POLICY ISSUE NETWORKS AND THE PUBLIC-POLICY CYCLE - A STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC-ADMINISTRATION

Will public administration ever resolve the conundrum presented by the politics/administration dichotomy? Are politics and administration separate functions or is some other set of criteria more useful in explaining the differences between the two activities? James E. Skok suggests fusing the policy issue network and the policy cycle literatures into a new structural/functional/framework for public administration. He argues that: (1) the lingering influence of Wilson's functional dichotomy overemphasizes function and misses the struct ural dimension of public administration; (2) public administration and politics are not separate functions as Wilson suggested; however, they are activities which occur within separate structures; and (3) a more accurate view of the contribution public administration makes to the public-policy process will result if scholars and practitioners adopt the structural/functional framework suggested.