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Journal of Public Affairs Education 117

Public Administration Theory, Research, and Teaching: How Does

Turkish Public Administration Differ?

Murat OnderYıldırım Beyazıt University

Ralph S. BrowerFlorida State University

abstract

This article gives a broad overview of Turkish public administration research over the past 20 years and Turkey’s current situation of public administration education. It presents descriptive findings and discusses, compares, and contrasts them with previous research in the United States and Turkey. It examines public administration theory, research, and education together because, in an integrated body of scholarship, the three should reflect each other. Evidence in this study illustrates that the field of public administration in Turkey is quite different from American public administration, but that the elements of theory, research, and teaching are consonant with each other.

This article examines the current state of public administration research and education in Turkey. Following earlier research in the United States (Houston & Delavan, 1990; Perry & Kramer, 1986), we explore the topical content and questions about research design in the principal Turkish public administration journal. We also investigate the content of public administration subject matter in Turkey and compare it to American and European curriculum.

Public administration as a combination of different theories and practices is concerned with developing four kinds of theories (Henry, 1995, pp. 21–22): descriptive, normative, assumptive, and instrumental. Normative knowledge

Keywords : public administration research, comparative public administration education, turkish public administration

JPAE 19 (1), 117–139

118 Journal of Public Affairs Education

provides essential direction and inherent obligations for practice. Professional public administration education, therefore, should include applications, operations, and performance. In the U.S. setting, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) provides guidance on public administration education to converge theory and practice for knowledgeable action, theoretical understanding, and mutual learning (Ventriss, 1991, pp. 5–6). Both practitioners and academics have contributed to the development and evolution of public administration theory. New theories of explanation and models for practice often arise from practical experience or from qualitative inquiry. Academics then create frameworks and hypotheses and test them through research. We anticipate that this connection between practice and scholarship should travel well to other national settings.

The nature of public administration theory, methodology, and teaching—and the relationships among them—are issues that have been debated from the first day of self-aware public admini-stration. Theory development and methodology cannot be isolated, due to necessities of relevant methodology to test theories and critically evaluate them. Two decades ago, Houston and Delevan (1990, p. 674) argued that to produce a meaningful and cumulative body of knowledge as a discipline, we need to have research methodology that permits us to appropriately test and further develop our theories. Perry and Kraemer (1986) concluded at that time that public administration research lacked appropriate methodological sophistication to develop cumulative theory. These and other studies assessing the viability of public administration research and theory have largely limited themselves to dissertations and journal articles published in the United States. The generaliz-ability of their results should be debated. The research published in American public administration journals may not represent all that American public administra-tionists produce, and it largely underestimates public administration scholarship elsewhere in the world, including from American-trained scholars.

Ventriss reported (1991) two decades ago that American public administration was relatively insulated from other cultures and was neglectful of international issues in general. More recently Jreisat (2005) reported that, although improvements have occurred, at mid-decade comparative public administration had “not successfully integrated with the main field of public administration, to the detriment of both” (p. 231). We observe that outreach toward and participation from international settings has been uneven. Recent publications and public administration conferences in the United States show increasing participation from European and East Asian scholars, but participation from other parts of the world is limited. Some schools have recently renamed themselves to give an outward appeal to international affairs, but recent faculty advertisements in the United States show only an occasional position for internationalists. These ads are being dwarfed by the numbers of ads for local government, financial administration, and nonprofit management specialties.

We offer an incremental contribution to this void by examining the standing of public administration in Turkey. Our intention is to complement existing know-

M. Onder & R. S. Brower


ledge rather than repudiate the American experience. In fact, the history of public administration in the United States provides a foundation to push off against, and our study employs frameworks previously suggested by Perry and Kraemer (1986) and Houston and Delevan (1990). As a bridging country between East and West and the Muslim and non-Muslim world, Turkey offers a significant setting in which to examine the development of the field of public administration. In addition, many of its administrative traditions originated in Europe; it possesses long historical ties to the Byzantines, Balkans, and Turkish Republics in the former USSR; and its academic ranks have been reinforced by American-trained scholars.

methods

In this section, we discuss our research questions, our model and statistical techniques, and our data collection. Articles published in the Journal of Public Administration (AID)1 are the population for the first part of our analysis. We studied published articles over a 20-year period and, for the second part of our analysis, examined the contents of course catalogs in Turkish public administration schools.

Research QuestionsWe seek explanations for this question: “What is the current situation of public

administration research and education in Turkey?” Together with this general question, we also seek answers for the following subquestions:

1. Who publishes in AID? Scholars or practitioners? Can interdisciplinary perspectives be seen in the background of the faculty and the authors of the articles? If they are scholars, how do their backgrounds equip them to understand interdisciplinary tendencies?

2. What do Turkish public administration programs emphasize? What are the main subject areas for articles and courses in education programs?

