Some argue that interpretive social science and positivist, or behavioral, social
science are competitive and irreconcilable (Winch ). But it is our view, and
the dominant perspective in contemporary social theory (MacIntyre ), that
there can be theory that describes empirically observed regularities in the social
world as well as interpretations of those regularities.
Today, the traditional and behavioral positions in public administration are in
many ways reconciled. Both positions are essentially right in that they acknowledge
the importance of observation and categorization and the central place of
theory as the appropriate means to express reality and guide action. Public administration
theory derived from historical analyses, institutional study, and philosophy
is now understood to be as legitimate as public administration theory
derived from statistical analysis and mathematical models. Fuzzy phenomena such
as leadership and the “principles of public administration” are now the subjects
of empirical analysis and theory-building (Behn ; Hood and Jackson ).
The reconciliation of traditional and behavioral public administration reflects
this perspective: “Science is not a substitute for insight, and methodological rigor
is not a substitute for wisdom. Research that is merely rigorous may well be routine,
mechanical, trivial, and of little theoretical or policy value. However, . . . in
the absence of such rigorous and controlled analysis even the most operational
data are of little value” (Singer , ).
Even with this reconciliation, theory-building in public administration is influenced
by tastes and fashions. There is always the law of the instrument: When
the theorist has a methodological or conceptual hammer, everything begins to
look like a nail. In the policy schools, the case method has taken on some aspects
of a hammer; the market model and mathematical conclusions so derived have
been applied to a lot of nails lately. Nevertheless, despite examples of methodological
and theoretical excesses, public administration theory has never been
healthier than at present.
From the traditionalist and behavioralist positions of thirty years ago, public
administration has evolved to a field enjoying a considerable theoretical richness.
A single dominant theory, an intellectual hegemony, would have impoverished
the field. Instead, there are several strong and important theories and many important
theorists, a condition befitting a field as applied and interdisciplinary as
public administration.