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Let me begin this essay by thanking Soo-Gil Oh for inviting me to introduce the important papers by Michael M. Harmon (2003) and Richard C. Box (2005) on the intellectual history and trajectory of Administrative Theory & Praxis (ATP) and the Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net). I also extend thanks to our common friend, Dongjae Jung, a doctoral student at Arizona State University, for putting me in touch with Professor Oh. What I would like to do is in this essay, in addition to introducing the papers by Harmon and Box, is to expand on some of the arguments presented therein and to speculate regarding what I take to be some of the pressing challenges for public administration theory and research and the US PA theory community from my vantage as the current editor of and a contributor to ATP. My views, of course, may prove to be either overly idiosyncratic or banal. I should add, too, that my comments will be parochial, as I will confine my remarks to the “American” aspects of the evolution of the Network and ATP. To be sure, both have significant international contributors and influences but remain, in my view, dominated by US-based academics—�this needs to change. With these caveats in mind, I hope these remarks may offer some useful points for future discussion and reflection as this groundbreaking journal, and theoretical and qualitative research evolve in Korea.

At last year’s PAT-Net meeting in Cleveland, Richard Box asked me write a history of the Network—perhaps on the assumption that I was its oldest living member. Although that would not quite be accurate, I have been associated with PAT-Net throughout its several incarnations, and, indeed, participated in some of the events (and wars) that preceded its founding. I mention this not to take any credit for the Network’s development; quite the contrary, my inquiry has served as a reminder of how meager, compared to those of the many people mentioned here, my own efforts have been. Perhaps my relative distance from the real work performed by so many of PAT-Net’s members over the past twenty-five years, however, can serve as a fair surrogate for objectivity, a quality that in any case few of us take seriously. During the early stages of this project, I considered including a brief intellectual history of the Network—a rough content analysis tracking the evolution of the intellectual fashions and themes reflected in the twenty-five volumes of Dialogue and ATP—in addition to recounting the events, dates, places, and actors (especially the heroes) indispensable to an adequate chronology. Alas, I soon realized that writing an intellectual history, in addition to a more conventional chronology, would be overly ambitious in view of the space (and time) limits I had imposed on myself. I do hope, though, that someone else will someday see fit to take on that task. Thus, my more modest ambition in writing this brief history is mainly to satisfy the curiosity of those relative newcomers who may have wondered how, when, and why the Network came into being. I also hope to evoke enough nostalgia among those members who participated in the founding to, among other things, prompt them to fill in the gaps in the story and correct the errors that it no doubt contains.

Administrative Theory & Praxis began in 1979 as Dialogue, the newsletter of the newly created Public Administration Theory Network. It has developed over twenty-five years as a forum for “alternative” theory in public administration. This paper describes some of the work published in Dialogue/ATP from 1979 to 2004 to illustrate issues of interest to authors in the journal during this time. Examples of articles are given in five substantive categories of theory: the nature of knowledge; the relationship of Dialogue/ATP theory to mainstream public administration; normative public administration theory; social and political theory; and marginalization and oppression. The discussion highlights writing about important topics in public administration theory from perspectives often not considered in “mainstream” journals.

이 논문에서는 분배정의에 관한 여러 입장을 이론적으로 검토하고 토지사유제에 관한 컴퓨터 시뮬레이션을 실시하여 정책적 시사점을 도출한다. 결과적인 소득이 균등하지 않다고 해서 정의롭지 못한 분배인 것은 아니다. 분배정의를 판단하는 기준 즉 ‘분배규칙’이 다양하기 때문이다. 그래서 우선 분배규칙을 분류 검토한다. 검토한 분배규칙은 필요에 따라 분배하는 필요형, 기회를 균등하게 보장하는 기회균등형, 특권과 차별도 허용하는 특권형이다. 이어서 토지사유제는 오늘날 당연한 제도로 인식되고 있으나 기회균등형 분배규칙에서는 허용될 수 없는 특권적인 제도임을 논증한다. 그 후에 컴퓨터 시뮬레이션을 통해, 토지사유제처럼 지대의 사유화를 허용하면 부당한 소득 불평등을 초래한다는 사실을 보이고 그 대책으로 강력한 누진소득세와 지대를 모두 환수하는 지대세를 비교한다. 이러한 이론적 논의와 시뮬레이션으로부터 두 가지 정책적 시사점을 도출한다. 하나는, 토지사유제라는 특권적 제도로 인해 빚어지는 불평등을 해소하는 최적의 방법은 누진소득세가 아니라 지대세라는 점이다. 또 하나는, 지대를 환수하면 재분배 없는 사회보장이 가능하다는 점이다. 사회보장에 관해서는 재원을 불문하고 확대해야 한다는 입장에서부터 베짱이 먹여 살리기로 매도하는 부정론에 이르기까지 다양한 견해차가 존재한다. 부정적인 입장에서 제시하는 대표적인 논거는 재분배의 폐해인데, 재분배 없는 사회보장을 제공할 수 있다면 극단적인 시장주의자조차도 반대할 명분이 없어져서 양극단의 소통과 화해가 가능하게 된다.