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The Path Not Taken: Leonard White and the Macrodynamics of Administrative Development
Author(s) -
Roberts Alasdair
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02023.x
Subject(s) - white (mutation) , politics , white paper , state (computer science) , gray (unit) , political science , administration (probate law) , public administration , field (mathematics) , sociology , law , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , radiology , algorithm , computer science , pure mathematics , gene
Leonard White , The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History ( New York: Macmillan , 1948). Leonard White , The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801–1829 ( New York: Macmillan , 1951). Leonard White , The Jacksonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829–1861 ( New York: Macmillan , 1954). Leonard White , The Republican Era, 1869–1901: A Study in Administrative History ( New York, Macmillan , 1958). This is a review of four books by Leonard White: The Federalists (1948), The Jeffersonians (1951), The Jacksonians (1954), and The Republican Era (1958). In these books, White develops an approach to the study of administrative development that accounts for a broad range of considerations, including political and economic structure, the organization of the international order, popular culture, the stock of available communication and organizational technologies, and executive talent. White also offers an early argument about the significance of path dependence in institutional evolution. White's approach is largely concerned with the macrodynamics of administrative development. It has been neglected within the field of public administration over the last half century. A literature that builds on White's work would improve the field's ability to explain and anticipate failures in state building and administrative reform.