Public Service Organizations and the Capacity for Public Learning

In: International social science journal: ISSJ, Band 31, Heft 4, S. 682-695

Abstract

Public service organizations are both responsive to & part of public policy; their design, development, & maintenance are integral to public exploration of such issues as housing, health, & criminal justice. Proposed is an examination of the capacities of public service organizations for functioning constructively in the public learning process. Public learning is viewed as a dialectical situation between a problem-solving rationale & the constant emergence of new problems requiring new problem settings. People who would reform public agencies often lack the foresight to understand that their reforms themselves will become problems as conditions change. For instance, in the present mood, to treat mental health & criminal justice problems through community organizations is to forget the negative aspects of the community that prompted creation of mental hospitals & penitentiaries in a previous period. The Works Progress Administration is examined as an example of organizational learning through the evolution of public service agencies. D. Dunseath.