro-
grammes; internationalization; interdisciplinarity; career development of young
researchers; collaboration with other stakeholders, etc. The EUA issued the prin-
ciples on doctoral education in 2005 (the so-called Salzburg principles, updated in
2010). In line with the emphasis on streamlining and to harmonizing higher edu-
cation in Europe, PhD studies have been subject to standardization and formali-
zation and, in some of the continental European countries there is also a tendency
to move from the classical master–apprentice model of individual research without
Cepiku
381
many taught elements to a more structured concept of PhD training with course-
work and with more systematic tutoring und supervision (Reichard, 2010).
According to the EUA (see Jo¨rgensen, 2009), 50 percent of universities in
Europe have already established doctoral programmes and teaching elements are
becoming more and more common in European doctoral programmes (70 percent
of programmes).
The second stream of literature considered is specifically focused on PA. With
the exception of a rich series of articles in either the International Review of
Administrative Sciences (Engelbert, 1964; Nanekar, 1973; Chapman, 1978; Stone
and Stone, 1978; Davies et al., 1995) or focused on the US and published in the
Public Administration Review in the 1970s and the 1980s, research on the topic does
not provide empirical quantitative evidence. As a consequence, decisions made
about educational provision are based predominantly on common sense rather
than robust evidence (Sebba, 2000). Furthermore, most of the research is developed
on a national basis and very little is truly comparative (Wise, 1999).
Another central (and more recent) source of information is the activity of the
EGPA PhD and PA Education Platform2 and its Study Group on PA education
and teaching. In particular, one seminal article has strongly contributed to the
structure of our survey. It is an international comparison of PhDs in administrative
sciences with a focus on public management by Reichard and Kickert in 2008.
Dissimilarities were found to depend on the different countries’ administrative
traditions and the authors highlighted two types of PhD programme:
Type A ¼ The doctoral thesis as a result of individual research work, comple-
mented with only limited colloquia or seminars.
Type B ¼ The doctoral thesis as the end result of substantial research, based on
comprehensive coursework over several semesters covering not only
methodological issues, but also multiple content-oriented topics.
Other key issues raised by the authors include the status of PhD programmes,
coursework, the status of PhD candidates, general institutional patterns, the dis-
ciplinary fragmentation, networking, funding trends, etc.
Based on this literature and on the conclusions reached so far, the decision was
to further investigate doctoral education dedicated to PA in Italy, focusing on key
dimensions and according to different disciplinary approaches.
Research aims and methods
Two relevant gaps emerge from the literature review, motivating this article. In
general, there are very few empirical studies on PhD education in PA. Second, it is
very likely that differences also exist between disciplines and do not depend only on
countries’ academic traditions, as assumed in previous research. Research concen-
trating on this perspective could potentially reach conclusions comparable across
different countries.
382
International Review of Administrative Sciences 77(2)
The survey of PhD directors is based on the hypothesis that the disciplinary
character strongly influences the direction and intensity of change of PhD educa-
tion. The survey aims to highlight how the different academic disciplines in Italy
are adapting to the new challenges.
Through the interviews, the state of the art of PhD education in Italy and the
distinctive characteristics of the main disciplinary approaches with particular ref-
erence to the institutional and disciplinary bases, content of programmes, duration
and frequency of courses, status, incentives for and consequences of training
(degree, precondition for promotion) and the profile and the performance...
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