ABSTRACT

This semi-autobiographical report on the author's role in ASPA's Comparative Administration Group (CAG) during the 1960s leads into an account of the subsequent evolution of his thinking. His research sheds light on the history, status and future of comparative public administration in America. Our long-standing tradition of studying the administrative experience of developed countries in search of lessons that could be utilized to improve American administrative practices was reversed after World War II: a generous grant to ASPA from the Ford Foundation for work on development administration stimulated interest in the use of American expertise to help the newly independent states that were established upon the collapse of the great modern empires. The ASPA Section for International and Comparative Administration which succeeded the CAG now has a broader mandate not only to enhance our ability to work abroad in the field of development management and to restore our traditional interest in the comparative study of mature industrial states, but it can also help us take a fresh look at American public administration. By means of relevant comparisons with the administrative problems of countries that share the American model of "separation-of-powers," it is possible to gain new insights into the deeper problems of governance in America and, thereby, to enhance our ability to understand and reform our own administrative practices and, assuredly, also to be more effective overseas.

BIODATA

Fred W. Riggs is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii. ASPA gave him the Dwight Waldo award for distinguished service in research and publications in 1991, and he was honored by the Eastern Regional Organization for Public Administration in 1983. During the 1960s, he led ASPA's Comparative Administration Group, predecessor to SICA, ASPA's Section for International and Comparative Administration. More details about his life and intellectual adventures can be found in the festschrift produced in his honor in 1992: Politics and Administration in Changing Societies, edited by Ramesh K. Arora (New Delhi: Associated Publishing House.) See also Who's Who in America, 1997.or Who's Who in the World.

See the draft text: [] first part and second part []
Revised 30 May 1997 1996