Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Deep Thinkers and Their Influence on the Conception of the Public Servant: Reconciling Philosophical Roots

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant

  • 42 Accesses

Abstract

One of the major criticisms leveled at public administration scholarship is its latent bias toward philosophies and pracices from Western traditions. As more governments in non-Western arenas push forward with reforms to try and improve service provision and professionalism within their organizations, this bias creates well-documented disconnects between proposed “best practices” and their anticipated outcomes. In order to counter this bias, it would be useful to present and compare some of the more influential philosophies that drive codes of conduct within public organizations that are not well known within the context of Western public administration. In this chapter, I will focus on some foundational philosophies both from within and outside of the Western canon, and the links, broken and otherwise, between these philosophies and democratic contexts. I propose that this comparison leaves fertile ground for future studies of the nexus between culture and administration, and the implications for how public servants define themselves and prepare for the tasks ahead in an increasingly interconnected and global context.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For a truly sobering example of what was being attempted by governments with less than stellar histories in their former colonies, the manuals that were put together by the Overseas Development Institute in the U.K during the 1960s provide some insight (Williams 1965). For a more updated and much less self-aware rendition, there is the highly entertaining if it weren’t so tone-deaf tome (one of a series published by Rand Corporation) written by former Bush Ambassador to the European Union (1991–1993), James Dobbins. Admittedly, Dobbins had help, but the volume is literally titled, “The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building,” notably published in 2007.

  2. 2.

    One might argue that Alain Prost, the Formula One driver and winner of multiple championships exemplified the idea of Confucian restraint. He was well known for going no faster than absolutely necessary to secure his leading position. One might also argue that his teammate and rival, Ayrton Senna, was the Li Bai of Formula One (Parry 2016).

  3. 3.

    To illustrate how far afield officials at the top of an empire that had started to decay could wander, there are multiple historical example to draw on within the long history of China. But one of the most telling comes from its protectorate, Korea, during the end of the Chosun Dynasty in the late 1860s and 70s. The then-ruler known as the Taiwenkun, never left his palace, and “[t]o spare him the discomfort of visiting Seoul, a model village was built in a ravine of the palace gardens where His Majesty might study the life of his subjects in a natural-environment ‘zoo’” (Crofts and Buchanan 1958, p. 227).

References

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkowitz, Roger. 2013. Misreading ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’. New York Times. Published July 7, 2013. Accessed at: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/misreading-hannah-arendts-eichmann-in-jerusalem/

  • Bertelli, Anthony M. 2016. Who are the policy workers, and what are they doing? Citizen’s heuristics and democratic accountability in complex governance. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 208–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bimes, Terri, and Stephen Skowronek. 1996. Woodrow Wilson’s critique of popular leadership: Reassessing the modern-traditional divide in presidential history. Polity 29 (1): 27–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blumberg, Stephen K. 1981. Seven decades of public administration: A tribute to Luther Gulick. Public Administration Review 41: 245–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brinkerhoff, Derick W. 2019. State fragility, international development policy, and global responses. In The Oxford handbook of global policy and transnational administration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan II, Bruce. 1975. Red Tape and the service ethic: Some unexpected differences between public and private managers. Administration and Society 4: 423–444.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buckler, Steve. 2011. Hannah Arendt and political theory: Challenging the tradition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crofts, Alfred, and Percy Buchanan. 1958. A history of the far east. New York: Longman, Green and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Degnbol-Martinussen, John, and Engberg-Pedersen, Poul. 2005. AID: Understanding International Development Cooperation. Trans: Danish by Marie Bille. New York: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbins, James, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, and Beth Cole De-Grasse. 2007. The beginner’s guide to nation-building. Pittsburgh: RAND Corporation.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Downs, Anthony. 1967. Inside bureaucracy. Boston: Little Brown.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Durant, Will. 1954. Our oriental heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ezra, Michael. 2007. The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and her critics. Democratiya 9: 141–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finer, Herman. 1936. Better Government Personnel. Political Science Quarterly 51 (4): 569–599.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finer, Herman. 1941. Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government. Public Administration Review 1 (4): 335–350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franke, William. 2018. Apophatic paths from Europe to China: Regions without borders. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frederickson, H. George. 1971. The New Public Administration: Emergence of a Social Equity Ethic. Connecticut Government, February/March 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frederickson, H.George. 1980. The new public administration. University: University of Alabama Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. Confucius and the moral basis of bureaucracy. Administration and Society 33: 610–628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frederickson, H. George, and David K. Hart. 1985. The public service and the patriotism of benevolence. Public Administration Review 45: 547–553.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedrich, Carl J. 1940. Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility. In Public Policy: A Yearbook in the Graduate School of Public Administration, C.J. Friedrich and E. Mason, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 3–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodale, Mark. 2018. Letter to the Contrary: A Curate History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grandy, Christopher. 2009. The ‘Efficient’ Public Administrator: Pareto and a Well-Rounded Approach to Public Administration. Public Administration Review 69: 1115–1123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gulick, Luther. 1937. Notes on the theory of organization. In Papers on the science of administration, ed. Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick, 3–13. New York: Institute of Public Administration.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harari, Yuval Noah. 2011. Sapiens: A brief history of mankind. London: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Havet, Jacques L. 1947. Communication Addressed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to the Chariman of the Commission on Human Rights. United Nations Communication E/CN.4/78. Sent from Geneva, Switzerland on December 16, 1947.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, voice, and loyalty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. Shifting involvements: Private interest and public action. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Im, Tobin, Jesse W. Campbell, and Seyoung Cha. 2013. Revisiting Confucian bureaucracy: Roots of the Korean Government’s Culture and Competitiveness. Public Administration and Development 33: 286–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jin, Ha. 2019. The Banished immortal: A life of Li Bai. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelman, Steven. 1987. ‘Public Choice’ and public spirit. The Public Interest 87 (1): 80–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keynes, John Maynard. 1920. The economic consequences of the peace. London: Macmillan and Co.mpany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Thomas H.C. 1985. Government education and examinations in Sung China. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lincoln, Abraham. 1861. Inaugural address by the President to the people of the United States. Delivered on March 4, 1861 in Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lo, Chung-Shu. 1947. Human rights in the Chinese Tradition. Response sent to the UNESCO survey on the philosophical foundations of human rights on June 1. Reprinted in The UNESCO Courier, 2018, Issue 4. Accessed at: https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-4/seventy-year-old-views-remain-contemporary

