UNDERSTANDING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: REFLECTIONS ON AN ACADEMIC OBITUARY —"ALAS, POOR YORICK"

It seemed that "Alas, Poor Yorick" was an appropriate subtitle for this attempt to respond to Understanding Public Administration. Yorick, you will remember, was the deceased royal jester, whose skull Hamlet inspected in the churchyard in Elsinore, causing him to meditate on the vanity of human life. "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." Though not a professional jester, I am keenly aware of the ephemeral character of the work of Professors of Government and Public Administration, or at least of this particular one; though Festsehriften may be said to "lay it on thick", they cannot altogether disguise the rather plain face beneath. I am glad to be fortified by having the more distinguished countenance of Robert Parker alongside me, and I mean that.     

Inquiry into Local Government Responsibilities and Funding

On 30 May 2002 I announced a major inquiry into local government. The inquiry is to be conducted by the multi–party House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration. In this article I look at the background to the inquiry and at some of the things I hope it will achieve.     

多视角的公共行政观——评《公共行政学：管理、政治和法律途径》一书

《公共行政学:管理、政治和法律途径》一书是美国著名行政学家戴维·H·罗森布鲁姆和罗伯特·S·克拉夫丘克的力作,是一部在国际公共行政学领域中享有盛誉的经典著作.首先总结了该书提出的三种不同视角的公共行政观、公共行政未来发展九大趋势及坚持传统公共行政范式,力图将(新)公共管理纳入其框架之中的主要观点.其次,分析了该书将法律途径纳入研究视角、多视角地研究公共行政的多元公共行政观及重视公共行政中民主宪政的重要性三方面的贡献及创新之处.再次,指出本书中的三点不足之处:其一是并未达到作者所预期的"合各种途径"的目的;其二是结构略显庞杂,论述不够深入、细致;其三是视角较为狭隘,仅局限于美国.最后,对于该书对我国的借鉴与启示作用,认为:一方面由于中、美国情差异很大,应该慎重对待该书中的相关理论;另一方面应借鉴该书中适用中国的经验、方法,推进中国公共行政理论与实践的发展.     

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT VIEWED FROM SYDNEY

This conference on "Public Administration in Co-operative Federalism", fittingly convened by the Royal Institute of Public Administration, is a most timely one. It is tangible evidence that co-operative federalism is not only possible but, in many areas, positively flourishes, and it provides an opportunity for those of us with state or federal responsibilities in public administration to state our problems fairly and frankly and seek ways of extending co-operation to secure future prosperity for Australia.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
H ugh H eclo and A aron W ildavsky . The Private Government of Public Money
E.N. G ladden . A History of Public Administration. Vol. I From Earliest Times to the Eleventh Century. Vol. II From the Eleventh Century to the Present Day.
R obert H yslop . Australian Naval Administration, 1900–1939.
I. F. N icolson and C. H. S tokes (eds). Mass Media in the Seventies: Their Impact on Public Administration.
V ictor A. T hompson . Without Sympathy or Enthusiasm: The Problem of Administrative Compassion.     

Introduction — Building Local Government

In this and the last issue, the Australian Journal of Public Administration has profiled issues of current importance to Australian local/regional government. Contributors to Building Local Government looked at organisational change, performance measurement, leadership and social–capital–building roles in local government. Future of Regionalism now focuses on local and subnational government generally, in the financial, administrative and constitutional context. A major trigger for this focus is the present inquiry of the Commonwealth House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration into the financial position of local government.     

THE FEDERAL PRINCIPLE AND NATIONAL PLANNING

I am pleased to be able to speak today to this conference of the Royal Institute of Public Administration. Your conference comes at a time of renewed interest in federalism. In the past year or so there has been an upsurge of new studies and assessments of federalism in the universities and in the press. New life has been breathed into a subject which for so long has seemed dead in spirit, if not in die flesh.     

THE FORGOTTEN ROYAL COMMISSION: PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The publication Public Service Inquiries in Australia edited by R.F.I Smith and Patrick Weller (1978) concentrated on the wave of inquiries that swept Australia in the 1970s with most attention being given to the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (RCAGA). While the focus of the book was on contemporary developments, Roger Wettenhall's chapter 2 outlined "A Brief History of Public Service Inquiries" so as "to set the present generation of inquiries more firmly in a historical context" (1978, p.15).     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
ROSAMUND THOMAS, The British Philosophy of Administration A Comparison of British and American Ideas 1900–1939 .
COLIN CAMPBELL & GEORGE J. SZABLOWSKI, The Superbureaucrats—Structure & Behaviour in Central Agencies .
ROBERTT. GOLEMBIEWSKI and WILLIAM B. EDDY (eds), "Organization Development in Public Administration", Parts 1 & 2, Public Administration and Public Policy , Volume 5.
PETER GROENEWEGEN, Public Finance in Australia: Theory and Practice .     

