Michael W Spicer
Biographic Data
| ID | 702725 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael W Spicer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael W |
| FAMILY NAME | Spicer |
| SIGNATURE | SPICER M W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cleveland State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2463-3083 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 156 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Some reflections on contestation and cosmopolitanism in democracy and their implications for public administration
Ongoing contestation over the meaning of democracy reflects value conflicts that exist within and across different national cultures and, as such, is intimately tied to the conduct of politics. It follows that the imposition of any single abstract and cosmopolitan idea of democracy on a society is always potentially dangerous to the practice of politics and to the variety of different values that different individuals, groups and cultures hold to…
Who’s Been Fooling Who?” Reflections on Truth and Deception in Politics and Their Implications for Public Administration
This article examines the role of truth and deception in social and political life and its implications for public administration. Because deception is a necessary part of social and political life, the pursuit of absolute truths poses significant dangers to political practices. However, without some commitment to truth in social and political life, the resulting nihilism also endangers political practices. Public administrators, in seeking truth…
What Do We Mean by Democracy? Reflections on an Essentially Contested Concept and Its Relationship to Politics and Public Administration
This article argues that democracy is an essentially contested concept in that its meaning and applications appear to be subject to endless contestation, but that the origins of such contestation are to be found in our political practices rather than in the concept per se. It is also argued that the idea of contestation itself is an important part of our own historically situated understanding of democracy. The implications of these arguments for…
Towards the Meridian: Albert Camus, Democracy, and Public Administration
This article draws on the writings of Albert Camus to argue that the use of abstractions, such as the “will of the people,” in thinking about democracy and public administration fosters a potentially dangerous antipathy towards political contestation within our field, an antipathy that was characteristic of the violent French Revolution and is shared by modern populist movements. Camus’ idea of the absurd is used to argue that American public adm…
On Attacking and Defending American Democracy
Related Content: Balfour (PAR May/June 2017)Related Content: Raadschelders (PAR May/June 2017)Related Content: Bartels (PAR May/June 2017)Related Content: Benavides (PAR May/June 2017
Are You Scared Yet? On the Ethic of Sustainability and the Politics of Fear in Public Administration
This article offers a critical examination of the ethic of sustainability. It argues that, notwithstanding the importance of environmental problems, such an ethic has the effect of promoting a politics of fear by emphasizing our fears about human survival and security. As such, despite its attractions, an ethic of sustainability for public administration reinforces already deeply embedded antipolitical ways of thinking within the field that ignor…
Public Administration Theory and the Gentler Side of Kym Thorne
Public Administration Theory and the Gentler Side of Kym Thorne." Administrative Theory & Praxis, 38(2), pp. 88–89
Neutrality, Adversary Argument, and Constitutionalism in Public Administration
Since there can be no language that is free of our moral and political values, it is difficult, if not impossible, for public administrators and those of us who study and teach them to be “ethically neutral.” However, the idea of neutrality, thought of in terms of “fairness,” or a willingness to “hear the other side,” remains a value that is worthwhile for public administrators to pursue. The implications of this argument for American constitutio…
On Value Pluralism, Its Implications, and the Nature of Philosophy
This essay responds to the critique of my work by Robert Talisse, the philosopher, by further clarifying my views on the meaning of value pluralism, its implications, and the nature of philosophy. I argue here that most, if not all, of the substantive arguments that Talisse advances against me derive from premises that are contested by respected scholars within his own field
In Pursuit of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity in Public Administration: Reflections on Pluralism and Anarchism
(2014). In Pursuit of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity in Public Administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 539-544
Neorepublican Freedom and Public Administration
(2014). Neorepublican Freedom and Public Administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 119-124
Reflections on John Rohr’s “Regime Values,” Neorepublican Freedom, and Public Administration
