| Summary: |
No deliberation of politics and political theory claims a more venerable
heritage than the dialogues on the existence, nature, and requirements of
the “public interest†or the “common good.†In Aristotle’s Politics, the “common
interest†(to koinei sympheron) is the rationale for proper constitutions;
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae identifies the common good
(bonum commune) as the worthy goal of government; Locke’s Second Treatise
of Government declares that “the peace, safety, and public good of the
people†are the transcendent political purposes.
We need not go back hundreds of years to find interest in public interest
theory. In the early years of the twentieth century, many prominent political
scientists paid homage to the idea of the public interest. Pendleton Herring’s
(1936) reconciliation theory was premised on public managers’ ability to divine
the common good; Emmette Redford (1954) viewed the public interest
as the key to effective regulatory administration; Phillip Monypenny (1953)
anchored his public administration ethical code in a concept of the public interest.
Even the foundation stone of American public administration,
Woodrow Wilson’s (1955) Study of Administration, originally published in
1887, set its famous politics/administration dichotomy in a concept of the
collective good (Rutgers 1997).
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