AMERICAN VS EUROPEAN PUBLIC-ADMINISTRATION - DOES PUBLIC-ADMINISTRATION MAKE THE MODERN STATE, OR DOES THE STATE MAKE PUBLIC-ADMINISTRATION

''What is Public Administration!'' has worried American administrative scholars throughout this century: Is it a discipline? Profession? Fie ld? Focus? Enterprise? Or, what? This essay takes a new look at that o ld question, one that Dwight Waldo spent much of his academic career w restling with. It begins by looking at how Dwight Waldo's The Administ rative State conceived of the American state, in contrast to the Europ ean state experience. The author concludes that Public Administration on both sides of the Atlantic is intricately intertwined with state de velopment, its whole and parts, its past, present and future. Thus, ou r own Public Administration-and Europe's as well-can only be understoo d within the peculiar, nation-state context In Europe literally the st ate makes Public Administration; whereas within the United States, the reverse can be said to be true.