In advancing his views on regime values, John Rohr pointed to the limitations and dangers of approaches that seek to ground administrative ethics on the pursuit of any single value or understanding of that value. This article examines the neorepublican conception of freedom and shows how this single-minded conception of freedom can deflect attention away from the conflicts of values, including conflicts among our conceptions of freedom, that char…
In Defense of Value Pluralism in Public Administration
A response to Overeem and Verhoef’s criticism of value pluralism, arguing that my value pluralist approach is useful in understanding the role that politics should play in how we think about, teach, and practice public administration
Public Administration in a Disenchanted World: Reflections on Max Weber’s Value Pluralism and His Views on Politics and Bureaucracy
Although Max Weber was pessimistic regarding the effects of rationalization and bureaucracy on human life and freedom, he saw the disenchantment of the world that results from the ascent of science and rationalism and the decline of religious and mystical interpretations of human experience as expanding the capacity for human freedom and moral responsibility. Moreover, he saw agonistic politics as checking the power of bureaucracy. Consequently, …
Contesting Narratives in Politics
Passion, Power, and Political Conflict: An Examination of Cato’s Letters and Their Implications for American Constitutionalism and Public Administration
This article discusses the ideas of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, as set forth in Cato’s Letters, and explores their implications for American constitutionalism and public administration. The article examines their views on the role of human passions in politics and how conflicts among such passions might be constructively harnessed to protect freedom. It is argued here that Cato’s Letters advanced an agonistic view of democratic governance, …
Embracing Political Conflict: An Examination of the Agonistic Character of Politics and Its Relationship to Public Administration
This article examines the nature of moral conflicts, the role of politics in mediating moral conflicts at a societal level, and the implications of this role for public administration. The article argues that the political practices of a community can help it deal with conflicts regarding different conceptions of the good in a manner that minimizes force and violence by providing an opportunity for hearing the other side on the issues that divide…
Public Administration and Fiction: Kicking the Hornet's Nest of Administrative Ambiguity
Some Reflections on Rationality, Argument, and Conflict
Arthur Bentley and the Narrative of Politics in Public Administration
Charles F. Abel & Arthur J. Sementelli, Justice and Public Administration
Value Conflict and Legal Reasoning in Public Administration
This article explores the idea of value pluralism, the problems it poses for public administration, and how an examination of legal reasoning, as a form of practical reasoning, might help public administrators deal with these problems. It is argued that legal reasoning can be helpful because it is rooted in a process of adversary argument and analogical reasoning that promotes the consideration of conflicting values or conceptions of the good
Further Reflections on Public Administration and the State
I want to thank Jennifer Eagan for organizing this symposium and also Peter Bogason, R. McGreggor Cawley, Hugh Miller, Patricia Mooney Nickel, Christine Reed, and Mark Rutgers [and Sebastiaan Tij sterman in this issue], all of whom were gracious enough to read and comment on the ideas I laid out in Public Administration and the State some seven years ago. So as to engage more effectively the variety of comments raised by my colleagues here, I wou…
The History of Ideas and Normative Research in Public Administration: Some Personal Reflections
This paper discusses the history of ideas as a methodological approach to normative research in public administration. It seeks to explore what the history of ideas entails, why our field has neglected it, and why, despite this neglect, this approach to normative research is useful. I argue here that an awareness of the history of the ideas and concepts that we use in thinking, talking, and writing about, as well as practicing, public administrat…
On Constitutionalism and Public Administration: Some Reflections on my Work with Larry Terry
Larry Terry was a creative scholar, an engaging and provocative writer, a gifted teacher, and a wonderfully warm and kind friend and colleague. His scholarship covered a broad variety of areas. Firstly, Larry was interested in public administration as an institution that car ries with it certain norms and traditions regarding the behavior and ac tions of public administrators (Terry, 2003; 2005). Secondly, Larry was worried about the tendency of …
Public Administration, the History of Ideas, and the Reinventing Government Movement
Public administration writers, with some notable exceptions, generally have not paid a great deal of attention to the history of ideas. However, public administration inquiry is profoundly affected by longstanding political and social ideas. This article shows how the idea of the state as a purposive association—that is to say, a collective enterprise that is driven by some set of substantive ends or purposes—has helped to shape the thinking and …
