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Against the various literatures asserting that myths serve administrators well in varying ways, this paper takes a decidedly skeptical stance. While myth is a tool that may be well or poorly used, its use to fashion administrative theory, or to construct an administrative order, or to enhance administrative thought is most often a poor use indeed. What serves Public Administration best involves the much more difficult effort of constructing theories of historical causation that derive directly from the experiences that practitioners have with the problems they find it necessary or desirable to solve. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

There is little question that among those who study management and administration there are many for whom myths and stories encompass most, if not all, of what possesses abundant value in the social sciences. Goodsell and Murray, for example, have promoted the use of symbols, stories, and images to places of honor in Public Administration. Beginning with real people and events and embellished subsequently with fiction, the goal of a myth is not to provide accurate records but to portray examples of virtuous or evil conduct, and cautions about the dangers of life, and insights into the consequences of people's choices. The initial offering by Charles Abel, \"Why Myth Could Matter (But Probably Shouldn't) in Public Administration,\" is a detailed critique of all uses currently heralded for myth in Public Administration. Taking cognizance of how myths might possibly be employed positively, the paper concludes that on balance myths are more often poorly used and so out to be avoided.

A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: \"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.\" The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, \"What is the tortoise standing on?\" \"You're very clever, young man,\" said the old lady. \"But it's turtles all the way down!\". [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

On January 16, 2016, Professor Kym Thorne passed away in his sleep. Kym had a remarkable career and was beloved by his colleagues and friends on many continents. He was an exceptional academic and a much-loved and respected colleague and friend to the PAT-NET community as well. Through his legacy of publications, he will continue to encourage inspired thinking and to challenge commonly held beliefs. He is deeply and sincerely missed by those who were fortunate enough to know him.

Every profession rests upon a particular body of text, thought, and practice. This corpus is taught, in all esteemed professions, by way of a signature pedagogy. Many conclude that, because the practitioners and academics of our profession must bridge theory and practice, and because the singular characteristic of our profession is that people make decisions and act under conditions of greater uncertainty than those enjoyed by other professions, Public Administration does not admit to such a pedagogy. This paper argues that these difficulties are opportunities, rather than obstacles, toward devising such a pedagogy, and that our students can learn how to (1) thrive on chaos, (2) make rapid decisions based on incomplete and biased information, (3) resolve novel situations even as apprehensive parties clamor to secure their interests, (4) collaborate with a team of fellow bureaucrats as they identify, share, and (5) master a situation that is filtered through a fog of quasi- accurate information. Students also can learn how to navigate the situation by identifying patterns for problem-solving, and employing sophisticated representations to develop and communicate their ideas, while grappling with important political, environmental, and social interests--by way of a pedagogy that is at once immersive and uncertain, yet directive and retentive. Suggestions are made about how to manage such a pedagogy, based on the research of behaviorists, cognitivists, and affectivists.

The capitalism of Adam Smith's devising is intent upon unfettering our natural liberty so that we might act upon our interests to the betterment of the whole. Government agencies promoting a cheerful and hearty populace were taken by Smith as a necessary ingredient to his scheme. The free-market capitalism of our own devising is intent upon efficiency, a trait of markets that Smith considered a natural by-product of our creativity as expressed in open markets. With natural liberty no longer the priority, the world has become safe for an evolved form of feudalism. Administratively, this feudalism is characterized by a weak government incapable of regulating markets to promote either a healthy or a happy populace yet called upon persistently to resuscitate failing markets and firms with tax dollars. As a fix, Schumpeter's blueprint for a market-socialism might be modified so that the means of production are regulated by public agencies rather than owned by our government. Such a fix might return public agencies to their earliest incarnations as entities charged with the task of improving governance by countering rapacious market practices.

Introduces a journal symposium on \"Alternative Visions of Public Administration\".

Thoughtfully employed, Carl Friedrich's conception of authority leads us to a pragmatic solution to the problem of what should constitute the proper warrants of authority. Contrary to the thinking of some who favor pragmatism in Public Administration, the discourse on this problem is neither pointless nor likely to dissolve should we opt for fully inclusive collaboration between administrators and citizens. And contrary to those who argue that genuine authority must originate in truth, Friedrich's concept of authority elucidates the contingent nature of truth and sets us upon a pragmatic trajectory out of the theoretical lacuna into which we are led by conservative and liberal thinkers. In brief, it suggests that people and institutions should only be recognized as legitimate authorities when they demonstrate the ability to generate directives founded upon reasons that derive from collaborative problem-solving, a process whereby knowledge gained through praxis of many and placed, through a wide-ranging and open discourse, in reflexive equilibrium with values, traditions, and goals that have themselves been collaboratively devised through the same process.

Second, after comparing compliance in eight states with Supreme Court precedents, the Equal Access Act, and U.S. Department of Education guidelines, they observed that, On the one hand, there are school districts that have taken steps to formally implement into their policy manuals two decades worth of Supreme Court rulings, congressional legislation, and executive branch pronouncements governing religious expression in the public schools. In the mere process of exercising these powers, carrying out their sworn duties, and pursuing the policies mandated by legislative bodies, they may focus attention on neglected issues (e.g., administrative duties with regard to gay marriages under state constitutions, privacy rights as affected oy security cameras), stress ideology over pragmatics (e.g., the federal supremacy issue in medical marijuana use), or introduce new concepts and principles through innovative administrative strategies and tactics that stretch traditional boundaries of practice (e.g., scheduling in \"spontaneous\" student prayer at public school sponsored events).

Abstract This chapter explores the challenges presented to public organizations by neoliberal thinking and the acceptance of the neoliberal capitalist agenda. Demonstrably, severe economic, political, and social dislocations are the result. Nevertheless, neoliberal influence remains and intensifies. We argue that this counterintuitive result is not grounded in either instrumental or theoretical merit but in the creation and dissemination of certain identifiable memes. The chapter proceeds with a critical examination of current neoliberal memes, an appraisal of their impact on government, society and economics, and the derivation of alternative memes from a Smithian perspective on political economy. Based on this critique and the derived memes, the chapter offers suggestions for a pragmatic cultural and administrative praxis that promise not only to moderate the influence of neoliberal memes and to mitigate tendencies for the propagation of new disadvantageous memeplexes, but also to avert the problems associated with the traditional distrust of government agencies and their top-down, disengaged, technical, and expert-driven solutions.