List of public administration scholars

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

This list of public administration scholars includes notable theorists, academics, and researchers from public administration, public policy, and related fields such as economics, political science, management, administrative law. All of the individuals in this list have made a notable contribution to the field of public administration.

• O. P. Dwivedi
• Graham T. Allison
• Paul Appleby
• Walter Bagehot
• Chester Barnard
• Reinhard Bendix
• James M. Buchanan
• Lynton K. Caldwell
• Michel Crozier
• Robert A. Dahl
• A.V. Dicey
• Anthony Downs - Had a major influence on the public choice school of political economy.
• Peter Drucker
• Patrick Dunleavy - Originated the bureau-shaping model of bureaucracy.
• Dorman Bridgman Eaton
• David John Farmer - Author of The Language of Public Administration, listed as one of the candidate books for “great books of public administration, 1990-2010” (Meier & O’Toole, 2012, p. 890).
• Henri Fayol
• James W. Fesler
• Mary Parker Follett
• H. George Frederickson
• Louis C. Gawthrop
• Frank J. Goodnow - Father of American Public Administration.
• Charles Goodsell
• Luther Gulick
• Friedrich Hayek - Thought that socialism required central economic planning and that such planning in turn had a risk of leading towards totalitarianism.
• Hugh Heclo
• E. Pendleton Herring
• Otto Hintze
• Marc Holzer - Founding Dean School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University-Newark, New Jersey. Board of Governors Distinguished Professor
• Ralph P. Hummel
• Patricia Ingraham
• Barry Dean Karl
• V.O. Key, Jr.
• Harold Laski
• Harold Lasswell
• Charles E. Lindblom - One of the early developers and advocates of the theory of incrementalism in policy and decision-making.
• Michael Lipsky - Did research on the phenomenon of street-level bureaucracy.
• Norton E. Long
• Theodore J. Lowi
• Niklas Luhmann
• James March - One of the developers of the systemic-anarchic perspective of organizational decision making known as the Garbage Can Model.
• Karl Marx - Believed that government is controlled by those with the most influence on the economy.
• Renate Mayntz

• Howard E. McCurdy
• Kenneth J. Meier
• Robert K. Merton
• Henry Mintzberg
• Mark H. Moore
• Frederick C. Mosher
• R. E. Neustadt
• W. A. Niskanen - Founded the rational choice stream of analysing bureaucracy.
• Rosemary O'Leary
• Johan Olsen - One of the developers of the systemic-anarchic perspective of organizational decision making known as the Garbage Can Model.
• Elinor Ostrom
• C. Northcote Parkinson - Author of Parkinson's Law, a book that satirizes government bureaucracies and explains the inevitability of bureaucratic expansion.
• James L. Perry
• Gerrit van Poelje - Founder of the science of public administration in the Netherlands.
• Jack Rabin
• Hal G. Rainey
• Ken Rasmussen
• Emmette Redford
• R. A. W. Rhodes
• Norma M. Riccucci
• John A. Rohr
• David H. Rosenbloom
• Philip James Rutledge
• S.N. Sadasivan
• Allen Schick
• Philip Selznick
• Patricia M. Shields
• Herbert A. Simon
• Theda Skocpol
• Stephen Skowronek
• Lorenz von Stein - Founder of the science of public administration in Europe.
• Richard J. Stillman II
• Camilla Stivers
• Joseph R. Strayer
• Frederick W. Taylor
• Alain Touraine
• Thomas Frederick Tout
• Paul P. Van Riper
• Dwight Waldo
• Gary Wamsley
• Kenneth F. Warren
• Max Weber - Did research on bureaucracy.
• Leonard D. White
• Aaron Wildavsky
• William F. Willoughby
• James Q. Wilson
• Woodrow Wilson - Founder of the science of public administration in the United States.
• Deil S. Wright

Suggested reading

• Smith, Kevin B. and Licari, Michael J. Public Administration — Power and Politics in the Fourth Branch of Government, ISBN 1-933220-04-X