Knowing and skilling in contemporary public administration

Abstract

The knowledge bases of public administration are changing and so are the relations within which government decision-making takes place. This is particularly so for governments which took the high road to reform in the 1980s and are now seeking new ways of meeting public demands for better services. The discrediting of some aspects of the neo-liberal policy agendas and the new public management prescriptions has created uncertainty. Both traditional bureaucratic and economically rational reference points have been thrown into doubt. The resultant search for new sources of knowledge appropriate to contemporary government has brought a (re)new(ed) interest in networks. This article looks at the connections between knowledge and networks in government and asks whether this creates a case for a new public administration involving a new set of skills for public administrators and new ways of organising their work.