The Administrative State
Encyclopedia
The Administrative State is Dwight Waldo
's classic public administration
text based on a dissertation written at Yale in which Waldo argues that democratic states are underpinned by professional and political bureaucracies and that scientific management
and efficiency is not the core idea of government bureaucracy
, but rather it is service to the public. The work has contributed to the structure and theory of government bureaucracies the world over and is one of the defining works of public administration and political science
written in the last 75 years.
Published in 1948 and later reissued in a second edition with an extensively revised introduction by Waldo.
Dwight Waldo
Dwight Waldo was an American political scientist and is perhaps the defining figure in modern public administration. Waldo's career was often directed against a scientific/technical portrayal of bureaucracy and government that now suggests the term public management as opposed to public...
's classic public administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
text based on a dissertation written at Yale in which Waldo argues that democratic states are underpinned by professional and political bureaucracies and that scientific management
Scientific management
Scientific management, also called Taylorism, was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. Its main objective was improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management...
and efficiency is not the core idea of government bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
, but rather it is service to the public. The work has contributed to the structure and theory of government bureaucracies the world over and is one of the defining works of public administration and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
written in the last 75 years.
Published in 1948 and later reissued in a second edition with an extensively revised introduction by Waldo.
Sources
- "Putting the Purpose in P.A." The Maxwell Perspective, Spring 2001