| Summary: |
Comparative Public Administration (CPA) attained its greatest intellectual
influence during the post World War II era, although it was utilized
much earlier. In 1887, for example, Woodrow Wilson’s article, considered
the first articulation of public administration as a field of study, clearly
emphasized the comparative approach as the foundation of developing administrative
principles. Wilson argued for ‘‘putting away all prejudices
against looking anywhere in the world but at home for suggestions’’ in
the study of public administration. He emphasized that ‘‘nowhere else in
the whole field of politics y, can we make use of the historical, comparative
method more safely than in this province of administration’’ (Wilson,
1887).
During the early part of the 20th century, Max Weber also differentiated
and compared three types of authority system: traditional, charismatic, and
legal–rational, producing in the process one of the most influential conceptualizations
in social sciences the bureaucratic model. To underscore the
attributes of the bureaucratic rational model of administration, Weber
compared it to other systems that were prevalent in other times and places.
What matters here is that the comparative approach was central to Weber’s
theory on authority systems throughout history.
The post WWII advance and expansion of comparative administration
scholarship was stimulated by contributions from scholars whose intellectual
pursuits reached beyond the national boundary of one country, and
who managed to bridge the divide between administration and politics.
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