3. Do they build theory and/or test theory? What is the focus of typical articles?

4. Do articles employ basic research methods? What is the research stage for each study? Is research funded?

5. What types of methods, empirical analysis, or statistical techniques do they employ?

6. What types of data and units of analysis do they have?

Data Collection and Statistical TechniquesOur study includes two dimensions: The first evaluates articles published in

the Journal of Public Administration (AID) in Turkey; the second evaluates public administration education in Turkey. Data for the article analysis section were gathered from a content analysis and descriptive information of published articles in AID.

Turkish Public Administration


All 601 articles were reviewed for the 20-year period from 1990 to 2009. Review essays and special issues were not included. We picked AID, published by TODAIE2 in native language four times a year, as a journal to review because it is the only public administration journal screened by Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) in Turkey.

Each article was coded according to descriptive information and methodologies they employed after a content analysis of articles. General information about the article and author include characteristics such as the number of authors, university/ practitioner affiliation, academic rank of principal author, and funding for the research. Following frameworks from Stallings and Ferris (1988) and Houston and Delevan (1990), the analysis identified main researchable topics, whether a theory was tested, main areas of study, article topics from other disciplines, and the general approach of each article.

Each article was coded according to whether the general purpose or approach of the article was to identify, introduce, or interpret law (legal briefs); introduce a new subject; discuss issues critically; review literature; or analyze particular issues with well-defined empirical research design (empirical). Another variable was created regarding main areas of study in public administration or related disciplines to search for interdisciplinary approaches in public administration. Additional variables were created based on methods and statistical techniques employed to examine whether they aim to test or build a theory, whether they employ statistical techniques, and what types of data and units of analysis were used.

The second part of the study focuses on teaching in public administration. We examined catalogs in four-year bachelor’s degree programs in public administration in Turkey. Although studies of public administration in the United States focus on graduate-level courses, we examined undergraduate public administration programs because these programs in Turkey are well established, accepted, and better known by the public. We collected and analyzed course catalogs from the universities offering the public administration degree. Of the 139 universities present in 2010, only 62 of them have public administration departments. We gathered programs from 42 universities with public administration programs. Some of the remaining 20 programs had new departments and had not yet completed four-year programs, and catalogs for the rest were not available. We reviewed these public administration department catalogs to see what was being taught in core courses. Elective courses were not used in this analysis, because some universities have broad lists of optional courses that are difficult to categorize into meaningful themes. After reviewing, we grouped the core courses for public administration into identifiable categories and coded them accordingly.

In the analysis of articles, we used t-tests for independent samples for interval-level data and used chi-square tests for nominal data to compare influence over decades on our dependent variables. We evaluated Levene’s test, the chi-square test, and Phi coefficients to explain significance and strength of relationships. Our samples met the conditions for both tests.



turkish Public administration Publishing

This portion of the study addresses several issues regarding publishing in Turkish public administration. Findings are presented under these topics: characteristics of authors, main areas of study, general purpose of article, and statistical techniques. Findings were compared using those of the United States for the period of the 1990s and those of Turkey for the period of 1990–2009, because more recent statistical information was not available for the United States.

Characteristics of AuthorsOur first question is, who publishes in AID? Descriptive information about

this question is provided in Tables 1, 2, and 3. Articles in this public administration journal tend to be single authored (Table 1). Although single-authored public administration articles were about 65% in the Houston and Delevan U.S. study (1990), this rate is 90% in the 1990s and 78% between 2000 and 2009 in Turkey. Berkman (1987, p. 25) found this rate to be 94% for the period 1967–1987 for AID articles. We observe a small but increasing trend both in coauthored and multi- authored articles, suggesting that professionals from different topics and disciplines are coming together to produce higher-quality publications.

Table 1.Number of Authors

1990–1999 2000–2009

Number of Authors

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Number of Articles

Percentage(%)

1 287 90.3 220 77.7

2 28 8.8 53 18.7

3 3 0.9 10 3.6

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0

N: 601, d.f.: 599, Levene’s test: t = 4.302, p < .001

The articles are mostly authored by university academicians (Table 2). The trend shows that the percentage of “practitioner articles” declined from 18.9% to 8.5% between the two decades. Only 1% of articles were authored by practitioners in the private or nonprofit sectors. This finding suggests that AID is a common outlet for academicians. Academicians’ articles were 81% in 1990s, and increased to 91.5% in the period 2000–2009, comparable to the average level of academicians’ articles in U.S. public administration journals of the 1980s (Houston & Delevan, 1990, p. 675). The other important finding is that articles authored by TODAIE members



have a declining trend over time. Berkman (1987, pp. 35–40) found that articles written by TODAIE members between 1967 and 1987 represented 38.4% out of 503 articles. Our findings show a continuing decline in this trend. This percentage fell to 28.6 in the 1990s and to 18.7% in the most recent decade.

Table 2.Principal Author Affiliation

1990–1999 2000–2009

AffiliationNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

University 167 52.5 206 72.8

TODAIE* 91 28.6 53 18.7

Practitioner 60 18.9 24 8.5

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0

N: 601, Pearson’s chi-square test: 27.589, Phi: 0.214, p < .001 * Academicians with TODAIE affiliation.

