Public administration's final exam: a pragmatist restructuring of the profession and the discipline

Abstract

Examines why public administration's literature has failed to justify the profession's legitimacy as an instrument of governance. Michael Harmon employs the literary conceit of a Final Exam, first "written" in the early 1930s, in a critique of the field's answers to the legitimacy question. Because the assumptions that underwrite the question preclude the possibility of a coherent answer, the exam should be canceled and its question rewritten. Envisaging a public administration no longer hostage to the legitimacy question, Harmon explains how the study and practic.