Convergence between Woodrow Wilson's and Max Weber's thought, as well as their differences with regard to the politics–administration dichotomy, can be ascribed to the Hegelian tradition of public administrative theory. On the one hand, Wilson was strongly influenced by Georg W. F. Hegel. On the other hand, there is an empirical connection between Hegel and Weber. Both shared a consciousness of the German bureaucratic tradition based on Hegel's Philosophy of Right. These insights have important methodological and theoretical implications for the contemporary comparative study of public administration.

To what extent were Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about public administration informed by German organic political theory? Drawing on the writings of Wilson, Lorenz von Stein, and Johann K. Bluntschli on public administration, and comparing American and German primary sources, the author offers insights into Wilson’s general concept of public administration, as well as his understanding of the politics–administration dichotomy. With regard to current administrative research, this study underscores how the transfer of ideas profoundly contributes to advancing comparative public administration and helps clarify terminological difficulties and conflicting perspectives among diverse administrative science traditions.

Consistent with the notion of tradition, public administration scholars usually interpret and compare administrative developments in the US, France, and Germany as inheritance, assuming continuity. However, administrative traditions have thus far not been an object of systematic research. The present research agenda aims to address this research gap by introducing the transfer‐of‐ideas approach as a means to examine the empirical substance of national traditions. We claim that for current research, the benefits of this approach are twofold. First, the transfer‐of‐ideas approach contributes to comparative public administration since it reveals in how far intellectual traditions are hybrid instead of distinctively American, French or German developments. Second, the approach may help to address the polysemous meanings of and terminological difficulties within administrative concepts that prevail in Public Administration on both sides of the Atlantic.

By comparing the French and the U.S. controversies on the appropriate position of public administration within the constitutional order of the state after World War II, this article aims to contribute to the historical clarification of the politics-administration dichotomy as one of the key ideas of administrative research and theory. The article underscores that the same phenomenon-the rejection of the dichotomy-has led to different conclusions among administrative scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, the dichotomy was rejected in favor of a reinforcement of the legislature and the judiciary as well as a more representative administration to preserve the plurality of interests of American society. In contrast, the French rejection was aimed toward strengthening the executive and the administrative elite as guardians of the general interest. The article illustrates how ideas and values about public administration change according to different spatiotemporal contexts. If these contexts are disregarded, understanding remains fragmentary at best, if not misleading.

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