Journal of Public Affairs Education

No issue is more important—or more discouraging—than the steady decline of trust in America’s governing institutions. There are two different streams of trust, however. At the wholesale level, distrust grows from income inequality. The roots of this wholesale distrust are deep; in the short- and medium-term, there is little that government officials can do about it. At the retail level, however, the evidence is that improving the citizen experience can help to earn trust, at least in the particular interactions at hand. This is something that teachers can teach and students can learn: that retail trust can be built; that improvements in the administrator-citizen interaction can earn trust; and that emerging strategies to strengthen citizen satisfaction, especially through information technology, can make a big difference. Government managers can improve their interactions with citizens—and citizens will notice.

Public administrators serve the people and implement public policy. However, stories abound that call into question public servants’ ability to represent constituents different from them. Empathy, which is the ability to recognize, understand, and respond to the feelings of another, offers a way to improve these interactions and bring them more in line with expected public service values. In this article, we explore the extent to which empathy is important and plays a role in public service education programs. Using results from a survey conducted in the spring of 2016, we consider faculty perceptions on empathy in public service education and the extent to which public service education programs are incorporating empathy training into their curriculum. Understanding this sheds light on the extent to which empathy is valued and taught in public service education programs.

Over recent decades political polarization has transformed the political, ideological, and cultural landscape of the United States. Political polarization has also contributed to increased attacks against the administrative state and career public servants. As a result, some career public servants have fought back making use of various methods of organizational dissent. The article argues that MPA/PPA programs have a moral obligation to help students understand the impact of political polarization on the administrative state and to help students in MPA/PPA to explore organizational dissent in the context of political polarization.

Public administration frequently focuses on values such as diversity, equity, and representation through academic theory, professional standards, and educational accreditation. Research has shown that diversity efforts in faculty hiring and pedagogy have positive impacts on student success. This study measured gender representation in graduate public administration ethics course syllabi through the lens of representative bureaucracy theory. The researcher found that both male and female gender is represented (passive), but opportunities for students to see reflections of gender diversity in faculty and authors of course material heavily favor males. Active representation theory is demonstrated with increases in female-authored materials by female professors, but overall reflection opportunities are majority male-authored. While the surface level visibility of gender via professors or written scholarship may not be a substantive sign of gender inclusion, lack of inclusion or limited opportunities may serve as a symptom of the larger problem of barriers to equity and inclusion in the public administration workforce.

Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Master of Public Policy programs are training grounds for current and future public service leaders. However, many programs may underemphasize the importance of social equity, a pillar of public administration. Without this training, administrators may be poorly placed to understand the causes of inequities and to develop solutions. This article examines these issues in several ways. First, it argues for greater coverage of social equity in graduate programs. Second, it reviews the literature on calls for how to improve teaching social equity. Third, it presents a content analysis detailing the extent to which social equity is integrated into core courses currently offered across 120 MPA programs in the United States. Finally, a case study discusses the authors’ development and teaching of a stand-alone special topics social equity course in a large Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration-accredited program.

A strong and professional civil service is widely recognized as an important condition for a high-capacity and effective government. Similarly, high quality public service education is a means of strengthening and professionalizing civil service. Quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms, both domestic and international, are tools for improving educational quality. This article examines public service education in Mexico for a strategy for international engagement with NASPAA. The purpose of such engagement would be to expose Mexican public service education to international norms and standards and to demonstrate how doing so could lead to forms of affiliation and to the development of Mexican quality assurance mechanisms. We make the case that strengthening graduate public service education in this fashion can lead both to better internal governance and to enhanced international collaboration, credibility, and competitiveness for Mexico, while also being a possible model for NASPAA’s interactions with programs in other nations similarly situated.

Despite a long history of close association, the humanities no longer hold special significance for bureaucratic practitioners or students of public administration. However, a revival of the humanities–bureaucracy link is both desirable and possible. This article presents the case for a humanities or liberal arts conception of public administration in four parts. First, the article argues that modern humanism made possible the successful development of modern bureaucracy by providing emerging bureaucratic states with timely intellectual support. Second, the article describes the curricular landscape of contemporary public administration education that, unlike other professions, makes little room for humanities subjects. Third, the article shows how scholars and public managers may benefit from a renewed connection with the humanities. Finally, the article presents the foundation of a new public administration emphasizing a humanities-inspired perspective aimed at developing a civil service infused with technical expertise, intellectual self-awareness, and moral autonomy.