Editorial: Congratulations and CommentaryAuthor(s): Richard J. Stillman II and Jos C. N. RaadscheldersSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 2007), pp. 605-607Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4624610 .

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Congratulations and Commentary Editorial

Congratulations to the 2006 Public Administra-

tion Review award winners! We asked each award committee chair to write a brief com-

mentary on the significance of his or her committee's selection for the field of public administration, which we reproduce here.

Dwight Waldo Award

For a lifetime career of scholarly contributions to public administration Chester Albert Newland

Chester A. Newland is the Duggan Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the University of Southern California, Sacramento. In the half

century since he received his doctorate from the

University of Kansas, Chet's scholarly contributions to the field have comprised more than 100 publica- tions, 13 of which have appeared in the pages of PAR. His role as a scholar is appropriate for our

applied field in that his work nicely straddles public administration's two great arenas of activity: the

academy and government. His extensive output was conceived and written as a professor at the Univer-

sity of Southern California and five other universities and inspired and researched as an active participant, administrator, and consultant in many local, na- tional, and international public sector institutions. One can characterize Chet's scholarship in this way: His focus is the actual world of public administra- tion, his subjects are its ways and problems, his

methodology is personal immersion in that world, and his purpose is that world's improvement.

As one reads Chet's curriculum vitae, the academic-

practitioner coupling is obvious: publications on law and the U.S. Supreme Court (he was a Social Science Research Council fellow there just after

graduate school), urban government and city man-

agement (member of the city council of Denton, Texas), presidential papers (director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library), presidential transitions (he served on two transition panels of the National Academy of Public Administration), government productivity (member of the Public Sector Commit-

tee on Productivity and Work Quality), public sector labor relations (head of a task force on the subject for President Carter's civil service reform project), executive development (twice director of the Federal Executive Institute), the Senior Executive Service

(participant in the Twentieth Century Fund's SES task force), and bureaucratic transformation (served on a United Nations panel and as consultant to 10 governments in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia).

In addition to his own work, Chet has made signifi- cant contributions to the public administration

scholarship of others through his many years of

mentoring doctoral students and serving as editor- in-chief of PAR from 1984 to 1990. As a historical footnote, in his capacity as chair of the ASPA Pub- lications Committee when Dwight Waldo was

ending his term as PAR's editor, Chet-along with others-orchestrated the establishment of the Waldo Award. The first winner, in 1980, was Luther Gulick, another scholar who straddled the

academic-practitioner duality. The selection com- mittee is delighted to name Chet the award's 28th

recipient.

--Enid Beaumont, Chair, 2006 Waldo Award Committee

Marshall Dimock Award

For the best lead article in PAR Guy B. Adams, Danny L. Balfour, and George E. Reed, "Abu Ghraib, Administrative Evil, and Moral Inversion: The Value of 'Putting Cruelty First,"' September/October 2006, pp. 680-693

In this essay, the authors examine how a climate was created that contributed to the torture and abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison and other locations. Positing a continuum of evil ranging from instances of massive proportions (such as the Holocaust) to trivial wrongdoing (such as telling a white lie), Adams, Balfour, and Reed suggest that somewhere along this scale, wrongdoing turns into evil. Interestingly, instances of wrongdoing can

2006 PAR Award Winners 605

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build up through subtle and seductive processes to a

point at which evil seems appropriate. Specifically, administrative evil, often a hidden consequence of

systems of technical rationality, is frequently hidden or "masked" so that individuals may perform evil acts without recognizing they are doing anything wrong, and perhaps even believing they are doing the right thing.

In the context of our nation's war on terrorism-a war carried out without a specific state enemy- ambiguities inevitably arose at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Specifically, at Abu Ghraib, the military police mission of providing custody became inter- twined with the mission of producing actionable

intelligence. The abuses could not be traced to a

specific "paper trail" but instead seemed to result from an evolving set of standards that convinced those performing the abuse that they were doing what was expected of them. Although the resulting courts-martial portrayed the offenders as "bad

apples," they were certainly acting within a climate that appeared to approve their actions. In the case of Abu Ghraib and in many other situations, the authors conclude, "Before and surrounding overt acts of evil, there are many more and much less

obviously evil organizational activities that lead to and support the worst forms of human behavior."

