FROM INSTITUTIONS TO DOGMA - TRADITION, ECLECTICISM, AND IDEOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF BRITISH PUBLIC-ADMINISTRATION

Has British Public Administration lost its sense of coherent identity? This article describes the major changes of the postwar period. It de scribes the decline of traditional Public Administration with its dist aste for theory, focus on institutions, and predilection for administr ative engineering. The 1970s heralded the era of eclecticism with the British ''behavioral revolution'' and the advent of organization theor y and policy analysis. The 1980s saw these fashions wane under the imp act of New Right ideology. If rational choice war a minority interest, the new public management swept all before it. But Public Administrat ion was an observer, not a participant in the rush to reinvent Whiteha ll. Its institutional base also weakened. But all is not doom and gloo m in the 1990s. The Economic and Social Research Council invested sign ificant research funds in Public Administration and the future lies in our own hank We must produce better quality research and prove we can contribute to understanding the changing institutions of government.