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2013 43: 130The American Review of Public AdministrationFatih DemirozKnowledge

Book Review: Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of  

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462451 ARPXXX10.1177/0275074012462451American Review of Public AdministrationBook Review

Book Review

Norma Riccucci. (2010). Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of Knowledge. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010, 162 pp. $23.70 (paper), ISBN: 9781589017047

Reviewed by: Fatih Demiroz, PhD, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USADOI: 10.1177/0275074012462451

Public administration has been dependent on the ideas of various disciplines since its inception more than a century ago. Although politics−administration dichotomy separated public admin-istration from the policy field, it is still influenced by values pertaining to politics. Borders of public administration also intersect with disciplines such as sociology, political science, psy-chology, law, and economics. These various disciplines contributing to public administration bring diversity to research traditions. Some researchers rely heavily on empirically based meth-ods while others prefer a normative approach. The reason for separation of research methods in the field stems from the “identity crisis” within the field. One trend in the field may look for practical implications of the findings of public administration scholars while others insist on being scientific. This identity crisis is embodied in the question of “is public administration an art or science?”

Norma Riccucci presents a comprehensive view of the research traditions in public adminis-tration. In her book, she examines “the field of public administration through the lenses of the philosophy of science” (p. 116). Riccucci explains the epistemic foundations of public adminis-tration in a comprehensive manner also providing a sound framework. She starts her discussions describing the fundamental concepts of epistemology and ontology in her introduction. In the beginning of this book Riccucci touches on the theoretical developments in public administra-tion. She uses the debate between Dwight Waldo and Herbert Simon to explain the formation of intellectual heritage in the field within the U.S. Simon advocated that the study of administration should be based upon facts (i.e., empiricism, measurement, verification). Waldo, however, was a political theorists and democratic theory was the foundation of his ontological view. Waldo criti-cized Simon and his followers for their efforts to approach social life from a scientific basis. Following the presentation of the Waldo−Simon debate, Riccucci contrasts the current state of public administration with natural sciences in respect to Kuhn’s definition of paradigms in sci-ence. She also explains that public administration is not alone in its identity crisis and explains how other social sciences had similar disputes. She dedicates the rest of her book to a typology for epistemic traditions in public administration and provides detailed explanations and exam-ples for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed mode research in the study of public administration. In her conclusions, she provides a summary of the epistemic traditions in the field and empha-sizes some of the caveats.

Epistemology asks “What can we know?” and “How do we know what we know?” while ontol-ogy asks “What is reality?” and “What is existence?” These questions constitute the link between researcher and the research, explains Riccucci. The question of “How should efforts to know be executed?” is the starting point of the separation in logic of inquiry.

The identity crisis stemming from the question of whether public administration is an art or science is explained in the first chapter through the debate between Herbert Simon and Dwight

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Book Review 131

Waldo. The applied nature of the field makes it somewhat arguable with respect to its scientific field position. Melvin Dubnick (1999, p. 7) explains this situation by stating, “relative to the “hard” or “natural” sciences, they often find themselves subject to the academic equivalent of snobbery and abuse applied to those of lower social status. However, the “mainstream” social sciences seem to be prone to treating their “professional” siblings (e.g., social work and educa-tion, as well as public administration) with equal disdain or indifference.” Waldo was an advo-cate of the normative agenda in research for public administration while Simon was defending behaviorism, logical positivism, and quantification in his research methodology. In other words, Waldo was the representative of the art aspect of the discipline whereas Simon was the symbol name for the scientific approach in the field. Although the dispute between artists and scientists in public administration has not been resolved, both sides have been contributing to the field and function in a complementary way. That brings out the question of whether public administration has a paradigm or not which is explained in second chapter of the book.

Riccucci, in her second chapter, summarizes Kuhn’s definitions and arguments on paradigm and uses them for discussing whether public administration has a paradigm or not. Thomas Kuhn first used the term paradigm to define a “model that governs scientific inquiry in a discipline at any given time” (p. 22). Although there are some scholars arguing that a paradigm exists for public administration, many others including Riccucci do not agree and claim that public admin-istration lacks a paradigm in strict scientific terms. It is argued that the value laden, multidisci-plinary, immature and practical nature of the discipline undermines the development of a real scientific paradigm for public administration. Rather, Riccucci concludes that public administra-tion is a postnormal science that houses various paradigms during the stages of scientific inquiry.