We also found that universities in Ankara such as Ankara University, Gazi University, and Hacettepe University contributed most to the AID journal. These three universities alone produced 20% of all articles between 1990 and 2009. This finding illustrates an additional dynamic to the trend that AID articles are less frequently authored by TODAIE members even though TODAIE publishes the journal.

The articles between 1990 and 1999 were dominated by established academicians (associate professors and professors), whose work constituted 57.2% of the articles (Table 3). After 2000, we see a sharp increase in research done by assistant professors, and research done by associate professors and professors declined to 33.4% of the total. Contrary to our findings, the rate of publishing by established academicians in earlier studies in the United States was around 45%. As an explanation for changes in the Turkish context, the Higher Education Board (YOK) raised the standards for promotion from assistant professorship to associate professorship after 2000, which resulted in a sharp increase of publications authored by assistant professors. However, the board made no significant changes regulating promotions from associate to full professorship. Anybody with five years in the position of associate professor could become professor throughout the period to 2010. Since AID is the only public administration journal screened by SSCI, we suspect it also attracted higher numbers of assistant professors from other disciplines.

We also examined funding for research. We found that only 2% of article authors reported having outside funding for their work. This rate is very low com-



Table 3.Academic Rank of Principal Author

1990–1999 2000–2009

Rank of Principal Author

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Student 69 24.4 69 26.1

Assistant Professor 52 18.4 107 40.5

Associate Professor 90 31.8 49 18.6

Professor 72 25.4 39 14.8

Total 2834 100 264 100

N: 601, Pearson’s chi-square test: 27.589, Phi: 0.214, p < .001 * Academicians with TODAIE affiliation.

pared to public administration research even decades earlier in the United States. Perry and Kraemer (1986, p. 218) found that this rate was around 10% in PAR articles between 1975 and 1984; in five other major public administration journals, according to Houston and Delevan (1990, p. 676), the rate was around 13% by 1988. These numbers suggest that social science research is underfunded in Turkish universities.

Most universities in Turkey are state owned, and this situation creates many regulations and procedures to get research support for the social sciences and generally discourages doing so. Even when funding is approved, the researcher is limited to cost-basis funding for materials that are bought, whereas funding for the physical sciences includes primary costs for laboratory equipment and other physical materials for experiments. Furthermore, funded researchers lack discretion to employ other researchers of their choosing. The amounts that get approved after all these limitations are symbolic at best, not enough to cover expenses and reward the researcher individually. A review of university funding in general shows that most research funded at universities is in the physical sciences and medicine.5

Main Areas of StudyTables 4 through 7 present articles by subject areas. Berkman (1987, pp. 24–

25) reported that 70% of articles published in AID between 1967 and 1987 were directly related to public administration topics.6 By comparison to Berkman’s earlier study, we found slightly more articles published in public administration topics and a slight but statistically insignificant downward trend for subject matter in related disciplines during the second decade.



Table 4.Subject Area of Study

1990–1999 2000–2009

Subject Area

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Public Administration 206 64.8 191 67.5

Related Discipline 112 35.2 92 32.5

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0

N: 601, Pearson’s chi-square test: Not significant

Administrative theory, organization theory, public policy, budgeting, and communication in the public sector increased in significance between the two decades as a proportion of total articles. Constitutional law, personnel administration, urban and environment, and local administration all declined in significance. Similar to the findings of Perry and Kraemer (1986), our results show that although public policy attracts more scholars, personnel administration is losing ground in this journal. Administrative law maintained the same level of attraction for scholars. However, contrary to Perry and Kraemer (1986), we found that administrative theory and budgeting are increasing in significance in AID. One possible explana-tion is that new public management movements and downsizing policies result in more articles published in these topics in the 1990s and at the beginning of the new millennium.

An interdisciplinary perspective can be seen clearly in the background of the faculty who teach in departments or schools of public affairs. Two decades ago, only about 40% of public affairs faculties were from political science or public administration in U.S. public administration schools. The remaining 60% came from a variety of disciplines (Ventriss, 1991, pp. 8–9). Holzer, Xu, and Wan (2003, p. 645) provided detailed explanations from PhD program course catalogs that reveal similar multidisciplinary tendencies a decade later.

The interdisciplinary nature of public administration is to be encouraged. But directionless fragmentation can erode the field’s substantive worth. We look briefly (Table 6) at the examples of journals published by the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences (IIBF Journals). IIBF journals have articles from all majors with departments in colleges of economic and administrative sciences, including finance, management, economics, international relations, public administration, econometrics, and industrial relations. IIBF journals sometimes appear to offer something from everywhere without apparent direction, despite their long lists of distinguished referees. Topics from different areas are frequently reviewed by a referee who is not expert in that area. We contend that AID as a



Table 5.Public Administration Topics

1990–1999 2000–2009

Area of Study

Number of Articles

Percentage (%)

Number of Articles

Percentage(%)

Administrative Theory 33 16.0 58 30.4

Organization Theory 33 16.0 40 20.9

Public Policy 21 10.2 25 13.1

Personnel Administration 31 15.0 13 6.8

Public Finance & Budgeting 8 3.9 13 6.8

Urban and Environment 15 7.3 11 5.8

Administrative Law 10 4.9 11 5.8

Constitution Law 23 11.2 3 1.6

Local Administration 26 12.6 4 2.1

Communication 6 2.9 13 6.8

Total 206 100.0 191 100.0

N: 397, Pearson’s chi-square test: 50.707, Phi: 0.357, p < .001

reputable professional public administration journal should keep disciplines of study more successfully separated than IIBF journals have done.

