Papers by Michael W Spicer
While David Hume is not widely cited in the public administration literature, Hume’s thought has ... more While David Hume is not widely cited in the public administration literature, Hume’s thought has indirectly influenced public administration. Hume’s ideas are a creative mix of empiricism, a belief that all knowledge derives from our experience rather than our reason, and scepticism, a questioning of the reliability of our knowledge even when it is derived from experience. While his empiricism has indirectly, through its influence on modern philosophy, significantly contributed to empiricist ways of thinking within public administration, his scepticism may have contributed to critiques of these ways of thinking. However, Hume’s most important legacy for the practice of American public administration may be neither his empiricism nor his scepticism. Rather his political writings on constitutionalism may be more significant. Hume’s empiricism Perhaps the most important aspect of Hume’s thought for modern philosophy is
This paper examines Adam Ferguson\u27s ideas on human conflict, politics, and social progress, as... more This paper examines Adam Ferguson\u27s ideas on human conflict, politics, and social progress, as set forth in this book, “An Essay on the History of Civil Society,” the parallels between his ideas and those expressed in the Federalist Papers, and the implications of his ideas for American public administration. It is argued that Ferguson’s ideas suggest that there is merit, as Rohr and others have argued, in drawing on our constitutional traditions and practices to inform the way in which we think about, teach, and practice public administration. However, his ideas would also suggest that, in doing this, we must also learn to understand and even embrace the political contestation that is part and parcel of those traditions and practices
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2021
Abstract Ongoing contestation over the meaning of democracy reflects value conflicts that exist w... more Abstract Ongoing contestation over the meaning of democracy reflects value conflicts that exist within and across different national cultures and, as such, is intimately tied to the conduct of politics. It follows that the imposition of any single abstract and cosmopolitan idea of democracy on a society is always potentially dangerous to the practice of politics and to the variety of different values that different individuals, groups and cultures hold to be important to them. However, this need not lead one to be nihilistic about the meaning of democracy. Drawing on Camus’ idea of rebellion, this paper argues that any cosmopolitan conception of democracy must include recognition of the right of citizens to contest the decisions and actions of their government. The implications of this idea for public administration scholarship and practice are examined.
National Tax Journal, 1980
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Public Administration Review, 1996
Public Finance= Finances publiques, 1976
No abstract is available for this item.
The American Review of Public Administration, 1994
This paper examines the world views underlying public administration and the Constitution. The ar... more This paper examines the world views underlying public administration and the Constitution. The article presents two rather different ways of looking at the world, which are used as a framework to contrast the literature in public administration with the writings of the Founders. It is argued that whereas public administration is rooted in a world view that stresses the powers of reason, the world view underlying the Constitution stresses the limits of reason. This conflict in world views, which has not been fully appreciated in the literature, makes clear the problem of grounding public administration in the Constitution. The paper also presents an alternative approach to legitimating public administration, which is more consistent with the world view of the Founders.
Administration & Society, 1998
Public Administration Review, 1993
Page 1. How do you choose the value dimensions, or variables, to measure the worth of competing p... more Page 1. How do you choose the value dimensions, or variables, to measure the worth of competing policies, and how do you decide how much weight to give each variable? To achieve legitimacy in American society, policy ...
This paper examines John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty and its implications for public administr... more This paper examines John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty and its implications for public administration. The paper discusses Mill's apprehensions regarding the tyranny of social opinion, his embrace of political and social contestation and of diverse forms of individual selfrealization or autonomy, and his arguments for the dissemination of political and administrative power. It is argued that, whatever his intentions, Mill's arguments here appear to support a somewhat less elitist view of governance than is suggested in his other major political work, Considerations on Representative Government, and also that his recommendations for decentralization in public administration are consistent with American practices of administration. John Stuart Mill is one of those political thinkers whose ideas are more frequently cited than carefully examined within public administration. However, a notable exception here is Beth Warner's insightful analysis, over a decade ago, of Mill's Considerations on Representative Government. Warner sees Mill here as seeking in this work "to balance the spirit of popular
National Tax Journal, 1995
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National Tax Journal, 1987
STARTING Sandmo (1972), with a number Allingham of econoand Sandmo 1972), umber of eco mists have... more STARTING Sandmo (1972), with a number Allingham of econoand Sandmo 1972), umber of eco mists have been concerned with the effects of tax rates on tax evasion. Little, if any attention however, has been devoted to examining the effects of tax evasion on tax rates. Consistent with the traditional public finance literature, tax rates like other elements of government have been treated as exogenous variables in most models of tax evasion. To the extent that the effect of evasion on tax rates has been
Public Administration Review, 2021
National Tax Journal, 1986
The paper seeks to review research on tax evasion undertaken in a number of disciplines. The natu... more The paper seeks to review research on tax evasion undertaken in a number of disciplines. The nature and extent of the tax evasion problem is examined and the factors underlying the tax evasion decision are discussed in light of theoretical and empirical research. It is argued that economic models of evasion fail to account for empirical findings which suggest the importance of non-maximizing behavior and social norms of compliance. A simple model of tax evasion which incorporates these concepts is discussed. Finally, implications for future research and for tax administration and policy are suggested.