  • Meier, Kenneth J., and John Bohte. 2007. Structure and discretion: Missing links in representative bureaucracy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 11 (4): 455–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morone, James A. 1998. The Democratic wish: Popular participation and the limits of American Government. Revised. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mosher, Frederick C. 1968. Democracy and the public service. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niño-Amezquita and Niño-Molina 2020. In this volume.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oakes, Guy. 2003. Max Weber on value rationality and value spheres. Journal of Classical Sociology 3 (1): 27–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Overeem, Patrick. 2008. Beyond heterodoxy: Dwight Waldo and the politics-administration dichotomy. Public Administration Review 68 (1): 36–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parry, Tommy. 2016. Alain Prost: The thinking man’s driver. Turnology. Accessed online: https://www.turnology.com/features/alain-prost-the-thinking-mans-driver/

  • Perry, James L., and Lois Recascino Wise. 1990. The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review 50 (3): 367–373.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raadschelders, Jos C.N. 2020. Impartial, skilled, respect for law: The ancient ideals of civil servants at the root of Eastern and Western Traditions. Korean Journal of Policy Studies 35 (1): 1–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ragin, Charles. 1989. The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenbloom, David H., and Helena K. Rene. 2016. Shrinking constitutional tort accountability: Developments in the law and implications for professional responsibility. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 235–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schillemans, Thomas, and Mark Van Twist. 2016. Coping with complexity: Internal audit and complex governance. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 257–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Svara, James. 2008. Beyond Dichotomy: Dwight Waldo and the Intertwined Politics-Administration Relationship. Public Administration Review 68: 46–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tao, Jill L. 2018. Weber and Confucius in East Asia: The great experiment. In Public policy in the ‘Asian Century’: Concepts, cases and futures, ed. Sara Bice, Avery Poole, and Helen Sullivan, 65–86. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2019. Transnational administration from the beginning: The importance of Charisma in shaping International Organizational Norms. In The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration, ed. Diane Stone and Kim Moloney, 419–436. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terman, Jessica N., and Kaifang Yang. 2016. Reconsidering gaming in an accountability relationship: The case of minority purchasing in Florida. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 281–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Victor A. 1975. Without sympathy or enthusiasm: The problem of administrative compassion. University: University of Alabama Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Velotti, Lucia, and Jonathan B. Justice. 2016. Operationalizing Gidden’s recursive model of accountability. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 310–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Volkmer, Ingrid. 2019. "The transnationalization of public spheres and global policy". in The Oxford handbook of global policy and transnational administration. Diane Stone and Kim Moloney, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 240–256.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldo, Dwight. 1948. The Administrative State. New York: Ronald Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldo, Dwight. 1990. Bureaucracy and democracy: Reconciling the irreconcilable? In Current issues in public administration, ed. Frederick S. Lane, 4th ed., 200–214. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Peter. 1965. Technical assistance, British Aid-4. 2nd ed. London: Overseas Development Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Woodrow. 1887. The study of administration. Political Science Quarterly 2 (2): 197–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, Kaifeng, and Melvin Dubnick. 2016. Introduction: Accountability study moving to the next level. Public Performance and Management Review 40 (2): 201–207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Administration, Incheon National University, Incheon, South Korea

    Jill L. Tao

Authors
  1. Jill L. Tao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jill L. Tao .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Acton, ACT, Australia

    Helen Sullivan

  2. UNSW Australia, Campbell, ACT, Australia

    Helen Dickinson

  3. College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Hayley Henderson

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Public Administration, Incheon National University, Incheon, South Korea

    Jill L. Tao

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Tao, J.L. (2020). Deep Thinkers and Their Influence on the Conception of the Public Servant: Reconciling Philosophical Roots. In: Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., Henderson, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03008-7_92-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03008-7_92-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03008-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03008-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Political Science and International StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation