The Study of Administration

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3333590
AutoresMarshall E Dimock (University of Chicago, autor de correspondencia)
Año1937
Volumen31
Número1
Páginas28-40
Fecha de publicación1937-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1948041
OpenAlexW2037306981
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas3

It is now fifty years since Woodrow Wilson wrote his brilliant essay on public administration. It is a good essay to reread every so often; there is so much in it that sounds modern, so much that will hold permanently true. "It is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one." Was this said only yesterday? No, Woodrow Wilson clearly saw the importance of governmental administration half a century ago. "Administration is the most obvious part of government; it is government in action; it is the executive, the operative, the most visible side of government, and is of course as old as government itself." Yet democracies have badly neglected administrative principles and structural improvements. "Like a lusty child, government with us has expanded in nature and grown great in stature, but has also become awkward in movement. ... English and American political history has been a history, not of administrative development, but of legislative oversight-not of progress in governmental organization, but of advance in law-making and political criticism. ... We go on criticising when we ought to be creating

Action (physics · Administration (probate law · Constitution · Criticism · Government (linguistics · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Yesterday · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research