Public Administration Theory

PAR — 2026-08-18 Original Governing Before the State: Indigenous Javanese Administrative Theory Dede Setiono Abstract ABSTRACT Public administration scholarship often treats the Weberian ideal type as a universal model of bureaucracy, making governance arrangements that differ from it appear deficient rather than different. A decolonizing approach instead asks whether non‐Western historical records can offer alternative ways of theorizing governance. This study explores that possibility through the Nagarakretagama, a 14th‐century Javanese court eulogy composed by Mpu Prapanca in 1365, which predates Machiavelli's The Prince by 148 years. Qualitative content analysis of all 98 cantos identifies five governance domains: bureaucratic hierarchy, mandala‐based territorial administration, conditional fiscal exemptions, a legal order combining written law and custom, and ceremonial practices integrated with administration. These dimensions show how the Javanese empire organized authority, territory, revenue, law, and legitimacy through institutional arrangements that differ from the Weberian model. Reading this governance system as theory reveals an alternative conceptualization of administration and advances a decolonizing, pluriversal approach to public administration.

PAR — 2026-04-06 Original Toward a Theory of Value as Praxis: Linking Public Values and Public Value Bishoy L. Zaki Abstract ABSTRACT Literature on value developed along two influential interpretations: public values as normative expectations about policymaking and governance and public value expressing added or lost benefits experienced through public action. Although normatively linked, these interpretations evolved as separate streams, limiting conceptual clarity and cumulative analysis. In response, this article develops “value as praxis” as an analytical framework that treats the relationship between public value and public values as a translation‐and‐mediation process. It specifies how public values travel from articulation and prioritization to encoding within rules and resources, embedding in organizational and sociotechnical arrangements, enactment in design and implementation, and eventually experiences of “value” or “disvalue” in the form of benefits and burdens. The framework illustrates this translation‐and‐mediation process across five recurring process groups (families of mechanisms): institutional , regulatory , sociotechnical , design , and learning . It offers a basis for studying value creation, destruction, and disvalue, and for diagnosing where the translation of public values into public value breaks down across contexts and populations.