Audit probabilities and the tax evasion decision: An experimental approach
Value Conflict and Legal Reasoning in Public Administration
This article explores the idea of value pluralism, the problems it poses for public administration, and how an examination of legal reasoning, as a form of practical reasoning, might help public administrators deal with these problems. It is argued that legal reasoning can be helpful because it is rooted in a process of adversary argument and analogical reasoning that promotes the consideration of conflicting values or conceptions of the good
Value Pluralism and Its Implications for American Public Administration
This article discusses the idea of value pluralism and its implications for American public administration in dealing with value conflicts. It is argued here that the pluralist view that our values are often incompatible and incommensurable with one another is more coherent with our moral experience than monist views that assume an underlying harmony among human ends. I also argue that the monist character of much of public administration discour…
Politics and the Limits of a Science of Governance: Some Reflections on the Thought of Bernard Crick
This paper examines Bernard Crick’s ideas on the nature of politics and explores their implications for a scientific approach to governance like that advocated recently by public management writers. It is argued here that such an approach generally downplays the inherently political character of governance because it ignores the conflicts of values and the uncertainty that are an inherent part of the way in which we have come to govern ourselves
Public Administration in a Disenchanted World: Reflections on Max Weber’s Value Pluralism and His Views on Politics and Bureaucracy
Although Max Weber was pessimistic regarding the effects of rationalization and bureaucracy on human life and freedom, he saw the disenchantment of the world that results from the ascent of science and rationalism and the decline of religious and mystical interpretations of human experience as expanding the capacity for human freedom and moral responsibility. Moreover, he saw agonistic politics as checking the power of bureaucracy. Consequently, …
Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland
Journal Article Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland Get access Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland. Edited by Nancy Charton. London: Croom Helm. 1980. 253 pp. £12.95. Michael Spicer Michael Spicer 1Chatham House Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Page 184, https://doi.org/10.2307/2…
Public Administration Enquiry and Social Science in The Postmodern Condition: Some Implications of Value Pluralism
This paper examines the relationship between publiic administration and social science in light of the postmodern condition. It is argued here that the postmodern condition limits the role of conventional social science in public administration because it increases the incidence, as well as the visibility, of conflict between incompatible and incommensurable human ends or values. While conventional social science can still make a useful contribut…
What Do We Mean by Democracy? Reflections on an Essentially Contested Concept and Its Relationship to Politics and Public Administration
This article argues that democracy is an essentially contested concept in that its meaning and applications appear to be subject to endless contestation, but that the origins of such contestation are to be found in our political practices rather than in the concept per se. It is also argued that the idea of contestation itself is an important part of our own historically situated understanding of democracy. The implications of these arguments for…
Neutrality, Adversary Argument, and Constitutionalism in Public Administration
Since there can be no language that is free of our moral and political values, it is difficult, if not impossible, for public administrators and those of us who study and teach them to be “ethically neutral.” However, the idea of neutrality, thought of in terms of “fairness,” or a willingness to “hear the other side,” remains a value that is worthwhile for public administrators to pursue. The implications of this argument for American constitutio…
In Defense of Value Pluralism in Public Administration
A response to Overeem and Verhoef’s criticism of value pluralism, arguing that my value pluralist approach is useful in understanding the role that politics should play in how we think about, teach, and practice public administration
Embracing Political Conflict: An Examination of the Agonistic Character of Politics and Its Relationship to Public Administration
This article examines the nature of moral conflicts, the role of politics in mediating moral conflicts at a societal level, and the implications of this role for public administration. The article argues that the political practices of a community can help it deal with conflicts regarding different conceptions of the good in a manner that minimizes force and violence by providing an opportunity for hearing the other side on the issues that divide…
The History of Ideas and Normative Research in Public Administration: Some Personal Reflections
