Reflections of a Law Professor on Instruction and Research in Public Administration

Both political scientists and lawyers are in quest of better understanding of the same problems about the same processes of the same administrative agencies carrying out the same programs. Yet the two professional groups characteristically work quite independently of each other. Acting in the belief that both lawyers and political scientists should benefit by increased mutual criticism, I propose to record my impressions of that area of political science which overlaps with and is contiguous to administrative law. The point of view will be that of one who is concerned primarily with law and legal education.This paper is designed (1) to evaluate the case studies edited by Harold Stein, entitled Public Administration and Policy Development, (2) to contrast with the case studies the basic method of instruction marked out by some of the conventional texts on public administration, (3) to criticize the undue emphasis upon broad perspective at the expense of detailed facts in the literature of public administration, (4) to call attention to the inordinate amount of misinformation about administrative law in some of the texts on public administration, (5) to express doubts about the choice of subject matter for some of the texts on public administration, and (6) to attempt constructive suggestions for further research on political science aspects of administrative law problems.