ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that world events have forced comparative public administration (CPA) to provide information for real management and policy problems. It reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the period of classical CPA, roughly from the Alliance for Progress program to 1981 and explores the new CPA period that dates from about 1982 to the present. The field of CPA has bseen redefined by new research demands in response to major global transformations of political and economic systems. The agenda of CPA was profoundly affected by the beginning, in 1981, of a long period of fiscal conservatism and skepticism in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Public choice was one of the earlier new perspectives that sallowed CPA studies to focus on the decision-making implications of market and non-market incentive structures. The World Bank has taken very seriously the comparative study of public sector reforms in basic areas such as public expenditure management and civil service reform.
