Public Administration Preliminary Exam Field
The field of public administration encompasses scholarship and research examining public bureaucracies, organizational theory, the role of bureaucracy in a democracy, the politics of the policy process, leadership, intergovernmental relations, and the study and practice of innovative new institutional arrangements that have developed over the past few decades.
Graduate students working in the field are trained in the intellectual history of the field as well as in the cutting-edge research questions applicable to contemporary scholarship.
The faculty embraces problem-driven theoretical approaches, empirical rigor, and methodological diversity, with the ultimate goal being the preparation of our Ph.D. students for professional success, whether in the halls of academia or as a practitioner in and leader of a public bureaucracy.
The political science department has 6 faculty members whose core research and teaching efforts are devoted to the public administration field: Nicholas Lovrich, Steven Stehr, David Nice, and Edward Weber in Pullman, and Mark Stephan and Dana Baker in Vancouver.
Typically, many of our graduate students make a practice of combining their public administration studies with other fields, particularly public policy and American politics, as well as taking advantage of the department’s broad expertise in criminal justice (a program housed within the larger political science department).
The department's expertise in public administration is widely recognized. A study published in the Journal of Public Affairs Education ranked the public administration portion of the political science program 7th in the nation, as counted by the number of articles published by faculty between 1993 and 2002 in journals associated with the American Society of Public Administration. In the same study, the department was second in the nation when measuring the number of public administration students publishing in the same journals.
While students should consult with the department manual and public administration faculty regarding the appropriate course work required for taking preliminary exams in the field, it is expected that students will have completed upper-division undergraduate courses in public administration and public policy. Practitioners with a minimum of several years experience in public, private, and/or nonprofit organizations, especially those with leadership experience, are also encouraged to apply.
Requirements & Courses Offered
Students should select 5 courses to take in consultation with their committee. The following list includes some of the possible classes from which students may choose.
- Pol S 533: The Psychology of Political Leadership
- Pol S 540: Proseminar in Public Administration
- Pol S 541: Seminar in Research Evaluation (Crm J 540)
- Pol S 542: Proseminar in Administration, Justice, and Applied Policy
- Pol S 543: Topics in Public Administration and Policy
- Pol S 544: The Politics of the Policy Process
- Pol S 547: Intergovernmental Relations
- Crm J 505: Comparative Criminal Justice
- Crm J 591: Seminar in Administration of Criminal Justice
- Pol S 432: Comparative Public Policy
- Pol S 443: Administrative Jurisprudence
- Pol S 445: Public Personnel Administration
- Pol S 446: Public Budgeting
- Pol S 447: Comparative Public Administration
Public Administration Faculty
Dr. Nicholas Lovrich
Professor of Political Science
- Public administration
- Public policy analysis
- Public personnel administration
- Natural resource and environmental administration
- Media and politics
- State and local government
Dr. Edward Weber
Professor of Political Science
- Public administration
- Public policy
- Environmental politics and policy
- Administrative law and regulation
Dr. David Nice
Professor of Political Science
- Legislative and executive branches of American government, as well as federal-state relations and political parties
Dr. Steven Stehr
Associate Professor of Political Science
- Public administration
- Public policy
- Natural disasters and public policy
- American political institutions
- Criminal justice organizations
Dr. Mark Stephan
Associate Professor of Political Science
- Political behavior in the American context, focusing his research on citizen participation
Dr. Dana Baker
Assistant Professor of Political Science
- Disability, health, and scientific policy with a North American comparative focus
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