The Future of Public Administration: Challenges and Opportunities-A Critical Perspective

This article addresses the future of public administration as a self-conscious enterprise as well as a field of practice. It discusses four major challenges facing public administration: predatory globalization, institutional failure, poverty of the field, and success of the field, with technology as a fifth challenge, which is not discussed due to space limitation. The article also argues that, ironically, it is these same challenges that can also serve as forces shaping the future of public administration as a theory and practice. A conclusion outlines models suggested by other scholars, and offers new perspectives in favor of the argument advanced here.