Political Science and American Public Administration: A Necessary Cleft?

Keller and Spicer comment on a recent article by Whicker et al in which they argue for a rapprochement between political science and public administration. In their article, The Troublesome Cleft: Public Administration and Political Science, Marcia Whicker, Ruth Ann Strickland, and Dorothy Olshfski argue for a rapprochement between political science and public administration. Political science does indeed have much to offer the field of public administration. However, if one rejects the purely instrumental view of public administration, then subfields such as political thought and theory may be more useful than the more quantitative subfields that Whicker, Strickland and Olshfski see as central.