当代西方公共管理前沿理论述评

公共管理作为一门综合性的学科,其前沿理论五花八门,但其中比较宏观和有持续影响力的当属20世纪年70代末和80年代初兴起、到现在还在继续的长达二十多年的政府改革思潮.这一思潮的主要理论基础是20世纪60年代出现的公共选择学派.新公共管理、新公共行政/服务以及治理等前沿理论都与公共选择理论有着密切的关系,是公共选择理论的发展或是在批判公共选择学派的过程中形成的理论.这几个理论相关又不尽相同,与西方思想界都有着十分深厚的渊源,反映着不同思想阵营和不同理论之间的博弈,并没有达到能够相互替代的程度.它们的风行在中国的公共管理学界也引起了层层涟漪和概念上的混淆.从西方公共管理改革实践的历史背景出发,重点就这四大理论的特点、渊源和理论效度进行综述和评论,并讨论了它们对中国公共管理发展的启示.     

Looking Out for Our Indigenous People: The Canadian Experience

Respected Elders Djerrkura and Dodson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My Aboriginal name is Pad8gi Pai8, which means 'Coming Thunder' in the Abenaki language and I am a member of the Odanak Band of the Abenaki First Nation. I want to acknowledge and thank the traditional caretakers of the land we stand on today, the Larrakia People Meegwetch. I am truly honoured to be here with you today and want to take this opportunity to thank the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) and the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) for inviting me.     

Big Questions for a Significant Public Administration

During the 1999 "Building Bridges Tour" (see Stivers 2000), PAR readers encouraged the editors to focus more attention on the so-called "Big Questions/Big Issues" of the field of public administration. In response to this suggestion, we created a new forum for scholarly discourse simply called "Big Questions/Big Issues." This inaugural forum begins with a context setting essay by John Kirlin,a leading proponent of the Big Questions/Big Issues perspective. Kirlin' essay is immediately followed by Laurence E. Lynn Jr.'s thought provoking piece, "The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm: What Traditional Public Administration Really Stood For." Lynn' essay is important for it takes to task those who carelessly attack "traditional public administration." We asked J. Patrick Dobel (University of Washington), David Rosenbloom (American University), Norma Riccucci (State University of New York at Albany), and James Svara (North Carolina State) to respond to Lynn' essay. We invite PAR readers to join the conversation using PAR' message board online at ASPA's Online Community (http://www.memberconnections.com/aspa/) or by writing directly to theauthors and/or editors.—LDT     

1974—PUBLIC SERVICES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

My Chairman, Mr H. H. Dickinson, was honoured to be offered the role of keynote speaker for the 1974 Annual Conference of the Royal Institute of Public Administration. He had proceeded a considerable distance along the road of preparing his address when he was unexpectedly called on to visit Canada on government business. On his behalf I wish to apologize to the organizers for his absence today. He regrets it very much. The address I am about to give is in some sense therefore a joint effort, encapsulating the theme judged by Mr Dickinson to be most appropriate for this occasion, within a framework which enables me to develop and expound that theme.     

基于作者共被引的公共行政研究状况图谱分析——以《Public Administration Review》为研究对象

一门学科的发展离不开优秀专家学者的倾力支持，在公共行政学的形成和发展过程中，同样有一批优秀的公共行政学者推动了公共行政不同分支领域的衍生与发展。运用作者共被引和信息可视化方法，对权威期刊《公共行政评论》（Public Administration Review）于1975--2008年间发表的论文引文中被引频次前50名的学者进行分析。研究结果展现了公共行政领域的主要学术流派，并验证了公共行政研究确实是在沿着范式转移的轨迹更迭交替着。而这种变迁是相对的，大部分时间内，不同范式之间以及和其他学术流派之间是共存、互动甚至交融的。研究还发现，网络化治理正凭借其多中心和网络化的组织基础以及服务治理的先进理念迅速崛起，它将成为公共行政新的研究范式，而基于网络理论的公共行政理论大整合也将很有可能成为公共行政未来的研究热点。此外，实证结果与公共行政范式分类的高度相似性也充分表明了作者共被引和信息可视化方法的科学和有效，它的确为学科范式研究提供了一条定量研究的新思路和一个宏观分析的新视角。     