Dose and Finger (1999, p. 653) argued that the original interdisciplinary approach in Germany is dominated by a political science perspective and by a management branch directed at public administration. As an extension of the European tradition we can talk about similarities in the Turkish Public Adminis-tration tradition. Given the complexities and boundary erosion in contemporary societies, it seems nearly impossible for any discipline or profession alone to handle even its own problems. Accordingly, political science and public administration are taught together under the name of public administration in Turkey, and, as we expected, around 40% of nonpublic administration articles are for political science topics.

It is interesting that other law topics have increased substantially—from 15.2% to 18.5%—between the two decades. These findings also support Heper’s findings (Berkman, 1987, p. 26) that legalistic approaches are still dominant in Turkish public administration. We note that law courses in public administration catalogs make up about 20–25% of total courses. We suggest that this strong legalistic approach contains a normative influence that is likely to hold back other types of public administration research.



Table 6.Nonpublic Administration

1990–1999 2000–2009

Area of StudyNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

Political Science 38 33.9 37 40.2

Management 17 15.2 9 9.8

Sociology 27 24.1 14 15.2

Law 17 15.2 17 18.5

Economics 13 11.6 15 16.3

Total 112 100.0 92 100.0

N: 204, Pearson’s chi-square test: Not significant

even its own problems. Accordingly, political science and public administration are taught together under the name of public administration in Turkey, and, as we expected, around 40% of nonpublic administration articles are for political science topics.

It is reasonable to assume that AID is a major publication of professionals and academicians of public administration in Turkey. We see that other related disciplines are increasingly getting published in its pages (Table 7). Whereas it is.

Table 7.Articles Pertaining to Public Administration

1990–1999 2000–2009

Yes/NoNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

Do not pertain 62 19.5 76 26.9

Do pertain 256 80.5 207 73.1

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0 N: 601, chi-square test: 4.583, Phi: 0.087; p < .05

acceptable and encouraged to seek multidisciplinary topics, we note an increase in articles that do not pertain to public administration from 19.5% to 26.9% between the two decades. We assert that articles about other disciplines at least should be closely related to public administration topics or issues. Unfortunately, AID articles



sometimes have nothing to do with public administration, such as marketing strategies for commercial products. We suspect they get published largely because they have good research designs, but this means editors are generally neglecting important content criteria.

General Purpose of ArticleWhat is the major purpose or approach of the article? Data in Table 8 report

the general purpose of articles published in AID. The findings support previous studies reporting that public administration articles have been dominated by literature reviews or legal briefs. However, the research orientation in AID articles is a lot thinner than for Perry and Kraemer’s 1986 Public Administration Review (PAR) literature review, which found 50% of articles offering empirical studies with well- defined research designs. Houston and Delevan (1990, p. 677) reported that five other major public administration journals had published 35% empirical studies on average. Üsdiken and Pasadeos (1992, p. 254) reported that 37 articles out of 237 (15.6%) between 1975 and 1989, among four management journals in Turkey, were empirical studies. The proportion of empirical studies remains low in AID, even though we see an increasing trend between the two decades in empirical studies (p < .05) against legal briefs. Nonetheless, published articles are still dominated by literature reviews, which mostly focus on introducing new concepts and discuss problems and topics through descriptive, historical, and logical arguments. We can conclude that articles in AID do not generally engage in rigorous empirical research. This observation parallels findings regarding public administration course catalogs reporting insufficient statistics and methodology courses in both graduate and undergraduate programs of public administration. Therefore, we see that neither quantitative nor qualitative methods are employed extensively among published articles. It is unfortunate that qualitative study is almost nonexistent in

Table 8.Articles Pertaining to Public Administration

1990–1999 2000–2009

Article PurposeNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

Legal Briefs 33 10.4 15 5.3

Literature Review 242 76.1 218 77

Empirical Study (Research Design)

43 13.5 50 17.7

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0 N: 601, Pearson’s chi-square test: 6.503, Phi: 0.104, p < .05



Table 9.Hypothesis Testing

1990–1999 2000–2009

No/YesNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

No 305 95.9 265 93.6

Yes 13 4.1 18 6.4

Total 318 100.0 283 100.0 N: 601, Pearson’s chi-square test: 6.503, Phi: 0.104, p < .05

published articles; our review revealed two case studies and no other alternative qualitative methods in use.

