Public administrators are often described as pragmatic. Yet few scholars have investigated what this might mean. This article introduces the notion of policy imprint-the effect that professional groups have on policy. Pragmatism is championed as an organizing principle that explains the public administration (PA) policy imprint. The pragmatism of William James and John Dewey is described and applied to PA. Because PA leaves its imprint where theory and practice meet, the article examines the theory-practice nexus through the lenses of pragmatism. Finally, pragmatism's link to democracy is developed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bardach, E. (1977). The implementation game: What happens after a bill becomes a law. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2.
Dewey, J. (1910). How we think. New York: D. C. Heath.
3.
Dewey, J. (1922). Human nature and conduct: An introduction to social psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
4.
Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and nature. Chicago: Open Court.
5.
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
6.
Dewey, J. (1954). The public and its problem. Chicago: Swallow Press.
7.
Dewey, J. (1958). Art as experience. New York: Capricorn.
8.
Dewey, J. , & Tufts, J. (1926). Ethics. New York: Henry Holt.
9.
Diggins, J. P. (1994). The promise of pragmatism: Modernism and the crisis of knowledge and authority. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.
Ehrenberg, V. (1973). From Solon to Socrates: Greek history and civilization during the 6th and 5th centuries. New York: Methuen.
11.
Flower, E. , & Murphy, M. G. (1977). A history of philosophy in America. New York: Capricorn.
12.
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new science. New York: Penguin.
13.
Goggin, M. L. (1986). The "too few cases/too many variables" problem in implementation research. Western Political Quarterly, 39, 328-347.
14.
Hitch, C. J. , & McKean R. (1978). The economics of defense in the nuclear age (1Oth ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
15.
Howard, P. (1994). The death of common sense: How law is suffocating America. New York: Random House.
16.
Ingram, H. (1990). Implementation: A review and suggested framework. In N. B. Lynn & A. Wildavsky (Eds.), Public administration: The state of the discipline (pp. 462-481). Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.
17.
James, W. (1890). Psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
18.
James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience. New York: Longman, Green.
19.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A new namefor some old ways of thinking. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.
20.
James, W. (1959). Essays in pragmatism. New York: Hafner.
21.
Mainzer, L. C. (1994). Public administration in search of a theory: The interdisciplinary delusion. Administration and Society, 26, 359-394.
22.
Markoff, J. , & Montecinos, V. (1993). The ubiquitious rise of economists. Journal of Public Policy, 13, 37-68.
23.
Montjoy, R. S. , & O'Toole, L. J., Jr. (1979). Toward a theory of policy implementation: An organizational perspective. Public Administration Review, 39, 465-476.
24.
Nakamura, R. , & Smallwood, F. (1980). The politics of policy implementation. New York: St. Martin's.
25.
Nalbandian, J. (1994). Reflections of a "pracadernic" on the logic of politics and administration. Public Administration Review, 54, 531-537.
26.
Novack, G. (1975). An apprisal of John Dewey ' philosophy: Pragmatism versus Marxism. New York: Pathfinder.
27.
Odeen, P. (1985). A critique of the PPBS system. In R. J. Art, V. Davis, & S. P. Huntington (Eds.), Reorganizing America's defense: Leadership in war and peace (pp. 375-380). New York: Pergamon.
28.
Patterson, E. W. (1953). Jurisprudence: Men and ideas of the law. Brooklyn, NY: Foundation.
29.
Pressman, J. L. , & Wildavsky, A. (1979). Implementation (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
30.
Ripley, R. B. , & Franklin, G. A. (1982). Policy implementation and bureaucracy (2nd ed.). Belmont: Dorsey.
31.
Shields, P. (1989). Freud, efficiency, and pragmatism. Transaction/Society, 26, 67-72.
32.
Shields, P. (1993). A new paradigm for military policy: Socio-economics. Armed Forces and Society, 19, 511-532.
33.
Simon, H. (1957). Administrative behavior (2nd ed.).New York: Free Press.
34.
Soccio, D. (1992). Archetypes of wisdom: An introduction to philosophy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
35.
Stever, J. (1993, February). Technology, organization, freedom: The organization theory of John Dewey. Administration and Society, 24, 419-443.
36.
Stone, D. (1988). Policy paradox and political reason. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
37.
Suckiel, E. K. (1982). The pragmatic philosophy of William James. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame.
38.
Westbrook, R. (1991). John Dewey andAmerican democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
39.
Wildavsky, A. (1979). Speaking truth to power. Boston: Little, Brown.
40.
Wildavsky, A. (1992). The new politics of the budgetary process (2nd ed.). New York: HarperCollins.
41.
Wilson, J. Q. (1989). Bureaucracy: What government agencies do and why they do it. New York: Basic Books.
42.
Wilson, W. (1978). The study of administration. In J. Sharfritz & A. Hyde (Eds.), Classics of public administration (pp. 3-17). Oak Park, IL: Moore. (Original work published in 1887)
