A Critical Appraisal of the Study of Public Administration.

During the 1940s students of administration called attention to the absence of an adequate foundation in empirical data, in social psychology, and in governmental theory for a "science of administration." The result has been some uncertainty about the present content of public administration as a branch of political science. Three primary hypotheses may be used by the political scientist in America as the basis for his study of public administration. The first is that public administration must be conducted in such a way as to promote rather than impair the essential elements of a free society. Secondly, under the American structure of governmental power, the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches exercise continuing oversight of administrative agencies in order to ensure a politically responsible bureaucracy. Thirdly, although public administration embraces governmental operations in a variety of activities, all fields of governmental endeavor contain a common core of similar concern which we may label "management." The author is president of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. This paper was given as a lecture at the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University, on December 12, 1955. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]