On Public Management's Signature Knowledge: A Perspective on Michael Barzelay's Ideas about Public Management as a Design-oriented Professional Discipline

LUCIANO ANDRENACCI

China Public Administration Review

Tsinhua University

Lugar: Beijing; Año: 2020 vol. 2 p. 29 - 41

2573-1483

Michael Barzelay?s Public Management as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline is aninvitation to rethink Public Management (PM). He visits its intellectual traditions and proposesa new coherent structure on which to understand its identity and methodology. Barzelay isseeking to find a way to strengthen PM as an academic area, and he does so by formulating itas a design-oriented professional discipline.In this paper, I will argue his book redefines PM into a clearly recognizable intellectual andprofessional practice that has a distinct role to play within the field of public administration. Iinvite the reader to see two significant twin intellectual enterprises in this, one conceptual andone methodological: the redefinition of PM?s character and identity; and the development of amethodological strategy for PM. I will argue that the interlocking of these two enterprises helpto identify PM?s distinct knowledge. Hereafter, I will refer to it is a ?PM knowledge?.