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Although improvisation stands outside of conventional models for rational policy making and Weberian administration, it is nonetheless prevalent in public life. This article argues that improvisation is both a natural consequence of bounded rationality as well as a product of cultural and personal predilections and environmental circumstances. Drawing on a number of instances of improvisation in public administration and policy making in Israel, it attempts to shed light on its uses, motives, and implications, as well as on the issues involved in considering its utility.

Hugh T. Miller, Postmodern Public PolicyGoktug Morcol, A New Mind for Policy Analysis: Toward a Post‐Newtonian and Postpositivist Epistemology and MethodologyMichael W. Spicer, Public Administration and the State: A Postmodern Perspective

We systematically explore differences between the policy analysis and public administration/management approaches to public service education. From the literature, we identify four aspects of public service education that may differ between public administration/management and policy analysis: the students who enter each kind of program, the norms students gain through professional socialization in each approach, the career paths followed by graduates of each kind of program, and program graduates career satisfaction. We develop several hypotheses about differences in applicant pools, student socialization, and the careers of graduates of public administration and policy analysis programs. Finally, we discuss the importance of testing these hypotheses: why alternative findings might be expected and implications of tests of these hypotheses for public service education.

The related fields of political science, public administration, and policy analysis sorely need a standard for evaluating the outcomes, management structures, and processes, programs, and policies. The appropriate standard for evaluation is the much-maligned and often forgotten concept of the public interest. We can assess the public interest by projecting and evaluating consequences in terms of agreed-upon values-values our common sense tells us rank highly in measuring the quality of people's lives. The agreed-upon consequences and the sometimes competing values must then be weighed in a structured and reasoned argument.