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This article addresses a perennial controversy in the study of public administration - should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? And, if so, how should academic knowledge about public administration be used for its betterment? It is claimed that the answers to these questions lie in the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and action, theory and practice. In consequence it is argued that it is the responsibility of public administration scholars not only to provide explanations and understandings of administrative and political subjects but also to defend bureaucracy and to seek progress through 'enlightened' prescription. With these arguments in mind, first a 'critical approach' to public administration for reconciling the world of thought and the world of action is presented in which the prescriptive enterprise is used to integrate theory and practice. Second, a set of principles for 'enlightened' prescription is formulated to ensure that the knowledge claims that emerge from this process remain as rigorously conceived as possible. And third, a methodology is developed through the use of a logical framework matrix to provide both a practical device for evaluating the utility of public administration research for public action and to draw attention to putative problems in research in terms of theorization, method, data analysis and synthesis - thus demonstrating the benefit of 'enlightened' prescription to both the study of public administration and its practice.

This article provides a preliminary examination of the political consequences of constitutional reform for the territorial management of the British State. Drawing on European integration theory, it argues that the constitutional reform process can best be examined through the lens of a modified neo ficnctionalist approach which allows the political scientist to: (1) study constitutional reform as a process; (2) describe what appears to be going on in the process; (3) identify factors of integration and disintegration; and, (4), predict future outcomes. It concludes that although the New Constitutionalism is likely to be plagued by factors of disintegration that will undermine territorial management and administration, these will be counterbalanced by factors of integration which will increase the radicalism of reform and the scope and intensity of change.