Public Management: A Survey

The field of public management is a significant area of teaching and research in schools of public policy. Within these schools, there is general recognition that public management mediates the relationship between the ideas of policy analysts and the decisions of policy makers, on the one hand, and the concrete, documentable results, outcomes, or social consequences of public policies, on the other. Thus, understanding this mediating process toward improving its effectiveness is central to our value as a profession. Despite the importance of the field, there has been no systematic survey of its content or intellectual directions within the context of the public policy community. In developing their personal visions or approaches to the subject, the principle contributors, though engaged in a continuing, almost compulsive dialogue, (1) often talk past one another, and constructive intellectual engagement occurs less often than usually occurs in a vital intellectual community. Moreover, though there are a growing number of books on the subject, none is regarded as seminal or has gained wide acceptance as a text. The field can be said to lack conceptual clarity and authority. The purpose of this article is to survey the subject of public management as a field of scholarship and as a source of intellectual foundations for the teaching and professional practice of public management within schools of public policy. The goal is a sketch of its domain, methods and direction.