Towards the construction of knowledge in public governance as field of scientific enquiry

Abstract

Public Governance is a rapidly growing field of scientific enquiry. Therefore academics involved in Public Governance often find it difficult to construct knowledge and to direct the curricula of educational programs and qualifications in this field. This is largely due to often competing paradigmatic perspectives on Public Administration, as well as the absence of a comprehensive framework through which to consider the various dimensions and theoretical vantage points from which governance phenomena could be studied. The purpose of this article is to propose three constructions, namely a (trans-)disciplinary perspective, a force-field construction, and a path dependency construction, to facilitate knowledge production within the field of Public Governance.