Who Are the Keepers of the Code? Articulating and Upholding Ethical Standards in the Field of Public Administration

Establishing a code of ethics has been a challenge in public administration. Ethics is central to the practice of administration, but the broad field of public administration has had difficulty articulating clear and meaningful standards of behavior and developing a means of upholding a code of ethics. Although a number of specialized professional associations in public service adopted codes, starting with the International City/County Management Association in 1924 and others after 1960, the full range of public administrators did not have an association to represent them until the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) was founded in 1939. Despite early calls for a code of ethics in ASPA, the first code was adopted in 1984, with revisions in 1994, but neither code had a process for enforcement. A new code approved in 2013 builds on the earlier codes and increases the prospects for ASPA to work with other professional associations to broaden awareness of the ethical responsibilities to society of all public administrators.     

The Present Challenges to ASPA as an Association That Promotes Public Professionalism

What is ASPA's place among core public professional organizations as well as public official associations? All public organizations are affected by tough competition for membership. Relatively few members of other public associations join ASPA, and vice versa. Only a minority of faculty members who teach in public affairs programs belong to ASPA, and at top schools, the proportion is even lower. When comparing ASPA to other public official associations, it is smaller in size and broader in scope, yet it remains a uniquely pan‐generalist organization. Its pan‐generalist character puts it at a disadvantage, but also offers distinct advantages. Like all public associations and nonprofits, ASPA faces stiff competition from increasingly specialized associations for membership. Its key future challenge, the authors suggest, will be to match its membership benefits effectively to the rapidly shifting expectations and needs of current and prospective members.     

The Public Administration Review and Ongoing Struggles for Connectedness

Facilitation of connectedness has been a fundamental role of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the Public Administration Review (PAR) throughout their six decades of professional service. Together, they have sought to link practitioners and academicians across subfields and varied levels of activities. As a foremost refereed journal, PAR has sought to encourage the linking of practice and theory through timely publication of methodologically disciplined research, informed analyses and commentaries, and constructive literature reviews and correspondence. These responsibilities have been persistently challenging. ASPA and PAR have served a dynamic field that has made some wrong turns and had others forced on it, resulting in failed autonomy, followed by increasing partisan politicization of governments and reduced reliance on professionally expert administration. For ASPA, it has created leadership and membership problems. For PAR, it has sometimes exacerbated difficulties in connecting practitioners and academicians, but it has also created more shared concerns as important subjects of inquiry. Challenges now are to serve both enduring and new spheres of the field that are afforded by international and domestic developments. Both ASPA and PAR are striving to do that. Globalization of public administration opens a world of opportunities today. Localization, as a fundamental of constitutional democracy, is a priority internationally, presenting an engaging paradox of global attention to both place and planet. That is linked in this commentary to the classic democracy-bureaucracy quandary that has constructively challenged public administration. While arrays of other important subjects, old and new, need to command attention in PAR, these are linked in this analysis to today's theory and practice of interdependent facilitative states to assess how the journal serves its responsibilities.     

Women in the American Society for Public Administration: Another Decade of Progress But Still a Way to Go

During ASPA's first fifty years (1939–1989), the role of women in the Society evolved from virtual invisibility, to token representation, to major participation. In the 1990s, women's role in ASPA continued to expand. They achieved just about full partnership with male colleagues in the organization's governance and they increased their contributions to ASPA's efforts to support the improvement of theory and practice in public administration through research and scholarship. However, women have not yet achieved parity with their male colleagues in scholarly output. For women to achieve full equality with men in ASPA, they must be better represented in contributions to literature and knowledge in the profession.     

Good Work, Honestly Done: ASPA at 70

This essay examines the history of ASPA from internal and external vantage points, showing how the organization has continually adapted to demands from within and competition from without. ASPA is rooted in Progressive Era reforms that professionalized government during the first half of the twentieth century, spawning numerous associations of public officials dedicated to enhancing expertise and integrity throughout the public service. Changes in membership, mission, structure, conferences, publications, commitment to ethics, and relationships with other like-minded associations are reviewed. Today, ASPA is an agile organization that represents a uniquely generalist orientation to public service professionalism while offering more services to its members within a competitive marketplace of public official associations.     