Findings of this study support the argument that public administration research in Turkey has not engaged in theory testing (Table 9). Only 6.44% of articles have robust research design with well-prepared hypotheses described and used to test theories. We see an increasing trend in hypothesis testing in the second decade, but it is not statistically significant. Twenty percent of PAR articles between 1975 and 1984 were theory oriented (Perry & Kraemer, 1986, p. 217), a rate that increased to approximately 30% among major public administration journals in the United States (Houston & Delevan, 1990; 678). Cleary (2000, pp. 447–448) looked for answers to similar questions: “Did the dissertations have a rigorous research design?” He concluded that 57 of the 168 dissertations in 1998 (33.9%) met the criterion for methodological validity, compared to 48 of 165 studies in 1990 (29.1%) and 30 of 142 dissertations in 1981 (21.1%).

Several factors might explain the findings regarding insufficient empirical focus and lack of theory testing in public administration research. One possibility is that other scholarly journals from reputable schools such as IIBF journals in Turkey have become outlets for public administration research that engages in more rigorous design and theory testing. Similar research done in the United States has noted that public administration researchers often publish outside public administration journals (Rodgers & Rodgers, 2000). However, Turkish public administration scholars know that other IIBF journals are not doing extensive empirical research either. Arı and her colleagues (2005, p. 21) found that 106 out of 151 Turkish management master’s theses employed empirical research design, although two thirds of these 106 had important flaws in their proposed hypotheses and methods (p. 31). Assuming that management programs cover basic courses in methodology, we suggest that Turkish management instruction needs to equip its researchers with stronger methodological skills.

Other Turkish scholars fuel resistance to quantitative and empirical study by criticizing approaches with too many numbers and too little theory (Keleş, 2009).



Such academic gatekeeping discourages others from developing research skills. Unavailability of data in Turkey also contributes to the lack of empirical research. The data in the Turkish Statistical Institute, for example, are at an aggregate rather than individual level. These data do not help very much to test hypotheses devised from public administration theories. Scholars are left to collect their own data and often lose their motivation because of insufficient financial capacity to handle bigger projects. Other arguments point to identity crisis explanations. The identity crisis of the academic discipline of public administration and the “battleground of administrative theory” has been discussed on both sides of the Atlantic, arguing that public administration does not have a unique framework for guiding scholars. This situation results in lack of theory building and theory testing. Modest evidence in our study and others suggests the public administration discipline is nonetheless better off than before with regard to theories and methodologies.

Statistical TechniquesNext we asked what methodologies empirical studies use (Table 10). We

examined research designs of published articles to examine their data, units of analysis, and statistical techniques. Most articles do not describe their techniques and data explicitly. They typically use data to support their descriptive or logical arguments through cross-tabulation. We could not compare articles in terms of pre-experimental, experimental, or quasi-experimental design, because too few were described clearly enough. Among the articles in both decades, we found only two case studies with well-defined qualitative methods.

Table 10.Statistical Techniques

1990–1999 2000–2009

Yes/NoNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

T (1&2) Samples 5 11.61 7 14

Cross-Tab 31 72.09 27 54

Regression & Other Advanced Techniques

7 16.30 16 32

Total 43 100.00 50 100 N: 93, Pearson’s chi-square test: 8.771, Phi: 0.198, p < .1

Wright and his associates (2004) noted that most researchers do not report their measures appropriately, thus causing reliability and validity problems. The



articles in our study similarly failed to define their techniques and measures clearly. Although the reasons are not clear, we offer three possible explanations for this failure. First, they might think that their measures are not vitally important. Second, they might not know the statistical techniques very well. Finally, they intentionally might not report their measures if they know their work was not carefully done.

Among articles that employed statistics, most used univariate and bivariate statistics. Some employed t-tests for one or two samples. We see there is very little increase in t-test usage between the two decades. Most articles employed cross-tabulations in their analysis, with chi-square, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and t-tests. We note that only a few of the articles supported their cross-tabulations with statistical techniques; that is, most used cross-tabulations only for visual evidence rather than statistically sound technique.

Even in the United States and other countries, Hallett (2000) found that students who have good technical skills often have little understanding of how to solve a problem when it is given in context. They can perform computations, but cannot tell or explain the units of the quantity they have computed. Students of public administration need to have both skills: computation and interpretation.

Multiple regression was a multivariate technique used more often in the second decade. Other advanced techniques were ANOVA (n = 5), factor analysis (n = 6), data envelopment analysis (n = 2), and other mathematical modeling techniques (n = 4).

Table 11.Sources of Data

1990–1999 2000–2009

DataNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

Primary 40 50 38 53.52

Secondary 40 50 33 46.48

Total 80 100.0 71 100.0 N: 151, Pearson’s chi-square test: Not significant

Berkman (1987) found that only 10% of Turkish articles used firsthand (primary) data during the period of 1968–1987. We see a slight increase in total numbers and percentages compared to his findings (Table 11); however, there was no significant change between the two decades in our study. Wright and colleagues (2004, p. 755) reported that public administration journal researchers created their own data with self-administered surveys in 66% of cases and used secondary



data sets in 21% of studies. They argued that research questions should guide the type of data to be used. This implies that, by comparison, data employed in many Turkish studies were not optimally suited to their application.

