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Scholars of public administration have historically too often been disdainful towards politics in the field, viewing political activities and interests as opportunities for corruption, mismanagement, and skewed priorities. Supporters of this anti-political stance have become even more strident in recent years, many of them advancing scientific models for the study and practice of public administration and governance. Michael Spicer argues that politics deserves to be defended as a vital facet of public administration on the grounds that it can promote moral conduct in government and in public administration, principally by bringing to the foreground the role of values in administrative practice. Politics can facilitate the resolution of conflicts that naturally arise from competing values, or conceptions of the good, while minimizing the use of force or violence. Drawing on the writings of Isaiah Berlin, Bernard Crick, and Stuart Hampshire, In Defense of Politics in Public Administration argues that value conflict is an integral part of our moral experience, both in making our own moral choices and in dealing with those whose values conflict with our own. This book is a spirited declaration of principles and a timely contribution to a dialogue that is redefining public administration, both in theory and in practice.

Scholars of public administration have historically too often been disdainful towards politics in the field, viewing political activities and interests as opportunities for corruption, mismanagement, and skewed priorities. Supporters of this anti-political stance have become even more strident in recent years, many of them advancing scientific models for the study and practice of public administration and governance. Michael Spicer argues that politics deserves to be defended as a vital facet of public administration on the grounds that it can promote moral conduct in government and in public.

"American Public Administration and the character of the state is a topic that has received little critical examination, due in part to the general American wariness toward abstractions such as the idea of the state. In this book, Michael Spicer takes issue with the view stressing the dichotomy of politics and administration, which holds that it is possible to separate the activities of politics from the activities of governance."--Jacket

Viewed alternately as an obstacle to justice, an impediment to efficient government, and a tool by which some groups gain benefits and privileges at the expense of others, public administration threatens to become the whipping boy of American government. In this innovative look at the nation's bureaucracy, Michael W. Spicer revisits the values of the Constitution in order to reconcile the administrative state to its many critics. Drawing on political and social philosophy, Spicer argues that there is a fundamental philosophical conflict over the role of reason in society between writers in pub

This article examines the role of truth and deception in social and political life and its implications for public administration. Because deception is a necessary part of social and political life, the pursuit of absolute truths poses significant dangers to political practices. However, without some commitment to truth in social and political life, the resulting nihilism also endangers political practices. Public administrators, in seeking truth, therefore, should pursue a middle path between moral virtue and moral realism that preserves the practice of politics, a middle path such as is offered in the writings of the Founders of the Constitution.

This article argues that democracy is an essentially contested concept in that its meaning and applications appear to be subject to endless contestation, but that the origins of such contestation are to be found in our political practices rather than in the concept per se. It is also argued that the idea of contestation itself is an important part of our own historically situated understanding of democracy. The implications of these arguments for how public administration scholars should think about democracy and constitutionalism are examined.

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This essay responds to the critique of my work by Robert Talisse, the philosopher, by further clarifying my views on the meaning of value pluralism, its implications, and the nature of philosophy. I argue here that most, if not all, of the substantive arguments that Talisse advances against me derive from premises that are contested by respected scholars within his own field.

Although Max Weber was pessimistic regarding the effects of rationalization and bureaucracy on human life and freedom, he saw the disenchantment of the world that results from the ascent of science and rationalism and the decline of religious and mystical interpretations of human experience as expanding the capacity for human freedom and moral responsibility. Moreover, he saw agonistic politics as checking the power of bureaucracy. Consequently, despite the conflict between the politicized character of American public administration and Weber's views on the role of public administrators, his ideas on value pluralism and politics have important implications for American public administration.