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2007
was a creative scholar, an engaging and provocative writer, a gifted teacher, and a wonderfully w... more was a creative scholar, an engaging and provocative writer, a gifted teacher, and a wonderfully warm and kind friend and colleague. His scholarship covered a broad variety of areas. Firstly, Larry was interested in public administration as an institution that carries with it certain norms and traditions regarding the behavior and actions of public administrators (Terry, 2003; 2005). Secondly, Larry was worried about the tendency of our field to adopt metaphors, whether it is the public administrator as an entrepreneur, as a trustee, or as a hero, without thinking critically about the intellectual baggage these metaphors bring with them (Terry, 1993; 1994; 1997). Thirdly, Larry was interested in the role that public administrators play, a role very much like that of judges, in interpreting and giving meaning to the statutes that they are called upon to administer (Spicer & Terry, 1996). What under-girded much of his work was a deeply held respect for our Constitution and its founders. In this particular essay, I should like to focus on some constitutional ideas Larry and I worked on for our first co-authored article, "Legitimacy, History, and Logic: Public Administration and the Constitution" (Spicer & Terry, 1993). This article was sufficiently controversial at the time that David Rosenbloom published it as the lead article in a symposium in Public Administration Review, along with critiques by a number of prominent scholars. Our article continues to be controversial today, drawing the ire most recently of Anthony Bertelli and Lawrence Lynn (2006). In this essay, I shall attempt to provide some reflections on the article and the controversy it provoked and evidently continues to provoke. OUR ARGUMENT The argument we developed in our article can be summarized as follows. Firstly, Larry and I expressed the view that John Rohr and other scholars in the Constitutional School of public administration had 2007, Public Administration Theory Network \\server05\productn\A\ATP\29-1\ATP112.txt unknown Seq: 2 7-MAR-07 9:24
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2008
sterman in this issue], all of whom were gracious enough to read and comment on the ideas I laid ... more sterman in this issue], all of whom were gracious enough to read and comment on the ideas I laid out in Public Administration and the State some seven years ago. So as to engage more effectively the variety of comments raised by my colleagues here, I would like to use this short essay to explore further the meaning of the state, the nature of governmentality, the practice of critical theory and pluralism, and the usefulness of our habits or traditions of civil association and constitutionalism in thinking about and practicing American public administration. Before doing this, however, I will review briefly the arguments that I advanced in the book. Such an exercise may be helpful to those scholars who have not read the book and also to those who have, but, like myself, cannot quite recall what it was all about. Specifically, in this book, I argued, firstly, that much of our literature in public administration, notwithstanding its frequent pretensions to political and ideological neutrality, articulates a vision of the state as a purposive association, that is to say, a state as an organization driven by some coherent set of substantive ends and organized and managed by a powerful teleocratic or purpose-driven government in pursuit of these ends-a state conceived in the image, for example, of a church, a factory, an army, or a hospital. Following this, I suggested that the pursuit of this vision of the state is impractical within the United States because our constitutional form of governance reflects a quite different vision of the state, namely that of the state as a civil association, one in which individuals and groups are free to pursue a variety of different interests and ends within a framework of a set of rules of conduct. Moreover, I also argued that, because of the seriously fragmented character of our postmodern political culture, encouraging public administrators to pursue a vision of the state as a purposive association is potentially harmful in that it invites divisive administrative actions that sometimes ignore or
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2014
Over the past three decades or so, historians and political theorists have expressed increasing i... more Over the past three decades or so, historians and political theorists have expressed increasing interest in the historical ideas of republicanism and their relevance for contemporary governance (e.g., Pettit, 1999; Skinner, 1998). These scholars have sought to explore a tradition of republican thought within European history that, as they see it, has its origins in neo-Roman political ideas in Renaissance Italy, most notably those of Machiavelli, and that helped shape later English as well as American republican political thinking and practice. Furthermore, these scholars have advanced what Frank Lovett and Philip Pettit call a “neorepublican” theory of freedom, based on this tradition of thinking, that they believe can help us “rethink issues of legitimacy and democracy, welfare and justice, public policy and institutional design” from within the framework of republican ideas (2009, p. 11). This essay seeks to examine critically the ideas of these neorepublicans and to discuss their relevance for public administration.
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Papers by Michael W Spicer