-Robert Denhardt, Chair, 2006 Dimock Award Committee

William E. and Frederick C. Mosher Award

For the best PAR article written by an academic John Kane and Haig Patapan, "In Search of Pru- dence: The Hidden Problem of Managerial Reform," September/October 2006, pp. 711-24

This elegantly conceived and executed essay contends that the New Public Management, with its logic of economic rationality and market efficiency, ignores the vital need for public administrators to exercise prudence-or practical wisdom-on the public's behalf. A liberated public entrepreneur who is free to innovate seeks competitive success and quantitative goals rather than a thoughtful, judicious consideration of all the legal, political, social, and human aspects of a given situation. The authors' argument is finely nuanced, richly elaborated, and generically framed to fit all democracies. Concepts of classic political phi- losophy are brought up squarely against contemporary doctrines of public management, bringing to the surface submerged issues of our field, as Dwight Waldo once did.

The committee also extends honorable mention to

Raewyn Connell's "Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? Mapping the Gender Regimes of

Public Sector Worksites" (November/December, pp. 837-49). Drawing on well-crafted empirical research, the author concludes that sexism in public organizations cannot be understood in terms of

simple stereotypes but instead requires an examina- tion of the overt as well as the subtle dimensions of

organizational and individual behavior. At the same time, a general softening of sexist tendencies over time has led to greater "depolarization" of

government.

-Charles T Goodsell, Chair, 2006Mosher Award Committee

Laverne Burchfield Award

For the best PAR book review essay Patricia M. Shields, "Civil-Military Relations:

Changing Frontiers," November/December, pp. 924-28

Laverne Burchfield, PAR's managing editor from 1943 to 1958, believed that the best book review

essays present multiple books, situate them within the discipline, critique their main points, and com- ment on how they inform the field. To her way of

thinking, the objective of book reviews, as well as other PAR content, is to advance public administra- tion by connecting theory to practice in ways that are relevant to public problems. She would be grati- fied to see that her legacy continues. There were

many fine essays to choose from in this year's competition. Foremost among these is Patricia Shields's essay. It reviews four books that capture how the field of civil-military relations is responding to the challenges brought by the end of the Cold War, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq. The essay is timely, relevant, and illuminating. It examines enduring public administration debates anchoring them firmly in a

contemporary context. On every dimension of Burchfield's yardstick, this is an outstanding review.

-Mary Ellen Guy, Chair, 2006 BurchfieldAward Committee

Louis Brownlow Award

For the best PAR article written by a practitioner Pamela Bloomfield, "The Challenging Business of Long-Term Public-Private Partnerships: Reflections on Local Experience," May/June, pp. 400-11

Pamela Bloomfield is vice president of the Clarus Group, a private consulting firm in Massachusetts. Her article addresses an emerging public administra- tion governance approach-long-term public- private partnerships-in a practical and realistic manner. Her work challenges some of the basic

606 Public Administration Review * JulyIAugust 2007

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assumptions and conventional wisdom associated with public-private partnerships and exposes both the potential rewards and considerable risks to pub- lic managers, policy makers, and taxpayers. The article is well argued, informed by the use of ex-

amples from local experience, and grounded in the literature on privatization. It provides concrete advice that local practitioners can use when making

decisions about entering into public-private part- nerships in order to ensure accountability and

transparency during performance.

-Carl Stenberg, Chair, 2006 Brownlow Award Committee

-Richard J. Stillman II and Jos C. N. Raadschelders

Coming up in the September-October Issue of PAR ...

SENIOR-JUNIOR EXCHANGE: The Limits of Efficiency

ADMINISTRATIVE PROFILE: William Robertson of L.A.'s Bureau of Street Services

ESSAYS ON ACCOUNTABILITY, INNOVATION AND BUREAUCRACY TOPICS: Citizens and Service Delivery * Inverting Bureaucratic Behavior

Bureaucracy and Gender e Technology Adoption * Performance Measurement

CASE STUDY FROM ABROAD: Administrative Corruption in Japan

BOOK REVIEWS

2006 PAR Award Winners 607

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