Preface to public administration: a search for themes and direction

Abstract

What is public administration theory in America? the peculiar stateless origins of American public administration theory chinking in a temporary American state (and the strange administrative theory it created) the rise of a global professional technocracy - a new postwar American state system? shifting doctrines in 20th-century American public administration thought - one, two, many current trends in American public administration thought - the drive to specialize in texts, teaching and training modern public administration theory as a great state debate - no state?, bold state?, pre-state?, pro-state? the future of American public administration theory - a dialectic among competing state visions.