Editing Public Administration

Abstract

creation reflected a concern with the stability of political-administrative regimes at a time of great social turmoil, and an increased, and related, interest in machinery of government questions. Viscount Richard Haldane, the founder of this journal, was one of the most senior British statespeople of his time, responsible for major government reforms. His extensive network across the political and academic spectrum supported the creation of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His influence on British higher education is still felt to the present day, namely with the "Haldane Principle" that research funding decisions are to be made by academic peer-review not politicians. The creation of Public Administration reflected Haldane's vision of the role of the civil service in supporting state capacity. He envisaged a highly educated civil service, cooperating closely with the academic world, thereby bringing about improved efficiency in public administration (Campbell, 2020, pp. 325-326). Haldane's strong interest in machinery of government questions was also informed by his interest in German philosophy (especially Hegel). The founding journal editorial noted an emphasis on the scientific study of public administration whose "single aim [was] the efficiency of public services, and the efficiency of public servants." The journal was to provide a place for "clear thinking" (see Haldane, 1923) by publishing articles that made, as noted by the first ever editorial, an "actual contributions to knowledge and discussion."Fast forward to the world of the 2010s. It is a word of post-financial depression, political turmoil including democratic backsliding and Brexit, and considerable concern as to the problem-solving capacity of the state (see Lodge & Wegrich, 2014). Public Administration has long evolved toward becoming a major international academic journal, especially under the editorial stewardship of Rod Rhodes (2022). In 2011, the objective of the new editorial team that had been put together by Arjen Boin (including Martin Lodge, Salvador Parrado, Kai Wegrich, Chris Ansell and Lan Xue), was to continue on this path of internationalization. This process continued during the period 2017-2020 when the editorial team included Lodge, Sharon Gilad, Salvador Parrado, Samuel Workman and Lan Xue. As noted by Aoiki et al. (2022), the ambition throughout the 2010s was to allow for a "big tent" approach toward the study of public administration, offering a home to papers of international significance, regardless of theoretical, conceptual and methodological tradition or geographical location (Boin et al., 2011).Public Administration has also been seen as a traditionally "British" journal, reflecting its origins in the 1920s. The reputation for being British (or, to put it less politely, insular) lay behind the inclusion of "international" in the subtitle and the existence of a dedicated "European forum" section (edited by Walter Kickert). The team taking over in 2011 removed such different sections within...

A century of Public Administration: Traveling through time and topics

“…This development has also been reflected in an increasingly global composition of the editorial teams since then (Aoki et al, 2022, in this issue). In addition to editorial policies, the internationalization is likely to be driven by the alignment of academic practices and career systems across the world, which place an increased emphasis on publications in international journals (Lodge, 2022, in this issue). It might also be a response to the changing nature of administrative problems in a globalized world, which increasingly refute national compartmentalization (Hou et al, 2011).…”

“…In this tradition of self‐observations, our study has contributed an analysis of scholarship published in PA throughout the first century of the journal's history. It is important for scholarly communities not to forget where they come from when moving forward, for a “field of study that is unaware of past intellectual and practical concerns is […] unlikely to offer insight into contemporary challenges” (Lodge, 2022, in this issue). A bibliometric analysis on the occasion of a top journal's anniversary might be a useful intervention to sharpen this historical awareness.…”

“…We hope that our findings invite for such self‐reflections, the more so as this study has not offered the space to elaborate on a century of scholarship in the detailed manner it deserves. Given our technical approach based on bibliometrics and NLP, we consider our study to be a complementary piece to retrospective and programmatic reflections on more personal accounts (Lodge, 2022; Rhodes, 2022, in this issue). Each step of the analytical procedure had certain limitations the most important of which have been briefly discussed above.…”

“…It also shows that throughout its history, PA scholarship has been in a fragmented state. However, the kind of fragmentation has changed over time: In the first three eras, British idiosyncrasies (Lodge, 2022, in this issue; Rhodes, 1996) are strongly reflected in the publications, corresponding to the journal's institutional affiliation and dedication. The predominance of geographical references to the journal's country of origin was not specific to PA but common in the broader field of publishing (Bowman & Hajjar, 1978).…”

Celebrating the centennial anniversary of Public Administration

“…The editors could then interpret this theme how they best saw fit. Rhodes (2022) and Lodge (2022) both interpreted the theme in very different ways. While Rhodes focused more on what he learned as an editor, Lodge concentrated on the changes he observed with the journal and the field during his tenure.…”