Redefining the boundaries of Public Administration
| Author | Adam Williams,Derek R Slagle |
| DOI | 10.1177/0144739418775789 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Published By | Sage Publications, Inc. |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Redefining the boundaries
of Public Administration
Derek R Slagle
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Adam Williams
University of Illinois at Springfield, Springfield, Illinois, Springfield, Illinois, USA
Abstract
The scope of the article is reinterpretation of the question posed by Rodgers and Rodgers,
namely, are Public Administration scholarship produced by “disciplined purists” – Public
Administration scholars producing Public Administration research – or “undisciplined mon-
grels”? The methodology diverges from previous analysis through examination of doctoral
dissertation research classification, rather than faculty output in publications. Concomitantly,
Biglan classification of disciplines was used as a framework to determine disciplinary classifi-
cations of “undisciplined” or interdisciplinary scholarship. Findings indicate that from 2000 to
2015, there were shifts toward Public Administration as a “purist” discipline. Not only are
there changes toward a distinct discipline but also steady declines in outside discipline pro-
duction of Public Administration doctoral research. The analysis demonstrated a statistically
significant increase in categorization of Public Administration scholarship for subjects gen-
erally accepted as core issues. Another noted change was dramatic decline for the Doctor of
Public Administration degree as the field redefined boundaries.
Keywords
Public administration, doctoral education, inquiry, disciplinary boundaries, doctoral
research
Introduction
Public administration as a field has continually been marked with a self-imposed identity
crisis (Hafer, 2016; Mainzer, 1994; Waldo, 1968) “that has been at the center of the
Corresponding author:
Derek R Slagle, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 S. University Ave., Ross Hall #631, Little Rock,
AR 72204-1000, USA.
Email: derekrslagle@gmail.com; Telephone: 501-569-3331
Teaching Public Administration
2018, Vol. 36(3) 259–275
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0144739418775789
journals.sagepub.com/home/tpa
discipline since its inception” (Morgan et al., 2010: 626). Public administration has
continually searched for a distinct identity (Ni et al., 2017) with a continual body of
literature attempting to establish common disciplinary narratives (see, for example, Lan
and Anders, 2000; Meier, 2015; Miller and Jaja, 2005; Riccucci, 2010; Wright, 2011;
Zalmanovitch, 2014). The underlying insecurities over what the field is or will become
(Farazmand, 2012) are tied to the perceived lack of academic boundaries, scope and size
of the field, and unflattering comparisons with other fields (Streib et al., 2001: 522).
Stallings (1986) noted confusion over whether Public Administration refers to practice in
or study of the public sector; assumptions about core problems of the field; Public
Administration as a professional and “borrowing” field; and relationship between
practice, theory, and method as central to the problem of defining field of study. “The
study of Public Administration is rightly an inter-disciplinary study – studying gov-
ernment is its material object and must draw upon other monodisciplines that study
aspects of government – without clear epistemological and methodological boundaries”
(Raadschelders and Douglas, 2003: 231). Public administration may be said to be a
synthesis. The boundary of the field should not be drawn too narrowly. Its scope must be
broad – “almost as broad as all government itself” (Dimock, 1936: 12). The aim of the
article is examination of potential narrowing of boundaries of Public Administration as
exemplified in doctoral research.
In order to explore these boundaries, a comparative analysis of dissertations associ-
ated with Public Administration is utilized. The primary research questions for the study
are as follows.
1. How are changes to doctoral scholarship in Public Administration from 2000 to
2015 indicating a directional shift in the field?
2. What changes occurred and of what significance are shifts for the future of Public
Administration?
The research questions are addressed using a series of descriptive and chi-square
analyses to determine observed outcomes of doctoral dissertations in Public
Administration against expected outcomes from 2000 to 2015. Results indicate a
new, future direction for pedagogy, epistemology and scholastic outputs of Public
Administration. The directional changes and importance are discussed for academic
and practical significance.
The research questions and focus on Public Administration as “undisciplined mon-
grels” and/or “disciplined purist” are reinterpretations of questions and methodology
presented by Rodgers and Rodgers (2000). Rodgers and Rodgers examined whether
Public Administration journal publications were from those trained inside (purists) or
outside (mongrels) the field. The disciplined purists are, thus, those Public Adminis-
tration scholars who publish exclusively in Public Administration journals. Whereas
undisciplined mongrels are scholars trained in neighboring or overlapping disciplines.
The findings indicated that a miniscule percentage of purists published within highly
selective journals used to rank Public Administration programs. This research article
further examined the production of disciplined purists at the doctoral level—namely
260 Teaching Public Administration 36(3)
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