The Future Is Uncentralized

In July 1995, ASPA's Endowment Board established the Donald C. Stone Fund to honor the memory of this public administration legend. Income from this fund is used to sponsor a lecture or symposium at ASPA's national conference which reflects Stone's varied interests and contributions to the field. This year marked the fifth Donald C. Stone Lecture. On April 4, Harlan Cleveland, former ASPA National President, was ASPA's Visions 2000 Stone Lecturer and gave the following speech.     

A Senator's Personal Reflections on Public Service

The Honorable Mary Landrieu, U.S. senator from Louisiana since 1997, addressed the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) at a luncheon honoring four Louisianans for their public service. They included General Russel L. Honoré, U.S. Army; Chancellor James L. Llorens, Southern University at Baton Rouge; Mayor Mitch Landrieu, City of New Orleans; and Professor Astrid Merget, Public Administration Institute at Louisiana State University Baton Rouge and honorary co‐chair of the 2013 ASPA Conference. In her remarks, Senator Landrieu reflected on her lineage in public service.     

Ethics in Government: No Matter How Long and Dark the Night

This work examines attitudes about ethics in American government during the turbulent time from the end of the past century to the beginning of the new. Using data from a national survey, the authors explore views toward ethics in society and integrity in public agencies, with an emphasis on the code of ethics of the American Society for Public Administration. The results not only reveal considerable continuity over the years but also suggest that individual managers are increasingly empowered, that agencies are affecting positive change, and that the ASPA code may be influencing management practices. The implications of the findings for ASPA ethics initiatives are considered.     

公共管理的旧貌新颜和发展趋势——公共管理面面观

祝贺《公共管理学报》创刊。对公共管理的过去、现在和未来作一些概括性的介绍,将有助于公共管理在我国的研究和发展。试从关于公共管理的内容和历史、地位和作用、体制和方法、人员和经费、领导和决策、改革和发展、现状和前景、理论和实践等八个方面,进行简要考察,并注意在坚持中国特色的同时,保持与国际接轨。旨在使公共管理在促进中国特色社会主义小康社会的建设过程中,发挥其应有的积极作用。     

Curriculum Reform in Budgeting and Financial Management: Preliminary Thoughts on the Dimension of the Field

Editors' note: In January 1984, Dick Hickman, chairperson-elect of the Section on Budgeting and Financial Management, American Society for Public Administration, appointed a task force of about 30 ASPA members on Budgeting and Financial Management Curriculum Reform. The task force is charged to report at the Indianapolis meeting of ASPA in 1985. Professor James R. Alexander was appointed chairman of the task force, and in this capacity convened a double-session roundtable on curriculum reform at the Denver meeting of ASPA in April. This article is Professor Alexander's presentation at that session. The task force welcomes any comments, suggestions, or critiques on this important subject. Such communications may be addressed to Professor James R. Alexander, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904.     

A Systematic Review of Field Experiments in Public Administration

Field experiments have become popular in public administration. By allowing for the identification of causal effects in realistic settings, field experiments may become central in several research agendas of relevance to the field. Conducting field experiments is difficult and problems often occur along the way. However, researchers new to the method have few resources in public administration to consider the problems that arise when conducting field experiments. This systematic review identifies 42 field experiments in public administration and serves as an introduction to field experiments in public administration. The article discusses how field experiments developed over time and highlights trends in field experimentation in public administration. It then discusses issues to consider when designing field experiments. Among these are costs, practicality, ethics, and validity. Finally, the authors suggest a future research agenda for public administration field experiments.     

