From the classics to the cuts

Abstract

This article intends to raise a number of issues regarding teaching public administration in the higher education sector and the value it has for individuals and society. The article explores the issue of value with reference to the teaching and learning of Public Administration as a discipline in the wider societal context. The article argues that the provision of public administration is a vital contributor to societal good, in terms of public service professions and the moral values that underpin the notion of public service. To this end, the article focuses on how we can apply classical theory to the concept of value in the teaching of public administration, linked to recent discussions of the discipline and its role in both theory and practice.

Keywords

ethics governance leadership pedagogy society

This discussion, though debated by academics and practitioners in the present day, was first broached by antiquity in terms of the good individual and society and how the two interact. However, for some reason, society arguably places greater value on business administration than public administration, or emphasizes the stem subjects such as the natural sciences and mathematics in higher education. The argument we propose here is that society should see teaching public administration as a public good. The article does not adopt one theoretical stance; rather, it examines classical theories of teaching and the public good from scholars concerned with politics and the public sphere. We then apply these concepts to the notion of teaching public administration as a public good, suggesting that the notion of value we see given to subjects such as the natural sciences or business should be extended to public administration. That a good society needs to ensure the provision of teaching public administration in order to maintain value in public life and to promote the value of public services (Barberis, 2012; Bouckaert, 2013). The article also argues that to generate good public administration and policy-making, and indeed, in producing knowledgeable and effective future leaders, teaching public administration needs to be more greatly valued by society, and can play an important role in building trust between those charged with formulating and delivering policy and public services, and the electorate.

How do we and our students across the field receive, or learn, or even understand and internalize the concept of public administration? We might reasonably suppose, as recent research on design, provision and the amount of relevant courses and delivery (Jones, 2012) demonstrates, that students locate the role and meaning of public administration within a broader context of either business courses or (but rarely and) political science, though this is a process that has changed dramatically even in recent years – the closure of the National Civil Service College has failed to transfer the teaching of public administration issues into increasingly competitive universities, and indeed this closure illustrates, we assert, rather a cavalier and highly costly discarding of the value of historical modes of teaching public administration (Scott, 2012). Within each of these areas of study, both academics and students examine ethics. In the context of value, it is hardly surprising that students would expect more frequent and more detailed feedback, more value for money and more contact time, and indeed this is not unique to public administration. In terms of value, however, students naturally look for degrees which will equip them with the best chance of a secure, high-earning career. It is at this moment we must pause and consider to what extent this is influenced by wider priorities of which subjects are constructed as being able to deliver greatest value to society. Recent central government changes to funding and delivery across the public services (Joyce and Coxhead, 2012) have meant that students are becoming unsure about the worth of pursuing a career in the public services, both as first responders and as managers. The wider discourse of cuts to these services and the emphasis on enterprise has negative consequences for teaching public administration. Indeed, these meanings are reflected in practice – governance, administration and management of public life and services have tended to be driven by the core executive through the creation of agencies, or by a minimum state and emphasis on business. As Diamond and Farrell (2012) suggest, this apparent decline in the provision of the subject within the higher education sector and the governmental shift towards Big Society, localism and other business focused policy agendas means we need to reconsider how we deliver, research and indeed defend the area of public administration:

To some extent we might be overreacting to the claim that the discipline is in decline and that it has fallen out of fashion or favour. We accept that there are ways in which we might measure the overall success or decline of the discipline by reference to a whole battery of metrics including student numbers, success of specific conferences or academic journals and the volume of activity associated with the journal as counted by the research councils. (Diamond and Farrell, 2012: 73)

When we deliver courses across the discipline, many of us teach students who are engaged in practice as volunteers, specials or managers, across national and local governance, for example, or the blue light services. This interaction evidently generates learning for both the academic and student. This exchange relationship takes place even if one finds themselves in the (current) position of delivering sessions on opening up public services to be more innovative, while students in the session have spent their weekend directing traffic in two feet of floodwater for no fee! This small example of the gap between the vision in Westminster and local level public administration is one that the teaching of public administration has a unique role in bridging, and in generating a wider understanding of the value of public administration to the good society. As Elcock suggests:

The existence of a common public interest requires that public servants, including politicians, civil servants, local government officers and all other state employees must subscribe to, and seek to uphold, four virtues: accountability, legality, integrity and responsiveness. (Makridimitris, 2002, cited in Elcock, 2012: 118)

Public Administration, as noted earlier, is at something of a crossroads both as an academic discipline and in practice. The shifting role of (surviving) public institutions and the coalition focus on STEM subjects in terms of research funding shows the need for us to address some very big questions. Looking at other countries where the teaching of public administration is an important part of large university faculties (for example, prestigious schools and departments such as the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University), these nations and their governments evidently value the link between teaching and research in the discipline of public administration, and the subsequent recruitment into government and governance. There is evidently value creation placed on the discipline, in a similar vein to current (and indeed past) UK focus on ICT and the natural sciences. Though it would be churlish to suppose that these disciplines are not vital for practice as well as university teaching (through engineering and medicine for example), there is a lack of acceptance of the value to wider society of teaching public administration courses – and as noted, much debate about their possible decline (Jones, 2012) in the UK. This is not limited to events such as the closure of the National School of Government, but also, as discussed earlier, to broader questions such as the value teaching public administration brings to wider society. Returning to the central question posed by this article, should we see teaching public administration as a public good?

Given the value that society has historically placed on education in the most general sense, we need to consider what teaching public administration should do for society. For instance, should universities educate (or train) people to be functionaries for the work place, or should they provide rational individuals that healthy governments are supposed to need? Should universities be institutions where people are taught, or should they encompass facilitating organizations that provide the environment for individuals to develop individuality? On a more practical level, can the opening up of the higher education system, as part of the current wider privatization and opening up of the public services agenda, deliver what is needed for society, or is it unable to deal with the increased numbers and consequently offering a poor substitute? Overall, can the broadening of the UK education system deliver rational citizens and the good society? This of course leads us to a situation where we need to understand what we mean by the rational citizen, the good society and the teaching of public administration in broader theoretical terms. In this context we are led toward the debates of antiquity in an attempt to shed some light on these issues.

Lessons for valuing public administration? Rhetoric and persuasion, a dispute over morals

The ancient Greek meaning of virtue was marginally different to the modern. The ancient Greek word arete meaning excellence or success may give a better definition of the ancient Greek concept of virtue. Virtue emphasizes good intention whereas arete emphasizes good results. In the present context, we seem to be applying arete rather than the concept of virtue. The focus on results and outcomes is again driven by the focus on enterprise and the private sector – and perceived related subjects taught in universities. However, let us not fall into the trap of claiming that public administration is only morally- or value-driven. If we as a society are to place value on arete, outcomes and results are important. The pursuit of the teaching, study and vocation of public administration also lead to desirable results. Not by targets and budgetary changes driven by new public management, new public governance or localism, or similar metrics, but rather outcomes which bring desirable results for society which are tied to concepts of both arete and virtue, such as responsive and value-driven first responders across the public services. Indeed, the concept of arete ranges from physical robustness, such as sturdy boots or a bow that shoots well to the pursuit of honourable actions in the achievement of human endeavour and behaviour toward others. These types of endeavour and values are often linked to frontline staff in the public services, yet we fail as a society to acknowledge the fundamental role that the teaching of public administration plays in achieving such services. Fundamentally, arete means to govern well. This may encompass all aspects of government from ones household, to the polis or company. In Plato, Meno wishes “… to acquire wisdom and virtue (arete) which fits men to manage an estate or govern a city” (1976: 145). Arete and virtue have complex meanings. Each refers to both the disposition of an individual and to things individuals do. A person is devoid of arete or virtue if they are not of a certain kind or fail to do good deeds. Of course, there is some dispute about what the virtuous individual is or does. Socrates considered that good governance often correlated with virtue, which makes people prosperous and free. However, prosperity and liberty are not good or bad in themselves. To achieve a good end people must be knowledgeable. But what is meant by knowledge? Knowledge of virtue which comes from within, knowledge that is remembered.

