Premium
“Our Usable Past”: A Historical Contextual Approach to Administrative Values
Author(s) -
Moynihan Donald P.
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.1540-6210.2009.02031.x
Subject(s) - legitimacy , administrative law , context (archaeology) , value (mathematics) , politics , criticism , administration (probate law) , state (computer science) , public administration , law , white (mutation) , law and economics , political science , white paper , field (mathematics) , sociology , history , biochemistry , chemistry , algorithm , machine learning , gene , mathematics , archaeology , pure mathematics , computer science
In responding to Professor Lynn's criticism that the field of public administration has been insufficiently attentive to law, this article offers an alternative perspective on the source of administrative legitimacy. Leonard White understood that public administration is shaped by its broader context. It does not assert its own values but, in an effort to maintain legitimacy, reflects the political and cultural values of its environment. In White's time, the extraordinary challenges that the state faced, and its subsequent transformation, demanded a management capacity that previously had not existed. While the role of law as a formal means of control is generally accepted, it must take its place with management and other administrative values in the exercise of legal discretionary behavior. Asserting law, or any other single administrative value, as dominant undercuts other values that act as sources of legitimacy.