Public Administration in Search of a Theory: The Interdisciplinary Delusion

Public administration has, during recent decades, been widely held to be a study in disarray, without an integrating theory, neither a discipline nor a component of a discipline. The orthodox solution is to affirm that it is an interdisciplinary study, requiring no central theory. 7The study should not and cannot be founded in a single discipline. This essay examines and challenges the case for public administration as an interdisciplinary study. It suggests politics as the discourse in which public administration most appropriately finds its place.