The Ecology and Context of Public Administration

A Comparative Perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID6359178
AuthorsFred W Riggs (corresponding author)
Year1980
Volume40
Issue2
Pages107-107
Publication date1980-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePublic Administration Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-3352 • E-ISSN: 1540-6210
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/975620
OpenAlexW2315322587
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Whether the reasons are linguistic or cultural I do not know, but the fact is that we sometimes have words for one side of a coin but not for the other-a fact that pre-conditions the way we think about some problems. For example, the word, outline, which we use when drawing a profile around something, delimits the same thing as an of whatever surrounds the subject, but English dictionaries do not recognize the latter word. Yet, clearly administrative performance is as much conditioned by the external and context in which it is carried out as by the preferences and choices of the immediate actors concerned. Indeed, analysis of what is inside any system typically tells us how it works but not why-by contrast, it is only when something is inclined that we can discover why it is the way it is. Any subject, in short, needs to be both outlined and inclined. One consequence of our persistent efforts to problems is that we focus ever more deeply on smaller and smaller subjects. No doubt this enables us to dissect, with considerable precision, the intricacies of a very concrete and specific problem-as we typically do in our published research. Occasionally, however, we need to pull back and take a broader view, thereby achieving an explanatory perspective on the interrelatedness, at higher levels, of many of our problems. We can only achieve this broader perspective when we attempt not only to outline but also to inline the problems at hand. Another one-sided term is environment; whatever has an is molded by it, yet we feel tongue-tied when we try to speak of whatever is environed, using a non-existent word again. Discussions of the environment frequently note how difficult it is to define the concept, yet, obviously, the of one thing is different from the of something else. Until you identify the environed, you cannot determine its environment. The of Hawaii, to take a simple example, is quite different from the of Arizona-or of Afghanistan or the moon. The same paradox affects our use of the word, context, since we lack obvious terms for whatever it is that is contextualized, if we may use this cumbersome coinage. Indeed, if we are permitted to use such unorthodox words as inline, environed, and contextualized, we can think more clearly about some of

Administration (probate law · Biology · Context (archaeology · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Ecology · Law · Public Policy and Administration Research

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