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AbstractThis millennium began with widespread acceptance of a governing paradigm emphasizing small government, free markets, and open borders. Three crises—the 9/11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic—forced American policy makers to diverge from this paradigm. At the time, these divergences were described as temporary departures from normalcy. In retrospect, it would be more accurate to regard the millennial paradigm itself as the abnormality: a model of governance designed for rare moments of calm. In the last two decades, a different paradigm has emerged. American government has become the ultimate bearer of societal risks. Repeatedly, it has adopted extraordinary measures to protect public safety and the economy. However, the American state lacks the capacity to anticipate and manage these massive risks competently. New capabilities are required, along with a new mentality about governing. Domestic politics will complicate the task of building these capabilities.

AbstractTroubled by actions of the Donald Trump administration, some academics have defended the administrative state. This may be a mistake. The scholarly definition of the administrative state has shifted over decades, and today scholarly usage of the term often diverges substantially from popular usage. When academics invoke the concept, they may unwittingly trigger negative associations in the minds of nonacademics and defeat their own cause. This mistake is easily avoided, because academics often do not need to talk about the administrative state at all. Research would be improved by using different terms to describe three distinct ideas: the state, administrative systems within the state, and the administrative state, which is best understood as a type of state that emerged at a specific moment in American history. If academics want to defend the public service in the realm of politics, it would be better to do so in those terms, rather than using a phrase that often triggers fears about big and irresponsible government.

AbstractThere is an overlooked chapter in the history of American public administration: the experiment with colonial administration in the two decades following the Spanish-American War. Several scholars now identified as pioneers of American public administration were actively engaged in this project. They studied European empires closely to determine how the new American dependencies should be governed. This work was guided by beliefs about racial superiority and the duty of civilized nations to improve uncivilized peoples through colonization. This episode of administrative history provides insight into how American academics thought about race and public administration in the early decades of the twentieth century, both overseas and within the United States. It compels a reassessment of our understandings about their commitment to democracy, and about the supposed differences between American and European public administration at that time.

Scholars in public administration now recognize three levels of analysis: macro, meso, and micro. But there is uncertainty about the relationship between levels and concern about a "schism" in research. However, linkages between levels can be demonstrated easily. At the macro-level, leaders develop an overall strategy for pursuing national priorities, which determines the broad architecture of the state. Institutions must be built, renovated, or managed to give effect to these strategies: This is the meso-level of public administration. Overall, strategies also shape the micro-level relationship between people who rule and people who are ruled. This is done by categorizing people—as subjects or citizens, for example—and by redefining categories. Macro-level strategies evolve, with consequences for the agenda at the meso- and micro-levels. Experience at lower levels also shapes strategy at the macro-level. The interaction among levels is illustrated by comparison of three eras in modern American history.

AbstractResearchers have examined the impact of the politics‐administration dichotomy on the practice and theory of public administration within the United States. But the dichotomy also influenced patterns of international engagement by American experts in the 1920s and 1930s. Americans believed that they could set politics aside and collaborate on administrative questions with regimes that did not respect democracy and human rights. This belief was tested after the rise of Adolf Hitler. American experts in public administration engaged with the Nazi regime for three years, ignoring the rising controversy over Nazi policies. The breaking point came in 1936. American experts finally recognized that it was impossible to ignore political questions and became forthright proponents of "democratic administration." This struggle to define the boundaries of international engagement is relevant today, as specialists in public administration again find themselves in a world in which a shared commitment to democracy and human rights cannot be taken for granted.

Research in Public Management (PM) has run into two obstacles. In Western countries, scholars complain that PM research neglects big questions about the overall design of government and its adaptation to new threats. Meanwhile, Asian scholars complain about the Western-centrism of PM research and its failure to account for the distinctive features of governance in their countries. A new approach to PM research will overcome both obstacles. This new approach assumes that leaders of the world's 195 states face the common challenge of devising a strategy for governing their territory and population that will achieve security, prosperity, and justice. These "strategies for governing" vary between countries and over time, as leaders wrestle with contradictions among goals, uncertainty about tactics, turbulent environmental conditions, and sticky cultural and institutional inheritances. This is a macro approach to PM research that provides a framework for addressing big questions about governance while overcoming the Western-centric bias of current scholarship.

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