Heather Getha-Taylor Selected 2006 Volcker Junior Scholar Research
Grant Award Winner

The 2006 Paul A. Volcker Junior Scholar Research Grant Award Committee is pleased to announce that Heather Getha-Taylor is the recipient of this year's award for her proposal, "Specifying and Testing a Model of Collaborative Capacity: Identifying Competencies and Incentive Structures in the Department of Homeland Security."

Heather is presently completing her PhD at The Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Her proposal stood out among an exceptionally strong group of proposals submitted this year from junior colleagues across the U.S. and abroad. Members of the 2006 Volcker Awards Committee were Lael Keiser, University of Missouri-Columbia; Lloyd Nigro, Georgia State University; and Camilla Stivers, Cleveland State University. The Volcker Award plaque and a $2300 grant will be awarded to Heather at the PA Section Business Meeting on Friday, September 1st, at the APSA Conference in Philadelphia. Many thanks to Lael, Lloyd, and Cam for their service to the PA section, and congratulations to Heather!

Return to top

The 2005 Gaus Lecture is now online Vincet Ostrom's “Citizen-Sovereigns: The Source of Contestability,
the Rule of Law, and the Conduct of Public Entrepreneurship” was published in the January 2006 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics, pp. 13-17.

For previous Gaus Lectures, click here.

Return to top

The 2006 Gaus Lecture Awardee is Kenneth J. Meier, the Charles H. Gregory Chair in Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. Ken will deliver his lecture on Friday, September 1 at 6 PM (Room TBA). His title: "The Public Administration of Politics or What Political Science Could Learn from Public Administration". (See the editorial below for a preview of his remarks.)

The 2006 Gaus Award Selection Committee was Kathryn Newcomer, chair (George Washington University), Joergen G. Christensen (University of Aarhus), and Meredith A. Newman (University of Illinois Springfield).

Editorial:

Perestroika in Political Science:
A Redundant Road to Oblivion for PA

Kenneth J. Meier

Department of Political Science,
Texas A&M University
& Cardiff School of Business,
Cardiff University (U.K.)

"The problem for Perestroikans is that their offspring are sterile. Perestroika needs to bring creative new ways to examine political phenomena, demonstrate how they can answer questions that others cannot, or develop innovative theories that will get us to drop what we are currently doing and move to the Perestroikan paradigm. Simply whining for the good old days is not very convincing."

In the fall 2004 Public Administration Section Newsletter, Dvora Yanow provided an introduction to the Perestroika movement in political science and briefly argued that it might herald a brighter future for public administration. My own view is that PA does not have a dog in that fight. While some of the issues raised such as epistemology, appropriate methodological approaches, and the lack of cross-subfield fertilization are relevant to PA, in my view neither Perestroika nor political science cares about public administration. Neither will provide a supportive environment for PA, both are merely different paths to irrelevance.

The surprising aspect of Professor Yanow's essay is that it had to be written at all. A rational Perestroika movement would have immediately targeted PA scholars as potential allies. After all Perestroika claims that certain scholars are systematically discriminated against in the academic marketplace of political science. PA knows discrimination. So few public administration articles are published in the top four political science journals (AJPS, APSR, JoP, and PRQ) that PA is not even a separate category in the reports of the journal editors. Rarely are PA scholars on the editorial boards of these journals; and usually if there is one, it is only one. In 1986 PA had 34 panels at the national meeting of the American Political Science Association; in 2005 we were allocated 12. Those with long memories can even recall when PA was actually removed from the APSA program in the 1960s.

Despite what might be considered a common status and treatment by "mainstream" political science, Perestroika has made no initiatives to public administration. One might charitably think that they have been too focused on their ability to use the APSA electoral process to defeat Asian American scholars with white males to plan for further expansion. As a social scientist who believes that behavior reveals preferences, the lack of Perestroika interest suggests that overall PA would be ignored in a Perestroika-controlled political science just as it is today.

A more interesting question is why a scholar using case studies, normative arguments, or qualitative methods might want to push public administration into the Perestroika camp? If one just distills the methods elements from Perestroika, how is it not already the dominant approach to public administration outside of political science? Richard Stillman, the new PAR editor in chief, established his record as a historical scholar; he replaced Larry D. Terry (see sidebar), a prominent theorist. Administration & Society and the American Review of Public Administration both have prominent qualitative scholars among their editors. J-PART with an applied economist as editor appears to be an exception, but H. George Frederickson retains the title editor-in-chief and his career has not been marked by an excessive focus on quantitative and mathematical techniques. No one attending the annual meetings of the American Society for Public Administration would be left with the impression that quantitative and mathematical approaches dominate our field.

