Context Matters: Pedagogy and Comparative Public Administration

Those who teach public management increasingly encourage students to consult resources from countries other than their own, and to look around the globe as well as around the corner for answers to local problems of service delivery and agency administration. While the reference to "best practices" has much to recommend it, it should not be allowed to obscure important differences in national legal and constitutional cultures - differences that reflect the specific value criteria and political framework within which each country's citizens evaluate their government's performance. The challenge for public administrators and those who teach them is to distinguish between the areas that can benefit from best practices, and those where a nation's distinctive history and culture make importation of a practice problematic.