The Troublesome Cleft: Public Administration and Political Science

How have we progressed in our 100-year-old debate about the politics/administration dichotomy? Marcia Whicker, Ruth Strickland, and Dorothy Olshfski argue that public management is examined within political science as a conversion variable. While political science has not reached consensus about a single, discipline-dependent variable, knowledge of the concepts as used-power, justice, equity, conflict, and policy-is useful for public managers. At this point in time, political science offers the practitioner a more thorough training in scientific rigor than public administration. Public administration is an interdisciplinary hybrid, that can draw as much or more from political science as from other contributing disciplines. A focus upon the interface between the two disciplines rather than continued emphasis on their differences provides the greatest prospect for future mutual advance.