Seeing the Forest for the Trees: An Atlas of the Politics–Administration Dichotomy

Abstract

Recent years have seen attempts to make sense of the politics–administration dichotomy. Triangulating among historical research, empirical observations, new models of interaction between politicians and administrators, and the division of the literature into “schools,” novel ways of understanding and examining the dichotomy have developed. These have been largely thematic and have revealed the extent of a literature spanning more than 120 years. Because of its size, a complementary structural analysis of the literature now not only is conceivably useful but also can offer means for approaching it. This article offers an atlas—that is, a series of visual maps, accompanied by associated statistics and interpretations—that can assist researchers in their travels through the territory of the dichotomy. Ten ways of tackling the literature are presented, culminating in an initial reading list that covers the breadth of dichotomy research, thus providing an epistemological foundation for those who wish to enter the territory.

Examining the Evolution of the Field of Public Administration through a Bibliometric Analysis of Public Administration Review

“…The relationship between the research of political science and public administration is a long‐standing and contested one (Demir ; Georgiou 2014 Guy 2003; Whicker, Olshfski, and Strickland ). We provide here a new lens of evaluating this by mapping public administration and political science by means of co‐citation analysis.…”

What Determines Ethical Behavior in Public Organizations: Is It Rules or Leadership?

“…Leadership/integrity research has been “relatively narrow in scope” (Palanski and Yammarino , 171), often focusing on managers in public agencies (Hassan, Wright, and Yukl ; Lasthuizen ; Macaulay and Lawton ) in largely American organizations (Eisenbeiss and Brodbeck ) more than elected representatives (exceptions are De Vries 2002; Schumaker and Kelly ). Yet English local government combines managerial and political leaders and thereby enables us to understand multiple leaders’ roles (e.g., shared leadership; see Crosby ) and the politics–administration dichotomy (Georgiou ) in promoting ethical conduct.…”

Get into the Club: Positioning a Developing Country in the International e‐Gov Research

“…Could it be that the geographical barrier, an obvious motive, is the only explanation? It would also be interesting to improve our understanding of why scientists collaborate in the field of eGov, and also analyze the relationships between scientists who combine several techniques, such as the analysis of citation and co-citation (Georgiou, 2014). This would enable more in-depth examinations of different types of scientific collaboration.…”