Mark R. Rutgers

The double-edged sword

Abstract The motivation of civil servants to serve the public has gained considerable attention among public administration scholars and practitioners. The obvious substantive interpretation of serving the general interest is at odds with public service motivation being predominantly applied instrumentally, as a means to attain employee and organizational performance. There is a comparable situation with the oath of office, which can be regarded as a highly symbolic indicator for civil service motivation as such. The oath of office is regarded predominantly as an integrity tool, at the expense of its embedded substantive meanings. We will argue that in both cases there is a risk for a blind spot for adverse effects, that is, unwanted outcomes and the annihilation of exactly the social significance of the phenomenon in question. The lesson is that public service motivation has to be analyzed from a more encompassing perspective, acknowledging the interlocking of instrumental usage and substantive meaning. In organizational practice public service motivation (and the oath of office) should be used with care in order to warrant successful and meaningful deployment.

Sorting Out Public Values? On the Contingency of Value Classification in Public Administration

Do classifications of values as presented in the study of public administration make sense? In this article, an overview of values in public administration is discussed and, in particular, a number of attempts to rank and order these values are discussed. The need to, and possibility of, distinguishing levels, categories, syndromes, constellations, families, sets, clusters, and so on of values is generally acknowledged. All categorizations and typologies, however, prove to be tentative and helpful only as descriptive, analytic tools. It is argued that the validity and usefulness of any typology of values relies on the justification of the approach taken. This is, however, where most authors fall short of what is demanded to appraise their categorizations and typologies.

Traditional Flavors? The Different Sentiments in European and American Administrative Thought

To state that Americans and Europeans have different attitudes toward the concept of state is commonplace, but how does this influence the study of public administration? This article traces differences in Western administrative thought in terms of traditions underlying the conceptualization of public administration. The traditions encompass a specific orientation toward the state (ontology) and toward conceptualization (epistemology); combining the two, the more common stateness/stateless differentiation can be refined as a means to capture different sentiments in administrative theory. The article concludes with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the two ideal-typical traditions and calls for the further development of the concept of the administrative state.

The Origins and Restriction of Efficiency in Public Administration Regaining Efficiency as the Core Value of Public Administration

This article is primarily a study in the history of the concept of efficiency. It is argued that efficiency originated in Aristotelian ideas about causality and acquired a broad, substantive meaning of “moving force.” This meaning of the term was dominant well into 20th-century studies of public administration. In the course of the 20th century, however, efficiency became predominantly understood as “technical efficiency”: a ratio between resources and results. This connotation is especially clear in the explicit “textbook” definitions of efficiency. Nevertheless, we claim that the substantive meaning of efficiency is still around, and even at the heart of much criticism of efficiency. Technical efficiency obscures that efficiency in public administration is to be assessed in the light of public values. Efficiency as signifying the necessity of having capable operative administrative agents constitutes one of the, if not the, core value of the field.

As Good as It Gets? On the Meaning of Public Value in the Study of Policy and Management

Public values are being promoted as a core concept in the study of public administration, in particular, in discourses surrounding Moore’s public value management and Bozeman’s public value failure. This article outlines the approaches to the concept of values and public values. Particular attention is paid to the founding distinction between facts and values, which proves to be less clear than usually assumed. After discussing a range of possible characteristics of public values, an encompassing definition is attempted, which consequently has to accommodate opposing characteristics. It is concluded that the concept of public value is a fuzzy concept, and that is probably “as good as it gets.”

Splitting the Universe On the Relevance of Dichotomies for the Study of Public Administration

Traditionally, the politics/administration dichotomy is referred to in the study of public administration as the founding dichotomy. Debates on its tenability are as old as its discovery. In the arguments put forward, however, no attention is paid to the epistemological nature of dichotomies. This article tries to fill this gap. It is usually assumed that dichotomies have a contradictory nature. By looking at the logic of contradictions, and arguments relating to the use of logic in social practice, it is concluded that this is a false assumption. They are to be interpreted as conceptual constructs with an ideal-typical status. This reinterpretation of the nature of dichotomies helps to clarify the debates on the politics/administration dichotomy. It implies, for instance, that rejecting the dichotomy because of its contradictory or unrealistic nature is misguided.

Public Administration and the Separation of Powers in a Cross-Atlantic Perspective

Abstract This article focuses on the links between the doctrine of the separation of powers and the concept of public administration in a cross-Atlantic perspective. The separations doctrine is at the root of the concept of public administration as it emerged in the nineteenth century. It is a troublesome starting point, as it remains unclear how administration relates to the other state functions. What is more, the doctrine proofs not to have a univocal interpretation in Western thought. As a consequence, the conceptualization of public administration and thus what constitutes an administrative phenomenon differs. To account for the theoretical, normative as well as practical meaning of our core concepts is a prerequisite for furthering international discourse in the field..

Public Values Core or Confusion? Introduction to the Centrality and Puzzlement of Public Values Research

This article provides the introduction to a symposium on contemporary public values research. It is argued that the contribution to this symposium represent a Public Values Perspective, distinct from other specific lines of research that also use public value as a core concept. Public administration is approached in terms of processes guided or restricted by public values and as public value creating: public management and public policy-making are both concerned with establishing, following and realizing public values. To study public values a broad perspective is needed. The article suggest a research agenda for this encompasing kind of public values research. Finally the contributions to the symposium are introduced.

Can the Study of Public Administration do without a Concept of the State? Reflections on the Work of Lorenz Von Stein

Attempts to refound the study of public administration are not new. As early as the 19th century, the German scholar Lorenz Von Stein (1815-1890) tried to develop an encompassing study that was theoretically coherent and practically relevant. His views are often surprisingly modern in outlook and intent. The conceptual cornerstone in his approach is the state. Von Stein thus provides an outlook many contemporary students of public administration, especially in America, would like to do away with. Can we refound public administration without it, or do we need a concept of state as a focal point for defining public administration?

Be rational! But what does it mean?

An ancient, and most influential, concept in management thought is the idea of rationality. Criticism with regard to a rational approach to management seems to focus on the importance of value issues. It is argued in this article that from a historical‐philosophical perspective values and rationality are not simply each other’s opposites, but closely related. The article sketches the conceptual development of the idea of rationality in philosophical thinking. The adopted focus is to consider the major changes in the meaning of the idea of rationality, and the kind of criticism the idea has encountered. Schematically, the article approaches the conceptual development of a current‐day comprehension of “rationality” by using four episodes: ancient thinking towards wise leadership; the Greek idea of logos; the nineteenth century modernist belief in positivism; and the twentieth century “postmodernist” debate which culminates in Habermas’ “communicative” rationality. An assessment of the meaning of rationality in management thought is undertaken by an initial appraisal of the roots of management thought prior to the emergence of rationality as an idea. This illustrates the often neglected normative basis of management thought, and stresses the importance of managerial “values”. It enables a perspective on the ancient Greek development of meaning for logos, which is the classical precursor for modern day rationality. By appraising the development of rationality as a particular conceptual type, rather than a specific philosophical idea, the non‐normative approach adopted in modernist management writings emerges as being a severely constrained concept. From a philosophical perspective, a reduction of rationality to some kind of “goal‐oriented” action is inadequate. This is because rationality and valuation have traditionally been, and remain, closely linked. As such, the three Es of goal‐rationality (economy, efficiency, and effectiveness) acquire a counterpart that refers to value‐rationality ‐ ethics.