Development of Theory of Democratic Administration

Dwight Waldo

American Political Science Review, 1952, vol. 46, issue 1, 81-103

Abstract: In recent years various theories of “democratic administration” have been developed. These theories differ in their origins, their motivation, their sophistication. Some have been crudely forged in the heat of administration; some are finely-machined products of scholarship. Some pertain especially to private administration, others have been developed for public administration, while still others cut across this conventional division.These theories of democratic administration constitute a significant development in political thought. However crude and limited some of them may be, they open new areas to be explored in the development of democratic ideology; whatever their limitations, they are constructive efforts to adapt an ethic in which we believe to the contemporary world. If administration is indeed “the core of modern government,” then a theory of democracy in the twentieth century must embrace administration. I wish to sketch the background of administrative thought and history against which theories of democratic administration are seen in perspective; to review briefly some of these theories; and to comment upon the prospects and problems of the further development of theory of democratic administration.

Date: 1952
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