This paper discusses the history of ideas as a methodological approach to normative research in public administration. It seeks to explore what the history of ideas entails, why our field has neglected it, and why, despite this neglect, this approach to normative research is useful. I argue here that an awareness of the history of the ideas and concepts that we use in thinking, talking, and writing about, as well as practicing, public administrat…
Evaluating Parental Choice in Public Education: Policy beyond the Monopoly Model
In this article we develop an economic model of the provision of educational services in a metropolitan area that accounts for the number of school districts and the ability of significant numbers of families to relocate. We then use the results to evaluate the current system of public education and alternative proposals for reform. Each is evaluated in terms of its efficacy in promoting efficiency and equity goals and its ability to inculcate co…
Determinism, Social Science, and Public Administration: Lessons From Isaiah Berlin
This article critically examines the argument that mainstream social science research should play a greater role in public administration inquiry than it has. Drawing in significant part on the ideas of the late Isaiah Berlin, it is argued here that the deterministic view of human action that is offered by such research is not very useful to public administration practice and, if overemphasized, may even pose dangers to our values of human freedo…
Aristotelian Rhetoric, Pluralism, and Public Administration
This article discusses how Aristotle’s thought on rhetoric can help public administrators deal with situations that involve conflicting and irreconcilable values. We argue that Aristotelian rhetoric can be helpful to public administrators in dealing with value conflicts, because it promotes a greater self-consciousness among administrators about their own values, encourages them to seek ways of accommodating their values to the values of others, …
Reflections on John Rohr’s “Regime Values,” Neorepublican Freedom, and Public Administration
In advancing his views on regime values, John Rohr pointed to the limitations and dangers of approaches that seek to ground administrative ethics on the pursuit of any single value or understanding of that value. This article examines the neorepublican conception of freedom and shows how this single-minded conception of freedom can deflect attention away from the conflicts of values, including conflicts among our conceptions of freedom, that char…
United States
Reason, Discretion and Tradition: A Reflection on the Burkean Worldview and Its Implications for Public Administration
This article seeks to better identify Edmund Burke's views on human reason and human nature, tradition, representation, and law, and the implications of these views for public administration. Parallels between Burke's thought and that of the Founders (Founding Fathers) are examined. Also, the reasons for neglect of Burke's thought by public administration writers are discussed. Drawing on Burke's thought, the article presents an argument for the …
Public Administration and the Constitution: A Conflict in World-Views
This paper examines the world views underlying public administration and the Constitution. The article presents two rather different ways of looking at the world, which are used as a framework to contrast the literature in public administration with the writings of the Founders. It is argued that whereas public administration is rooted in a world view that stresses the powers of reason, the world view underlying the Constitution stresses the limi…
A Contractarian approach to Public Administration
This article seeks to apply a contractarian approach to the design of public administrative structures and processes. It speculates as to what kind of public administration could have emerged hypothetically from unanimous agreement between rational individuals in a constitutional setting. The contractarian approach suggest the desirability of a system of public administration which provides administrators with significant discretion in following …
Towards the Meridian: Albert Camus, Democracy, and Public Administration
This article draws on the writings of Albert Camus to argue that the use of abstractions, such as the “will of the people,” in thinking about democracy and public administration fosters a potentially dangerous antipathy towards political contestation within our field, an antipathy that was characteristic of the violent French Revolution and is shared by modern populist movements. Camus’ idea of the absurd is used to argue that American public adm…
Are You Scared Yet? On the Ethic of Sustainability and the Politics of Fear in Public Administration
This article offers a critical examination of the ethic of sustainability. It argues that, notwithstanding the importance of environmental problems, such an ethic has the effect of promoting a politics of fear by emphasizing our fears about human survival and security. As such, despite its attractions, an ethic of sustainability for public administration reinforces already deeply embedded antipolitical ways of thinking within the field that ignor…
