Understanding and assessing the Chinese public administration discipline through data mining on public administration scholars and schools

Le résumé fourni par la source

This study aims to understand the public administration (PA) discipline in China and critically assess its development using a conceptual framework of four typical attributes of an established discipline: specific research objects, internally shared knowledge, institutionalized schools/departments, and scholars with professional identities. Based on data mining of profiles and publications of faculty from top PA institutes at 54 Chinese universities, this study finds that the Chinese PA discipline has a number of specific research objects derived from its five sub-disciplines, and these research objects have a unifying feature of focusing on the governance and management of issues of public nature. However, despite this unifying feature, the discipline has not yet developed a body of internally shared knowledge among the five sub-disciplines. We also find that the discipline has established more institutionalized PA schools/departments in the context of increasing government influence. The hiring network analysis reveals that the community of PA scholars is largely formed on the basis of geographic proximity rather than the same research topics and interests. Comparisons are also made with previous assessments of the PA discipline in the U.S. This study reveals previously unknown distinctive features of the Chinese PA discipline in an objective way.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.