In Plato (1976), Socrates saw virtue as knowledge and to be virtuous was to both know one’s self and understand what one ought to do. One would consider that because virtue is knowledge and knowledge can be taught, then so can virtue. However, on the one hand, Socrates argues that there are no experts of virtue, while on the other, he considers that virtue may be taught. But what if there are no experts to teach virtue? Indeed he attempts to overcome this problem by considering that “… the soul … has learned everything that there is. So we need not be surprised if it can recall the knowledge of virtue or anything else which … it once possessed” (Plato, 1976: 129–130). When we learn a basic principle, if we persevere, the rest will follow the soul remembers what it forgot at birth “… for seeking and learning are in fact nothing but recollection” (Plato, 1976: 130). It is in this context, that knowledge of self and the pursuit of this knowledge is virtuous. Fundamentally, they are the same.

Plato outlined a world where ideas were more real than those that existed in the material world. The ideas of temperance, justice and all other virtues resided in the world of ideas, and if one could attain knowledge, one would become temperate and just. Indeed, if one attained knowledge of the idea of goodness, the highest idea, one would become truly virtuous and would understand how to direct others toward virtue (Huby, 1998). However, because an understanding of basic principles is necessary, some form of sign posting needed to be put in place. In educational terms, an accepted framework based within a place of learning; a place where direction may be undertaken. A place where arete may be learned and a moral perspective of the world developed. This, though, has its problems: what was the supreme good, what is virtuous and how is it to be communicated?

For Gorgias, the supreme good was freedom, and the best way of achieving this was through rhetoric and persuasion. Freedom was to have one’s own way in everything. Consequently, in order to have one’s own way in the polis or community, one must be capable of convincing one’s fellow citizens. He argued that one should have the “… ability to convince by means of speech”. Indeed, Gorgias argued that

… through the exercise of this ability you will have the doctor and the trainer as your slaves, and your man of business will turn out to be making money not for himself but for another; for you in fact, who has the ability to speak and to convince the masses. (Plato, 1976: 28)

Socrates answers Gorgias by introducing a distinction between persuasion that produces understanding in the person persuaded, and that which does not (Plato, 1976).

When persuasion produces understanding, there should be rational reasons for holding a belief, and once a belief is accepted, a rationale should be given to account for that belief. Whereas when persuasion does not produce understanding, it relies on producing ungrounded conviction through psychological manipulation. “So it appears that the conviction which oratory produces about right and wrong is of the kind which is followed by belief not of the kind which arises from teaching?” (Plato, 1976: 32). Gorgias accepts that rhetoric is not of the former but of the latter kind and is full of admiration for the orator who is able to persuade audiences of matters on which they are unskilled. Socrates questions Gorgias on whether the orator needed more than a comprehension of technology but an understanding of right and wrong. Gorgias presents rhetoric as morally neutral, which can be used for purposes which are right or wrong; to blame a teacher of rhetoric for the uses made of it would be like blaming a boxing teacher for the uses pupils make of the skill once they have learned it (Plato, 1976).

The understanding that persuasion is amoral is one that constantly recurs. However, to state this amorality, it is also to hold that it is morally irrelevant whether an individual reaches a belief by reason or through some non-rational way. To hold that such is morally irrelevant would insinuate that the exercise of human rationality is irrelevant to an individual’s standing as a moral agent. In other words, humans do not need to be responsible for their actions.

In this context, different explanations of responsibility are pre-supposed by different moral attitudes to the standing of techniques of persuasion. Consequently, the philosophical task of elucidation or education cannot be morally irrelevant and necessitates a process to enable thinking rational individuals not unthinking automatons.

Plato makes his understanding of the role of oration clear. He contends that body and soul have four arts corresponding to them; government through legislation and justice which deals with the soul and training and medicine which deals with the body. Each of these areas has something in common: they deal with the same object. However, they are also different from each other. These are the four arts that look to the well-being of humanity in terms of body and soul, but we also have pandering through pseudo-arts which disguise themselves as genuine arts and pretend to be those they impersonate. “The difference is that pandering pays no regard to the welfare of its object but catches fools with the bait of ephemeral pleasure and tricks them into holding it in the highest esteem” (Plato, 1976: 46). In such a context, cookery takes on the guise of medicine and pretends to know which food is best for the individual.