Passion, Power, and Political Conflict: An Examination of Cato’s Letters and Their Implications for American Constitutionalism and Public Administration
This article discusses the ideas of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, as set forth in Cato’s Letters, and explores their implications for American constitutionalism and public administration. The article examines their views on the role of human passions in politics and how conflicts among such passions might be constructively harnessed to protect freedom. It is argued here that Cato’s Letters advanced an agonistic view of democratic governance, …
The English Levellers and American Public Administration
This article examines the ideas of the seventeenth-century English Levellers and the implications of these ideas for American public administration. The Levellers' ideas with respect to limited government, democracy, and decentralization are discussed, as well as their use of the myth of the Norman yoke to undercut the legitimacy of government and administration. It is argued here that the Levellers presented a vision of limited and decentralized…
Towards a Policy Information and Control System
Sanctions Against South Africa—Options for the West
Journal Article Sanctions Against South Africa—Options for the West Get access James Barber, James Barber Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael Spicer Michael Spicer Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 55, Issue 3, July 1979, Pages 385–401, https://doi.org/10.2307/2615146 Published: 01 July 1979
On Social Aspects of Consumer Behavior Comment
Fiscal Inequity and Tax Evasion: An Experimental Approach
This paper seeks to examine the relationship between fiscal inequity and tax evasion using an experimental approach. In the experiment, human subjects are faced with hypothetical tax evasion decisions and their behavior is observed. On the basis of socio-psychological research on inequity, it is hypothesized that the amount of taxes evaded will increase for victims of fiscal inequity but decrease for beneficiaries of fiscal inequity. The results …
Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa
Journal Article Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa Get access Suffer the Future: Policy Choices in Southern Africa. By Robert I. Rotberg. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. 311 pp. $9.00 Michael Spicer Michael Spicer 1Chatham House Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Pages 183–184, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619432 Published: 01 …
Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland
Journal Article Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland Get access Ciskei: Economics and Politics of Dependence in a South African Homeland. Edited by Nancy Charton. London: Croom Helm. 1980. 253 pp. £12.95. Michael Spicer Michael Spicer 1Chatham House Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 1, Winter 1981, Page 184, https://doi.org/10.2307/2…
Audit probabilities and the tax evasion decision: An experimental approach
Self Interest, Public Spirit, and Public Policy
Evaluating Parental Choice in Public Education: Policy beyond the Monopoly Model
In this article we develop an economic model of the provision of educational services in a metropolitan area that accounts for the number of school districts and the ability of significant numbers of families to relocate. We then use the results to evaluate the current system of public education and alternative proposals for reform. Each is evaluated in terms of its efficacy in promoting efficiency and equity goals and its ability to inculcate co…
A Contractarian approach to Public Administration
This article seeks to apply a contractarian approach to the design of public administrative structures and processes. It speculates as to what kind of public administration could have emerged hypothetically from unanimous agreement between rational individuals in a constitutional setting. The contractarian approach suggest the desirability of a system of public administration which provides administrators with significant discretion in following …
On Friedrich Hayek and Public Administration: An Argument for Discretion within Rules
Despite the late Friedrich Hayek's popular reputation as an advocate of free markets and an opponent of government intervention, his work has important implications for public administration. Hayek argued for the desirability of decentralized systems of human interaction in light of the limits on human rationality, the importance of rules in a social and political order, and the limits of democracy as expressed through majority rule. These ideas …
Advancing the Dialogue: Legitimacy, the Founders, and the Contractarian Argument
Legitimacy, History, and Logic: Public Administration and the Constitution
Public Administration and the Constitution: A Conflict in World-Views
This paper examines the world views underlying public administration and the Constitution. The article presents two rather different ways of looking at the world, which are used as a framework to contrast the literature in public administration with the writings of the Founders. It is argued that whereas public administration is rooted in a world view that stresses the powers of reason, the world view underlying the Constitution stresses the limi…
