Given the fact that an administrative apparatus is essential to government and a defining
characteristic of governance and given its crucial position in modern societies, the question
that arises naturally is why such a limited recognition and visibility in the discussion of
public affairs for the field dedicated specifically to this apparatus? Public Choice scholars
may be excused for their neglect of Public Administration. In this they share the company
of most other social scientists. Why do we tend to always think about public affairs in the
terms dictated by Political Science or the Economics of Public Policy, when in fact most of
the practice-relevant ideas emerging in these disciplines pivot on the very assumption of
the existence of an at least partially functional system of Public Administration? Why, for
instance, has Political Science ‘‘paid essentially no attention to the historical development
of administrative technology, despite its close relationship to the development of government;
and little attention to contemporary public administration, despite its impressive
magnitude and manifest importance’’? To treat political theory as being opposed to government
theory is ‘‘prejudicial and misleading’’, wrote Waldo, and it is ‘‘rather similar to
the study of anatomy without physiology or physiology without anatomy’’. And yet that
seemed precisely to be what happened. This question posed by Waldo (in Brown and
Stillman II 1986, pp. 166–167) puzzled Public Administration scholars for a long time.
Taking a closer look at how Dwight Waldo, a friend, collaborator and critic of Vincent
Ostrom, tried to deal with it, offers us an additional angle in our attempt to get a clearer
sense of the nature and relevance of Public Administration and by implication, of the
Ostroms’ work.