7. Conclusion: A new perspective
How public administrations situated in universities determines to a significant extent what public administration is. With a plurality of public administration programs still begin conducted in political science departments, we can infer that political science currently dominates the field intellectually as well as institutionally; in brief, the arrangement represents the fulfillment of Gaus’ statement on a theory of public administration begin simply a theory of politics. Unfortunately, locating public administration programs in political science departments has its costs. As Eugene P. Dvorin and Robert H. Simmons observe,’’ in political science who are unreceptive and insensitive to the administrative phenomenon in the emerging bureaucratic order. Under such conditions their power of decision making exceed their responsibility for the programs. Under such conditions, the problems of public administration are compounded by the traditional disposition of political science to itself assume an orthodox stance of value-free scholarship. It would be difficult, therefore, to expect one branch of political science to radically depart in its central assumption from those comprising the body of its host discipline. Similarly those public administration programs that are a part of business schools-the administrative science approach-are limited in their potentiality for development. Administrative science is reflective of the earlier paradigm of public administration which was founded upon the notion of certain immutable administrative principles, in that both paradigms represent essentially technical definitions of the field. Politics, values, normative theory, and the role of the public interest are not salient concerns in the administrative science paradigm, yet it is precisely these concerns that must be critical in any intelligent definition of public administration.