Postmodernism, Public Administration, and Political Association: Some Reflections on Fox and Miller
This paper examines Charles Fox and Hugh Miller's Postmodern Public Administration. I argue here that Fox and Miller's argument for a public administration suitable for the postmodern era is surprisingly conventional in that, like orthodox public administration, it assumes a purposive view of political association. This paper argues further that such a view of political association may be problematic given the fragmented nature of postmodern poli…
Administrative Interpretation of Statutes: A Constitutional View on the "New World Order" of Public Administration
The delegation of broad discretionary powers from the legislature to administrative agencies is a subject that starts the adrenaline flowing. This is especially true for many who write about public administration and the Constitution. The intense physical reaction is precipitated, in part, by the passionate debate regarding the legitimacy of the administrative state (see for example, Spicer and Terry, 1993; Lowi, 1993; Rohr, 1993; Warren, 1993). …
Reason, Discretion and Tradition: A Reflection on the Burkean Worldview and Its Implications for Public Administration
This article seeks to better identify Edmund Burke's views on human reason and human nature, tradition, representation, and law, and the implications of these views for public administration. Parallels between Burke's thought and that of the Founders (Founding Fathers) are examined. Also, the reasons for neglect of Burke's thought by public administration writers are discussed. Drawing on Burke's thought, the article presents an argument for the …
Public Administration, the State, and the Postmodern Condition: A Constitutionalist Perspective
This article examines the vision of the state as a purposive association, which undergirds much of the public administration literature, and explores its suitability in light of the postmodern condition. It is argued that a vision of purposive association is inappropriate and dangerous, given the diversity of political subcultures and language games characteristic of postmodernity, and that a more useful vision of the state here is that of a stat…
Frederick the Great on Government and Public Administration: An Examination of his Ideas and their Significance for American Public Administration
This article discusses the political and administrative ideas of Frederick the Great, as expressed in his writings, and attempts to assess their significance for American public administration thinking. Frederick's ideas on enlightened government, the good of the state, and the role of public administration are examined here. It is argued that the ideas espoused by Frederick have been influential in American public administration thinking about t…
Public Administration, Social Science, and Political Association
Public administration writers have placed considerable faith in the power of social science to improve the practice of public administration. This article argues that such faith derives from their vision of the state as a purposive association. However, because we live in what is essentially a civil association rather than a purposive association, there are severe limits on the knowledge that social science can provide for practice. Public admini…
United States
Bureaucracy and the American Constitution: Can the Triumph of Instrumentalism Be Reversed
Herder on Cultural Pluralism and the State: An Examination of His Views and Their Implications for Public Administration
This article explores Johann Gottfried Herder’s ideas on cultural pluralism and the state and what they suggest for American and comparative public administration. Herder’s ideas provide a powerful reminder of the dangers of centralized political and administrative power both to individuals and to diverse cultures and the need to place limits on such power. Furthermore, Herder’s ideas on the incompatibility and incommensurability of cultural valu…
Value Pluralism and Its Implications for American Public Administration
This article discusses the idea of value pluralism and its implications for American public administration in dealing with value conflicts. It is argued here that the pluralist view that our values are often incompatible and incommensurable with one another is more coherent with our moral experience than monist views that assume an underlying harmony among human ends. I also argue that the monist character of much of public administration discour…
The War on Terrorism and the Administration of the American State
Conditions of war lead to a style of teleocratic governance and administration that is at odds with the idea of civil association reflected in the American constitutional state. As a result, war can put our traditional notions of humanity, pluralism, and limited government at risk. In order to defend the values of civil association, public administrators should understand and appreciate the principles undergirding our constitutional system of gov…
Political science (53 works) · Law (50 works) · Law (46 works) · Sociology (42 works) · Politics (37 works) · Public Administration (33 works) · Administration (probate law (32 works) · Public Administration (31 works) · Epistemology (26 works) · Philosophy (26 works)