In the Republic, the importance of education, understanding and thought is re-emphasized as the only means of attaining the good state. Power remains exclusively in the hands of those that are properly capable of wielding it; these were the philosopher kings who would rule by superior virtue and rationale. The education of the Guardians of society or the philosopher kings would be through the production of stories by Socrates and his followers so that parents would tell these stories and so mould the mind and character of their children.

Public administration, Aristotle, education and good

Aristotle also contended that the good state and the good individual could be created through education and rational thought. He considered that supreme goodness may be pursued through political science, for it was political science that prescribed the subjects taught in the state. With the assistance of other sciences, it is politics that lays down what we should and should not do. Consequently, it must point to what is good for humanity because even though the good of the individual must coincide with the good of society, it is a far greater thing to preserve society than the individual.

Aristotle considered that the ultimate good was happiness and that pursuing virtue through the golden mean may attain this. This process needed to be apparent in the individual and the state, if the good state and good individual were to be realized. Public administration or politics should ensure that the right things are taught in the state to allow the individual the opportunity to distinguish the golden mean and become a rational thinking entity, that is, to find self. In this context, the state should ensure a competent well-resourced education system and not undermine it.

Transferring this debate to the present day, both market based reforms, coupled with an increasingly stratified and hierarchical higher education system, the role of education remains one of the most contested questions. In delivering both relevant and valued higher education, then surely the role and importance of teaching public administration in universities, to undergraduates, postgraduates, research students or through MPA or other Executive Education routes, gathers, rather than loses, importance and meaning? In combining theory and practice, or achieving a meaningful relieve relationship between the two, focus on STEM subjects is not sufficient in terms of developing empathetic, knowledgeable policy-makers and leaders: nor is it desirable at a time when public trust and participation in politics and leaders is dramatically waning. Learning lessons and examples of varying degrees of policy transfer can show successes, such as the smoking ban; yet in terms of types of policy transfer informing higher-education policy, we see few examples in the UK, though there are evidently examples to draw from (Wafa, 2013). Further to this, some of the arguments explaining the depth of mistrust in politics and policy makers in the UK, such as Flinders (2012) and Hay (2007), discuss the narrow educational background of mainstream party leaders as (one of many) factors that serve to create distant and a lack of recognition between the elected and the electorate. Central to this is the notion (to varying degrees accurate or unfair through recent years) that party leaders and cabinets are over represented in terms of Oxbridge graduates, for example, with many of these individuals being graduates of Law, Economics, or Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Perhaps, now more than ever before, valuing- and through this extending – the role of teaching public administration would be a means of bringing about greater understanding of, and participation in, the policy making process (Brown, and Agius, 2012). The teaching of public administration has a large role in uniting theory and practice (Copus and Altherr, 2012; Holmes, 2013; Stout Peters and Higbea, 2012), building understanding of key policy issues, and rebuilding trust and engagement.

Aristotle argued that there are two kinds of virtue: intellectual virtue and moral virtue. The former is produced and nurtured through education whereas the latter is the result of habit. Neither is natural to humanity

… since, nothing that is what it is by nature can be made to act differently by habituation.… The moral virtues … are engendered in us neither by nor contrary to nature; we are constituted by nature to receive them, but their full development in us is due to habit. (Aristotle, 1983: 91)

In the polis, habituation moulds good citizens. Indeed, the extent of habituation in respect of good in the polis indicates the difference between a good and a bad constitution. As humans become good or bad at x through doing x well or doing x badly, there is a need for guidance and education in all things. This includes the idea of virtue. “It is the way that we behave in our dealings with other people that makes us just or unjust” (Aristotle, 1983: 92).