Most of the research we examined used the individual as the primary unit of analysis, and an increasing trend in this regard is seen between the two decades (Table 12). Selecting individuals as units of analyses is suitable to test public admin-istration theories that largely adapt behavioral approaches.

Table 12.Units of Analysis

1990–1999 2000–2009

DataNumber of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)Number of

ArticlesPercentage

(%)

Individual 31 72.09 45 90

Organization 12 27.91 5 10

Total 43 100.00 50 100 N: 93, Pearson’s chi-square test: 4.350, Phi: 0.182, p < .05

the curriculum in turkish Public administration

In the 1960s, Liebman (1963, p. 167) asked, “Can we teach what we do not know?” We know a lot more now than we did then. We are arguably more knowledgeable and more experienced. We also benefit from other disciplines with better and available quantitative and qualitative methods, advances in computer technology, better theories, and successful implementations. Professional public administration provides administratively capable and politically responsible bureaucrats to improve democratic, strong government to carry out public policies for today’s world.

What are we trying to accomplish? Denhardt (2001, p. 526) suggested four basic questions for educators in the field of public administration to focus on. He asked first whether we seek to educate our students with respect to theory or to practice. The tension between theory and practice is central to public administration education. Administrators must develop specific skills that they can use in practice. Second, he asked whether we prepare students for their first jobs, or for those they might aspire to later. Third, he asked what the appropriate delivery mechanisms are for courses and curricula. Finally, he asked, “What personal commitments do we make as public administration educators?”

Many public administration graduates get into positions that are primarily technical or analytical, such as budget analysts, personnel analysts, or administrative assistants. Learning is a process of sharing, and sharing goes both ways. Thus we



must consider how much we share and to what extent we have systems that promote sharing with students. We need to make sure that our students develop their technical, managerial, and institutional skills cognitively, linguistically, and physiologically. Ventriss (1991) also argued that public administration and public policy educators overemphasize administration and analysis (teaching students to cope with complex-ity, planning and budgeting, and problem solving) and underemphasize leadership (teaching students to cope with change, communicating a vision, and motivating).

The analytical, management, and policy knowledge is regarded as essential to prepare students with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate successfully in careers devoted to public service. NASPAA’s past standards called for a common curriculum in three broad areas (Ventriss, 1991, p. 8): (a) management of public and third sector organizations; (b) application of quantitative and qualitative techniques; and (c) an understanding of the public policy and organizational environment.6 It appears that similar to NASPAA, CAPPA accreditation—the counterpart in Canada—considerably reduced the variations among programs and emphasized professional skills (Gow & Sutherland, 2004). Core curriculum for NASPAA schools included organization theory, public personnel, budget management, research methods, policy analysis, public law, information systems, and policy-making process (Averch & Dluhy, 1992, p. 543). Even though it was in the core, public law was an uncommon course in public administration schools. Canadian public administration core focus was on governance, policy decision making, research methods, theories of public administration and policy, human resources, organization theory, public finance, and macroeconomics (Gow & Sutherland, 2004, pp. 11–13). When we look at Turkish programs of study, we do not find a homogenous core curriculum that was present even in these earlier versions of American and Canadian standards.

Unlike that in the United States, public administration in Western Europe is rooted in a strong state tradition. Public administration has to keep the state going and exercise its public authority. The issue of common administrative law has been a matter of debate since the outset of the European Community. The main administrative law principles common to Western European countries are discussed as follows (Connaughton & Randma, 2002, p. 2): (a) reliability and predictability (legal certainty or judicial security), (b) openness and transparency, (c) accountability, and (d) efficiency and effectiveness. These shared basic public administration values and principles are thought to have led to some convergence among national administrations. Verheijen and Connaughton (2003, p. 833), however, contend that it is difficult to speak of a unique European model of public administration teaching. They assert that a European “mode” or “model” of public administration teaching has not yet emerged. Public administration education in Western Europe does not constitute a “regional” model of its own, due to the variations in administrative culture and the stronger dominance of a legal orientation and analysis of the use of public power in Southern Europe in



comparison to Northern Europe (Connaughton & Randma, 2002, p. 3). For the current analysis, this difference is a major concern and divergence point in Europe, one that inhibits the sort of standardization that has occurred in the United States and Canada. In particular, British common law stands out against the dominant codified law perspective of continental Europe.