A content analysis of articles in leading journals would likely reveal the same thing, that nonquantitative articles dominate the PA journals. The periodic assessments of the sorry state of dissertations in PA consistently conclude that they fail to meet even minimum scientific standards. One can conclude either that these dissertations were not intended to meet such standards and thus might be qualitative in some senses of the word, or one might simply conclude that most of the dissertations are just bad. I trust it is the former.

This Perestroika-like dominance of PA becomes even more obvious if one leaves the ivory tower of the United States. With the exception of the Netherlands, public administration or public management as it is more frequently termed, can be legalistic (France, Germany), post-modern (U.K.), or focused on either local or comparative case studies (most non U.S. countries). In the broader world of public administration, the quantitative, mathematical scholar is a rara avis indeed. That we few can strike such terror in the hearts of others is impressive.

Those of us who do quantitative work in public administration have faced a long and at times bitter fight to get quantitative work published in public administration journals. At times we have overcome absurd barriers (how many recall the short-lived PAR policy that no quantitative work could use data more than 18 months old?). Now having gained acceptance in the PA academy, why would we join a movement that would banish us again to our status in 1975?

Yanow raises an important issue; she is struck by how many subfields in political science are now addressing public administration questions but do so with a complete ignorance of our literature. I agree completely with her on this point, but wonder if becoming Perestroikans is the best solution. Might not the better solution be to do some missionary work, to actually invest some time and some scholarship in informing other fields about PA's contributions. Yanow's essay might force me to write the article that I have long threatened to write, expressing the point that all political institutions (Congress, courts, interest groups, coalitions, etc.) are managed and that if one does not understand the management element in politics, one has an incomplete and inaccurate view of politics. Yes, our colleagues in political science could use our help, both in terms of our insights in specific areas and even more importantly finding some interesting questions to study (note I have long commented on the generally trivial nature of studying citizen's electoral choices, space limitations preclude me from noting other unimportant questions that seem to occupy political scientists).

Let me suggest that if one cares about what political scientists think, that the other way to convince them that our work is relevant is to meet their own standards. I have been employed by five unusual political science departments, in four of them the best social scientists were those in public administration (in the fifth the University of Wisconsin-Madison I would make the argument but the evidence is not as obvious). Communication with others is always easier if you speak the same language.

Jos Raadschelders in a forthcoming article in Administrative Theory & Praxis has called for encouraging methodological pluralism in public administration. I endorse that call. The issue is not the techniques used to study public administration but the skill and rigor with which the techniques are applied. Good research requires methods that are matched to the question studied. Sometimes that means quantitative methods and other times it means qualitative ones.

Some who read this essay will believe that political science is not a dead end for PA. I appreciate optimism, but the basic facts are that only a handful of the top 25 political science programs permit a student to offer a field in public administration. But even assuming for the moment that Yale has decided to produce another Don Kettl or Wisconsin another Evan Ringquist, these scholars are unlikely to be hired by other political science departments. At the present time seven of the nine council members of the PA section and its chair, chair-elect, and treasurer are not members of political science departments.

But even if we assume that someday political science will see the error of its ways and lure us back with program slots, citations, jobs, and positions on APSA committees, it won't be because of Perestroika. Perestroika will fail as a movement for two reasons. First, it has not penetrated the core of the discipline. The bastion of quantitative political science, AJPS, has no interest in Perestroika-type manuscripts and continues to review more manuscripts than any other political science journal. The associated Midwest Conference continues to flourish with attendance now exceeding 4000, many times the size of the other "regional" associations. Second, scientific arguments are not won by superior arguments (and I am not conceding Perestroika has such an argument) but by superior reproductive technology. The advocates of one approach eventually die off to be replaced by the advocates of a different approach. The problem for Perestroikans is that their offspring are sterile. Perestroika needs to bring creative new ways to examine political phenomena, demonstrate how they can answer questions that others cannot, or develop innovative theories that will get us to drop what we are currently doing and move to the Perestroikan paradigm. Simply whining for the good old days is not very convincing.

Neither political science nor the Perestroika movement in political science offers us in PA recognition, riches or even self actualization. Public Administration's future lies only in public administration.

Return to top