Original
The Disconnection of Advocacy and Analysis in Public Administration: A Critique of Robust Governance
Abstract
ABSTRACT A strength of public administration as a discipline is that it is concerned with both the analysis and advocacy. It explores the working of public institutions and wider systems of governance but also proposes reform mechanisms to improve their functioning. But these combined tasks are often conducted as if they were in separate worlds, to the detriment of the advocacy role. This failing, in turn, leads the advocacy arm of public administration regularly down a path of misunderstanding the nature of reform, over‐estimating the prospects for institutional change and not grasping the role of politics in any change. We use the case of the recent promotion of “robust governance” to illustrate our argument.
中文
公共行政中倡导与分析的脱节：对稳健治理的批判
摘要
公共行政作为一门学科的一个优势在于，它同时关涉分析与倡导。它既探究公共机构以及更广泛的治理体系的运作，也提出改革机制以改善其运行。然而，这两项结合起来的任务常常仿佛在彼此分离的世界中进行，从而损害了倡导角色。这种缺陷反过来又使公共行政的倡导分支经常误判改革的性质，高估制度变革的前景，并且未能理解政治在变革中的作用。我们以近来对“稳健治理”的推崇为例来阐明我们的论点。
关键词
公共行政、稳健治理、倡导、分析、制度改革、制度变迁、政治作用