改革开放以来的中国公共行政学

改革开放以后,中国公共行政学得以恢复与重建,并逐渐确立了其应有的学科地位,从而获得了更大的发展空间,取得了辉煌的成就:高等院校公共行政学科学院化,建立了完整的专业教育体系,专业性学术组织蓬勃发展,创办了一批专业学术期刊,积极开展国际学术交流;研究领域不断拓展,研究范式不断转换,研究方法不断改进,话语体系不断构建等。公共行政学的发展在推动我国行政体制改革、构建服务型政府、转变政府职能、培育公共精神、提升政府治理能力等方面都起到了重要作用,但在没有形成完备的本土化理论体系、研究方法的结构性失衡、公共行政的合法性危机等方面,仍面临较大的挑战。不过,全面深化改革的进一步推进、国家治理体系与治理能力现代化水平的逐步提高、互联网与大数据技术的广泛应用,也为公共行政学的发展创造了巨大的发展机遇。未来中国公共行政学的发展要立足现实,及时回应和满足社会变革的需要,创新公共行政学的研究范式与方法,构建具有中国特色的公共行政学话语体系和本土化的公共行政学理论。     

中国服务型政府建构的路向分析

中国传统的政府管理模式是在计划经济体制下形成的,是政治、经济和行政长期一体化的结果,是在中国传统文化的土壤中产生的。由于这种政府管理模式是以权力为中心的,因此,可称为“权力行政模式”。中国是发展中国家,国内改革和参与解决全球问题的双重压力,给政府管理带来根本性的挑战。“权力行政模式”难以适应21世纪的政府管理要求。以“公共服务”为核心的是未来政府管理可选择的理想模式。     

公共行政的发展与变迁:新公共管理的研究途径

新公共管理理论是公共行政领域最为引人注目的理论之一.它的兴起,既是对传统公共行政理论的矫正,也促进了政府变革的发展.本文就其主要理论基础进行介绍、分析与评述,并就其未来的发展进行预测和评论.     

Pursuing Consilience: Using Behavioral Public Administration to Connect Research on Bureaucratic Red Tape,Administrative Burden,and Regulation

Behavioral public administration (BPA) research aspires not only to draw on developments in behavioral science but also, importantly, to address central themes in public administration. By focusing a symposium on bureaucratic red tape, administrative burden, and regulation, we encouraged BPA scholarship to engage with fundamental public administration topics that are also relevant for the broader literature on organizations and management. Indeed, the symposium contributions demonstrate how BPA can better meld the behavioral science and public administration literatures. They expand on existing conceptions of BPA, with respect to both methodology and topical focus, and provide a basis for demarcating what might and might not be usefully described as BPA. The symposium contributions provide a blueprint for how BPA research might usefully evolve and the introduction offers a philosophical reflection on the future development of BPA and behavioral science.     

Oh Ye of Little Faith! A Response to Davis and Wanna

In response to falls in public sector employment and the closure of public management programs in universities, Davis and Wanna (1997) raised the significant question: ‘Does the teaching of public administration have a future?’ A study of the changes in roles, functions and competencies and education needs of ‘new’ public sector managers suggests that universities have a distinctive role in meeting their need for management education.     

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Rapid advances in our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information are transforming public administration. This “big data” revolution presents opportunities for improving the management of public programs, but it also entails some risks. In addition to potentially magnifying well‐known problems with public sector performance management—particularly the problem of goal displacement—the widespread dissemination of administrative data and performance information increasingly enables external political actors to peer into and evaluate the administration of public programs. The latter trend is consequential because external actors may have little sense of the validity of performance metrics and little understanding of the policy priorities they capture. The author illustrates these potential problems using recent research on U.S. primary and secondary education and suggests that public administration scholars could help improve governance in the data‐rich future by informing the development and dissemination of organizational report cards that better capture the value that public agencies deliver.     

Bureaucratic discretion,social equity,and the administrative legitimacy dilemma: Complications of New Public Service

Bureaucratic discretion continues to be one of a public administrator's primary powers while at the same time being one of their most controversial. Used in a positive way, bureaucratic discretion can enhance social equity; however, this practice can create administrative legitimacy dilemmas. As such, this paper conceptually discusses the theoretical position of public administrators that contributes to their engagement in legitimacy dilemmas, which is further complicated by the tenets of New Public Service. We argue that if public administrators are engaged in authentic interactions with the public and use their discretion to reflect the interests of the public, then they are engaged in truly democratic governance. We place this argument in the context of achieving social equity and highlight an avoided question in public administration. Finally, recommendations for future research are offered as a means progressing the social equity agenda in public administration.