ABSTRACT
Public administration is never the same from one moment to another. Its study is difficult because of its many variables, because its subject matter is virtually out of date by the time it is available, and by the impossibility of predicting what will happen next. It has had its quiet moments when little seemed to be happening and it has had its lusty spells when seemingly everything was happening all at the same time. At the same time it has completely transformed itself from its origins, in roaming tribes trying to bring order and stability in group affairs, to the modem administrative state, which attempts to bring order and stability to the globalized human collective that threatens to self-destruct in warfare. Indeed, it has become so vast in scope that many other studies have hived themselves off and disclaim having anything to do with their mother discipline. In every generation, what remains has to reinvent itself, rediscover its mission, redefine its boundaries, and make sense out of the remnants when the bigger picture
(incorporating such offshoots as diplomacy, military science, legal systems, public protection and safety services, schooling, health delivery, economic development, social security, environmental protection, and urban studies) would remind them that its fundamental basics have remained constant for some 5000 years of civilization.