公共行政学研究方法：问题与反思

公共行政学有三种研究取向:解释性、诠释性以及批判性研究,其中实证主义在公共行政学领域曾一度占据着主导地位。一些西方学者以实证主义的有效性标准来评估公共行政学的研究现状,另一些学者则对此展开了批判与质疑,他们认为不同的研究取向都有其自身的价值,不能用主流社会科学的衡量标准来评估诠释性研究与批判性研究,并由此引发了对西方公共行政学研究现状的反思。中国公共行政学研究在方法上也存在一些问题——理论脱离实际倾向严重;基本的公共行政学学术规范还没有建立起来,研究方法极不严谨,研究质量存在严重的问题;对定性研究存在认识上的误区;等等。在比较分析的基础上提出改善中国公共行政学研究状况的对策思考,尤其强调要注意区分公共行政学研究在不同国家所处的阶段不同。     

Incremental Thinking: "Toward a Theory of Budgeting"

Editor's Note: V.O. Key's article bemoaning "The Lack of a Budgetary Theory" was reprinted in the previous issue of Public Budgeting & Finance. The problems identified by Key are normative; they go to the basic values arid purposes of society and, hence, cannot be resolved by budgetary solutions alone. But a dozen years after Key wrote, Verne Lewis sought to anchor a theory of budgeting in marginal analysis, His article, printed here by permission of the American Society for Public Administration, first appeared in the Public Administration Review in 1952, Rather than seeking a full-blown political philosophy. Lewis thought that budgetary choice could be rationalized at the margins, by comparing the marginal costs and benefits of competing claims on public resources, While his hopes for a theory of budgeting have not been fulfilled, Lewis laid the groundwork for forms of marginal analysis introduced by PPB and ZBB in later decades. Indeed, there is a remarkable affinity between the budgetary structure proposed by Lewis and the one used by zero-base budgeting in the 1970s.     

What Future for the Ombudsman?

The ombudsman institution, in both the public and private sectors, is increasingly identified with the ethos of consumerism and the protection of consumer rights. The current trend is exemplified and reinforced by the EU ADR Directive and by the government response to a recent inquiry into complaints conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee. This article argues that the dominant consumerist ethos diminishes the ability of the ombudsman institution to fulfil its potential. If the ombudsman institution, in particular as manifest in the office of the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, is to serve the public interest, it must instead promote human rights principles and constitutional morality, adopt a process that is marked by public reasoning and participation and seek by a whole‐system approach to realise a vision that is integrated and truly democratic.     

基于公众服务的网上行政审批系统模型研究

中国的电子政务建设刚刚起步,迫切需要各种理论和实践的支持。通过对电子政务重要组成部分———面向公众服务的行政审批系统的分析,从系统和工程的观点提出了可以应用到行政审批系统中的角色互动网络模型,并通过给出的模型建立行政审批系统的应用软件系统框架结构、网络体系结构、建设模式、运行管理模式。网上审批是信息时代对公共管理发展客观需要的现实选择。它的影响不仅在于手段的电子化,更重要的是还会引起管理价值、管理范式、管理权力、管理职能、管理组织、管理主客体等方面的变化。网上审批将通过信息技术与公共管理的有机融合促使公共管理由传统的管制管理向服务管理的转变。     

THE DISCIPLINE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE STUDY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

No doubt my colleagues in this venture will attest to the wide range of contributions which Robert Parker and Dick Spann have made to the field of public administration. I have benefited greatly from these contributions, as well as from discussions with both, in particular from those with Dick Spann during my period in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Sydney. However, the breadth of their coverage has not been without some cost to the field, and in this paper I want to examine their influence on the area which I know best, that of local government.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
V incent O strom , The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration
F rederick C. M osher (ed.), American Public Administration: Past, Present, Future.
F. F. R idley , The Study of Government: Political Science and Public Administration.
C hristopher C. H ood , The Limits of Administration
C ampbell S harman , The Premiers' Conference: An Essay in Federal-State Interaction
R. F. I. S mith and P atrick W eller , Public Servants, Interest Groups and Policy Making
A rchie D awson , Points and Politics: A History of the Electrical Trades Union of Queensland