Public Administration and Macroeconomic Issues: Is This the Time for a Marriage Proposal?

Abstract

A number of Public Administration (PA) scholars have raised concerns regarding the discipline’s neglect of macroeconomic challenges. Our article focuses on the link between macroeconomic trends and PA. We submit that PA needs to address changing economic structure, shrinking workforce, growing financial leverage, and rising wealth inequity to maintain relevance. Study of these trends complements PA research on government revenue reform and economic development. Furthermore, we suggest PA rebalances its underlying assumptions regarding intellectual boundaries and view of human nature. Without a paradigm shift, PA may lose any legitimate claim to be an appropriate administrative science.

Bridging international political economy and public policy and administration research on central banking

“…We also share the predisposition of one of the leading figures of IPE discipline, Susan Strange, who posits that IPE should be an eclectic research venue open to all disciplines and methodological/theoretical orientations so that it may account for different aspects of social, political, and economic phenomena (Strange, 1991). Similarly, there is a need to dismantle the disciplinary boundaries of PPA scholarship through the investigation of macroeconomic issues and the introduction of analytic eclectic perspectives that combine various explanations of divergent research traditions (Han et al, 2020). The complex interdependence in the global system and implications for particular countries in different policy areas can best be examined by analytic eclecticism so that diverse and flexible frameworks can be pragmatically combined to address multidimensional research questions relating to policy and practice (Sil & Katzenstein, 2010).…”

“…2 While there have been calls to bridge different levels of analysis in PPA (Roberts, 2020), neglect of the international dimension risks missing crucial influences in the policymaking process (Beland 2009). Moreover, PPA scholars have pointed to the neglect of macroeconomic issues in their field, calling for a redefinition of PPA's intellectual boundaries (Han, Xiong, & Frank, 2020). PPA research also recognizes the need to develop and test theories in developing countries in order to inform a better understanding of PPA (Bertelli, Hassan, Honig, Rogger, & Williams, 2020).…”