ABSTRACT
Interpretive theorists eschew the notion of neat boundaries, and it is difficult to write about public administration without intruding onto policy (see Chapter 27) and management (see Chapter 29). Public administration can be defined expansively– ‘all that comes after the last campaign promise and election-night cheer’ (Starling 1986)– or can be more narrowly aligned to the activities of the central state bureaucracy. Here the discipline of public administration encompasses the study of ‘Organization and management practices in collective or public settings’ (Frederickson and Smith 2003: 1). Its ‘cross-disciplinary’ nature (Bogason 2005) and its close linkages to practice, and especially the applied fields of policy analysis and organizational studies, are a defining feature. The reach of public administration stretches from the senior levels of government hierarchy into the local offices of the state, encompassing the citizens that engage with the administration and the partner bodies and networks that sustain administrative work, as well as the bureaucrats and politicians that work within it.