Public administration in Continental Europe has been predominantly a legal study. The key theoretical concept in teaching administrative law has been the concept of the state and its authoritative power over citizens. Thus one should evaluate public administration together with the development of the state. Public administration is studied from the integrated viewpoints of different disciplines, generally those of political science, law, economics, and sociology, and public administration is the core subject of the program. Since the 1970s, the ideas of New Public Management and the trend of “doing more with less” in government have become established, and many countries have included management and business administration perspectives to public administration education. Connaughton and Randma (2002, pp. 5–7) note that the public administration discipline and education is less developed in former socialist/communist states. Having a weaker public administration discipline and teachings in these countries with strong state traditions is initially puzzling. But when public administration is understood to be fed primarily by political science and management, we see that in these former socialist states, party dictatorship prevented democratic political science from developing. On the other hand, due to lack of ownership rights, private sector organizations and the study of management did not develop, either. Authors from these countries often discuss the very limited number of applicable textbooks.

The emergence of specialized academic education programs in public adminis-tration is a relatively recent phenomenon of this century in Turkey. However, the study of government activity, governance, the administrative process, and public policies may be traced back for centuries to Ottoman times of the 13th-century Enderun experience. Ottoman sultans relied on people trained in these special schools to be specialists in the “general business” of governments and states. Together with Renaissance and Western influences, the Turkish system began to be heavily influenced by the French system, and Turkey adopted many things from France. The Turkish system is actually historically rooted in a combination of Roman law and traditions from Continental Europe on the one hand, and Anglo-American influences after World War II on the other. This influence can also be seen in public administration research oriented toward the state and theories coming out of research in the United States and Europe.

Political science in Turkey is rooted jointly in the disciplines of law and history, going back to the Ottoman Empire. Organization theory gained a stronger position in public administration research, and we observe a transition from legal/constitutional analysis to organizational analysis. However, Turkish public administration still has very strong legal influences in its course catalogs.



We can observe schools of thought in administrative science that stress judicial thinking and others that emphasize social science thinking. Thus some catalogs yield the impression that one is looking at a law school program. Approximately one fifth of Turkey’s public administration programs contain this law school impression. Such programs contain on average six other law courses not directly related to public administration. Political science courses are also common in many programs.

Political science departments have recently started to separate themselves from public administration and are showing up mostly in new and private universities. Contrary to programs in the United States, in Turkey political science was dominated by public administration. In checking the trends of separating public administration and political science departments, we discovered there are only three “political science,” eight “public administration and political science,” and nine “political science and international relations” departments in Turkish universities today. The other 42 departments are identified only as public administration. We see that in nine instances (20%), political science courses are taught under public administration. Table 13 depicts the numbers of courses under various general topics and the percentage that each topic constitutes in the overall curricula of the programs in our study.

Our findings reveal that, although courses in Turkey cover conventional topics such as the intellectual history of public administration, human resource manage-ment, and the policy process, coverage of these topics is less extensive than in the United States. Another finding is that new public management receives more attention in programs in Turkey than in the United States, whereas new governance and public values are emphasized more in the United States than in Turkey. The topics of ethics and intergovernmental relations receive less attention among courses in Turkey than in the United States.

The question of what quantitative methods graduate students in public administration should be required to master was actively debated among U.S. scholars in the 1980s and 1990s, and NASPAA requirements provided public administration education guidance on this matter (Ventriss, 1991, p. 6). The core quantitative curriculum in public administration masters and PhD programs are more or less well known in the United States. It seems that most public administration programs focus heavily on teaching basic regression analysis and probability theory through linear regression to maximum likelihood techniques in an applied perspective and axiomatically. Five main categories of courses are typically taught (Rethemeyer & Helbig, 2005, pp. 188–189): (a) introduction to probability theory and hypothesis testing; (b) research design and survey methods; (c) introduction to regression analysis; (d) a continuation of regression analysis; and (e) advanced topics in research methods. However, none of these categories teach all techniques used in leading research journals.

In both course catalogs and published articles, Turkish public administration programs are by comparison far behind the American and Canadian experience of using and teaching statistical techniques. In firsthand conversation, the first



Table 13.Public Administration Undergraduate Course Distribution

Course TopicAverage Number

of CoursesPercentage of Curriculum

Economics 4.16 9.03

Sociology 2.65 5.69

Methodology and Statistics 2.13 4.81

General Accounting 2.03 4.28

Mathematics 1.12 2.66

Computers 1.66 3.46

Introduction to Law 1.05 2.38

Constitutional Law 1.87 4.13

Administrative Law 1.97 4.27

Other Law 5.92 12.5

Administrative Theory 3.42 7.14

Organization Theory 2.72 5.72

Local Administration 1.68 3.62

Public Policy 1.67 4.21

Public Budget & Financing 2.03 4.45

City and Environment 2.25 4.83

Communication 1.56 3.42

Personnel Administration 1.04 2.23

Political Science 8.88 19.47

International Relations 2.10 4.45

author observes that Turkish public administration scholars are still influenced and dominated by positivist ideology and often resist using many ideas that originate in the United States. What Turkish programs need, in our view, is to develop both quantitative and qualitative methodologies as complementary tools. While we propose teaching increasingly sophisticated quantitative methods, we do not advocate turning over the entire core to the statisticians. Instead, we suggest that programs must address deficiencies by introducing methods that are appropriately tied to or used to test the theories they employ. They should be able to introduce qualitative methods following this same heuristic.



conclusions

This article gives a broad overview of Turkish public administration research over the past 20 years. It describes a research tradition based on organizational theory and democratic theory. The account offered here is one in which public administration and political science are usually taught under the heading of public administration. It also draws a picture of public administration as integrated into a complex network of domestic political institutions, public agencies, organized interests, and clients as well as extensive European and international networks and influence. We have characterized the strong influence of continental European public law in Turkish course catalogs and published articles.