In her third chapter, Riccucci states that “[p]ublic administration is not the only social science that has grappled with questions of identity and the significance of paradigms” (p. 31). She rec-ognizes that other social sciences are subject to similar paradigmatic and identity crises and shares examples within political science, policy sciences, policy analysis, public management and New Public Management, sociology, education, and psychology. All these social sciences are condemned to be “soft, squishy, not empirically based, and hence nonscientific” (p. 42; also see Dubnick, 1999). Riccucci underlines that even the federal government is reluctant to provide funds to social sciences for conducting research. She discusses that a general understanding of true science is quantitative, empirically based, and positivistic and adds that “public administra-tion, like the other social sciences, has no paradigmatic base. And unlike several other branches of the social sciences, public administration is and will always be oriented toward practice, which is imbued with politics” (p. 43).

After explaining the theoretical foundations and paradigmatic basis of the discipline, and the similar challenges that other social sciences are confronted with in the second and third chapters, Riccucci provides a taxonomy of research approaches in the study of public administration that are used for generating theory and knowledge. She provides succinct definitions of interpretiv-ism, rationalism, empiricism, positivism, postpositivism, and postmodern/critical theory from the windows of ontology, epistemology, methodology, recording technique, and methods. She emphasizes that none of the research methods are superior to others, but they are applicable based on the theoretical perspectives that researchers use. Ontologies become meaningful to researchers based on their value systems. In other words, “we conduct research on the basis of accepting specific ontologies” (p. 49).

Riccucci highlights the close link between ontologies and epistemologies and asks “how can we know something without first knowing whether (or believing) it exists?” (p. 49, emphasis in the original). She also establishes the link between methodology, ontology, and epistemology. “Methodology” she states “and hence choice of method, or the procedure for gathering

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132 American Review of Public Administration 43(1)

evidence and even recording technique, depend upon our ontological and epistemological frameworks” (p. 50). Each of these research approaches presents their own constructs of valid-ity and reliability, and hence strength and weaknesses. Nevertheless, Riccucci underlines that theory building has been overshadowed by questions about methodology, and that there is a large volume of research that is not contributing to theory building identified by Adams and White as a “theoretical wasteland” (p. 62).

Chapters 5 to 7 of the book are dedicated to theory building practices through qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. Interpretivism, rationalism, empiricism, postpositivism, and postmodernism are the qualitative approaches that Riccucci explains and exemplifies. In exam-ining quantitative research approaches, she mentions logical positivism and empiricism, which is discussed within both research methods. She also provides examples of research that employs mixed method (both qualitative and quantitative) in Chapter 7. In her final chapter, Riccucci provides a synopsis of research traditions in public administration. She strongly emphasizes that no research tradition is better than the others and the research questions create value in the research method. She finalizes her book with the following statement, “an important purpose of this book is to promote greater tolerance of the diversity in the research traditions, because the persistence of a single or specific research tradition has been detrimental to theory of building in public administration” (p. 124).

Research traditions in public administration are shaped by its soft, vague, and multidisci-plinary character (see Stivers, 2011). There is no single way of defining and reaching reality and knowledge in the discipline. This book provides a comprehensive overview of various research traditions and methodologies for public administration. It first and foremost tells us what to know about the roots of epistemological and ontological approaches in the field. It also makes two very valuable contributions to public administration research. One is that most of the previ-ous studies that examined quality of research methodology in public administration had a narrow conception of science and theory. Riccucci’s effort, however, “illustrates the broad range of research traditions that add value to both the field’s theory and practice” (p. 2). In this book, she aims to form a common ground for public administrationists to engage in a “dialogue on the importance of heterogeneity in epistemic traditions, and in general to deepen the field’s under-standing and acceptance of its epistemological scope” (p. 3). The second contribution is a con-tinuation of the previous one. Most of the graduate programs teach students how to conduct research in public administration from a narrow window and the students often inherit the research traditions (and also biases) of their mentors. Riccucci’s comprehensive examination of different ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches in her book can help researchers and students of public administration to recognize and utilize the most appropriate research techniques to answer their research questions.

References

Dubnick, M. (1999). Demons, spirits, and elephants: Reflections on the failure of public administration theory. Unpublished manuscript.

Stivers, C. (2011, March 11-15). Administrative situation: The value of vagueness. Paper presented at American Society of Public Administration Conference, Baltimore, MD.

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