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The basis of comparative study of Public Administration has evolved from institutional approach to the contemporary political economic process approach. Have all these approaches enabled the development of a theory of Comparative Public Administration? Justify your answer.

This question was previously asked in
UPSC CSE 2025 (Prelims) CSAT Official Paper (25-May-2025)

Comparative Public Administration (CPA) initially relied on institutional analysis, focusing on formal structures, constitutions, and legal frameworks. This approach offered descriptive insights but failed to capture contextual dynamics.

The post-war behavioral revolution shifted focus to socio-political and cultural variables. Riggs’s ecological model emphasized how administrative systems interact with their environments, moving CPA beyond static structures. Later, the political economy approach further broadened analysis by studying administration within global, economic, and developmental processes. This highlighted issues like dependency, globalization, and governance networks.

Despite these advances, CPA has struggled to establish a universal theory. Administrative systems are context-bound, shaped by history, culture, and political economy. Attempts at generalization often encounter exceptions, limiting theory-building. While frameworks like Riggs’s prismatic model or modernization theory provided insights, they lacked predictive universality.

Thus, CPA has enriched understanding and provided valuable tools, but it remains more a set of approaches than a coherent, unified theory.

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