250 10: Conclusion: A Bright Future for Th eory?
improve the applied practice of public administration? Some scholars (e.g., Wil-
son 1989) have suggested that comprehensive, useful, and reliable theories are
not possible in the arena of public administration. Others have suggested that
the fragmented nature of the fi eld, coupled with the tendency of public admin-
istration scholars (and academics generally) to “work in their silos,” potentially
threatens useful practical and theoretical developments (Pollitt 2010, S293). Th e
fi eld is too broad, too disjointed, too multidisciplinary, too undefi ned for any
intellectual framework to usefully achieve any of the purposes of theory. Our ob-
ject was to lay before the reader evidence that counters these claims. Th e goal in
describing in some detail a series of intellectual frameworks and analytical ap-
proaches was to present a convincing brief that in public administration there is a
body of work that is worth taking seriously as theory.
By examining whether the theoretical frameworks in the previous chapters fi t
with our general characterization of theory in this concluding chapter, we assess
to what extent that objective has been achieved. A tabular summation of our as-
sessments can be found in Table 10.1. Each framework is evaluated through the
process assigning it a score of high, low, or mixed on six dimensions related to the
core purposes of theory as we have described them. (1) Parsimony/elegance refers
to a theory’s ability to account concisely for the phenomenon under study by
using tightly ordered internal logic. (2) Explanatory capacity refers to a theory’s
ability to explain real-world phenomena. (3) Replicability refers to a theory’s abil-
ity to generalize beyond the confi nes of one case or a handful of cases. (4) Descrip-
tive capacity refers to a theory’s ability to portray the real world accurately as it is
observed. (5) Predictive capacity refers to a theory’s ability to generate testable hy-
potheses and make probabilistic assessments about the future. (6) Empirical war-
rant refers to the relative success of a theory in gaining empirical confi rmation for
the hypotheses and probabilistic assessments it generates. Th ese criteria form the
basis of our overall assessments of the theories examined in earlier chapters.
Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy
Th eories of political control of bureaucracy have at their heart a simple ques-
tion: Does bureaucracy comply with the law and the preferences of lawmakers?
Th e importance of this question in public administration refl ects the distrust for
concentrations of power underpinning the American philosophy of government.
Th at specifi c philosophy, not to mention more general principles of democratic
government, is contradicted if the nonelected element of the executive branch—
insulated from the ballot box and protected by civil service mechanisms—is al-
lowed to accumulate and exercise political power independently.
Th eories of political control of bureaucracy, then, have a basic objective to
explain and ensure how administration can be accountable and subordinate to
the formally designated institutions of democratic decisionmaking. Th is objective
implies the key challenge in this project: conceptually and empirically separating