Teaching public administration, the good society and the good individual

Today, UK higher education is open to a proportionally larger number of the populace than it was in ancient Greece. However, what are undergraduates being offered? Is it education in the context of Plato and Aristotle’s understandings? The individual is supposed to develop through an educational process. However, does today’s educational process allow the student to become a rational moral agent in the process of attaining self? Individuals are more than the fragmented collection of qualifications. They are temporal beings in search of becoming themselves. Education should facilitate such becoming through the Platonic and Aristotelian perception of education, or the pursuit of knowledge and understanding to create the good individual and the good society. Qualifications that have this affect should be valid. However, it is not the qualification but the process that is important. When a student becomes a graduate, it is the person that the process has enabled that is important, not the certificate.

The problem is, with ever increasing numbers coming into higher education can such a process be upheld? Is it not simpler to train the individual through persuasion of the non-rational kind, that is, stipulate correct answers rather than encourage disparate thinking around the subject? However, training people does carry with it some theoretical problems. If you train individuals too closely in their process of becoming, do they not become their trainer? Is this what we want for our future? Everyone should be given the opportunity to become self and attain good (or Maslow’s self-actualization) with guidance, but one should not grasp the tiller too tightly or guidance will become manipulation. Liberty, democracy and equality need to be under-pinned with educated thinking human beings not trained automatons. Is this not the purpose of human existence, to become whole many faceted individuals in a society that reflects this?

However, did not the Platonic and Aristotelian model of a university rest on an elite view of society; an aristocracy? Can representative democracy emulate an education system designed for oligarchy and aristocracy or does it need to create one for itself? Does the very objective of education need to change? Should it not recognize that in a mass higher education system the masses need to be prepared for the work place and this should now be its objective?

It is far more difficult to create analytical and critical skills in a person than it is to train them in a particular process. So why not train people for employment? This is what society wants a workforce that will add to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and improve all of our standards of living. However, one may argue that employers know exactly what they want from an employee, academia is only guessing. Should academia stick to education and leave training to the employer? This of course raises another point, when does training end and education begin? Ultimately, it could be argued that education is about discovering the good society and the good individual through understanding and empathy. With higher education opening up to a wider populace, has this fundamental been overlooked, and if it has, are we selling students short and by definition undermining our future social development? The problems were outlined by Greek antiquity; have we overcome them and if not, should we attempt to?

Concluding remarks: Public administration practitioners, pedagogues and learners as good individuals

This article has had two central aims. Firstly, it has set out to revisit the classical political philosophy literature and the role of the university. Secondly, it has sought to link these ideas to the shifting role of teaching public administration in higher education and how this subject area is valued in terms of societal good in both the academy and, through linking theory and practice, developing future leaders, and providing a means for building understanding and engagement in policy-making issues which have huge implications for wider society. The discussion earlier in the article can also be developed by applying theoretical positions to the changing context and role of higher education. As the previous sections note, the role of the university as evolved from educating an elite to a wider remit premised upon meritocratic public education and vocational training. While a greater plurality of learners (and indeed pedagogues) from a broader social spectrum changes the perception of universities, it is the focus on vocational training, the market and the emphasis on competition which marks the greatest shift. There is not sufficient space here to elaborate on perspectives such as the Marxian, emphasizing the monopolization of ancient universities by privileged staff and students, or of the role industry plays in disseminating knowledge. What concerns us here is examining the changing context of rights and duties applied to both pedagogue and learner the further higher education institutions move towards a customer-focused model of delivery. To unpack this further: the emphasis on rights and duties has become asymmetrical, tilted toward the learner rather than a state of equilibrium and agreed autonomy between the two roles. To this end, one can draw upon social contract theory to examine the role of rights and duties in universities today. The shared social contract was understood by parties, state and citizen, as mutually beneficial and agreeable. Einstein (1982: 59) argued that “… knowledge must be renewed by ceaseless effort if it is not to be lost”. Furthermore, he explained that people who have developed the ability to work independently would be better able to deal with change than those whose training consisted in accumulating detailed knowledge. He did however finish on a proviso when he emphasized that what was said in his essay was no more than a personal opinion “… which is founded on nothing but his personal experience, which he has gathered as a student and as a teacher” (Einstein, 1982: 64). Maybe this is our starting point?

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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