The study of public administration is often claimed to suffer from an inadequate conceptualization of publicness. This problem has become acute now that privatization of governmental goods and services has become fashionable in Western states. This book addresses the concept of publicness and tries to find out what actually is ‘public’ about public administration.
The author traces the original meanings that have been given to the concept of publicness in modern political and social thought, and he comes with an understanding of the publicness of public administration based on these original meanings.
The aim of this book is not only to elucidate a theoretical problem. It also confronts the theoretical findings with some of the most relevant practical issues in current public administration. The author describes organizations that cannot be univocally appointed to the market or the state. Furthermore, he elaborates what his conceptualization of publicness implies for the daily work of a civil servant, especially in concern with the integrity of his or her actions.