Conclusions can be drawn from this study that are similar to those in previous American studies. Articles are primarily authored by public administration academicians rather than practitioners. Public administration research gets little funding support. Academic articles mostly focus on literature reviews and conceptual development for future research. They engage little in testing and developing theory. The articles published in the principal Turkish journal of public admin-istration raise serious questions about whether they actually have advanced theory development.

We found that Turkish theory development and research orientation is probably weaker than what was found in American studies of two decades ago. We found that Turkish public administration research articles showed low quality on such indicators as the presence of an explicit theoretical or conceptual framework, research design, and uses of qualitative and quantitative techniques.

We found that law courses are dominant in public administration programs in Turkey, and political science courses are also very common in most programs, although political science departments have recently started to separate from public administration. Nonetheless, course coverage in many programs continues to reflect the legalistic orientation that dominated Turkish public administration in the past.

In Turkish public administration, the past is prologue. A prominent theme in traditional Turkish public administration was the dominant influence of the military, which led the modernization of the Turkish state by promoting techno-cratic aspects of administration. The period from 1990 to the present saw a growing influence of management and political science perspectives and a contrasting decline in the legalistic orientation. Other likely trends may include scholarship on nonprofits and civil society.

Turkey is subject to the globalizing pressures pushing the world away from traditional and collectivist concerns toward secular and self-expressive values (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). Turkey has long desired a place in the European Union, and thus continues to adopt European administrative practices. Turkish scholarship, on the other hand, takes its lead increasingly from the United States. In addition to the influence of the expansive American public administration literature, Turkish funding favors the rigorous methodological training in American graduate programs.



But what of the capacity of Turkish traditions to help maintain a distinctive Turkish public administration? We suggest that two features of Turkish national culture, power distance and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005), will continue to play roles in retaining Turkey’s distinctive administrative practices, and hence its scholarship. When subordinates generally accept their bosses’ authoritative influence and prefer the certainty and stability of rules and regulations, hierarchical structures persist. Significantly, Turkey’s 2011 economic growth rate was second only to China’s, perhaps reinforcing the thesis that hierarchies are more efficient than markets for short-term growth. Reinforced through path dependency, hierarchical practices are assured a prominent role in the future of Turkish public administration.

This study aims to provide information to those who, in public administration or the framework of university networks, seek to reform the systems of public administration programs to better adapt them to the needs of Turkish society. Of particular concern, we find insufficient methodological courses in these programs to equip students with necessary skills. Most programs include only introductory-level methodological courses and are largely devoid of advanced qualitative and quantitative methods content. This problem begs immediate action by Turkish scholars, and its implications are found in both scholarly articles in AID and in public administration programs. In addition to pointing out the direct implications for Turkish public administration, we hope our comparative analysis offers useful insights for American scholars attempting to place their own programs of public administration education in international context and to make generalizable contributions to its study in other national contexts.

Footnotes

1 Amme İdaresi Dergisi (AID) in Turkish suggests an equivalent translation of Journal of Public Administration.

2 Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East (Türkiye ve Orta Doğu Amme İdaresi Enstitüsü—TODAIE) is an institute with special status established by the United Nations in the 1950s. It grants graduate degrees and certificates and is staffed by academicians, but it is not considered as a university.

3 Numbers of faculty differ somewhat from those in Table 2 because some academicians who were temporarily assigned to government were counted as practitioners in Table 2, but their acquired academic ranks are depicted in Table 3.

4 See, for example, university-funded research in Cumhuriyet University at http://www.cumhuriyet.edu.tr

5 Berkman (1987, p. 25) did not include communication and urban and environment as public administration topics; Turkish public administration education now includes these topics in course curricula.

6 The NASPAA guidelines have been updated several times since then, but we offer this earlier framework because it applies temporally to the period of publications and programs of study in our analysis.



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Murat Onder is an associate professor of Public Administration at Yıldırım Beyazıt University in Turkey. His research interests include organizational and institutional theory, cross-national comparisons, culture, nonprofits, public administration research and theory, strategic and performance management in the public sector, and the application of analytical techniques to the decision-making process. E-mail: [email protected]

Ralph S. Brower is associate professor, Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, and director, Center for Civic and Nonprofit Leadership, Florida State University. His teaching and research focus on organization studies, voluntary organizing, and international/comparative administration. His work has appeared in numerous public administration and nonprofit journals. E-mail: [email protected]


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