Frederickson

H. George Frederickson is a generalist in the field of public administration with particular interests in public things, theories of public administration, systems of multi-level governance, and American local government.[1] He currently serves as the Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas.[2] He was President Emeritus of Eastern Washington University until 1987and served as President of the American Society for Public Administration] (ASPA).[3]Frederickson is the founding editor of the Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE) and founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART).

Major influences on public administrationEdit

Minnowbrook IIEditFrederickson is responsible for coordinating the second Minnowbrook Conference, Minnowbrook II, held in 1988. The conference was held at Syracuse University's conference center in the Adirondack Mountains. Lasting a total of four days, Minnowbrook II gave Frederickson and his colleagues the chance to reexamine the impacts of Minnowbrook I on the field of Public Administration.[citation needed]Social equityEditIn 1968 Frederickson came up with "a theory of social equity and put it forward as the "third pillar" of public administration."[4]Frederickson was concerned that those in public administration were making the mistake of assuming that citizen A is the same as citizen B; ignoring social and economic conditions. His goal is: for social equity to take on the same "status as economy and efficiency as values or principles to which public administration should adhere."[4]Moral justification for bureaucracyEditIn 2002 Frederickson published an article for Administration & Society, titled, Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy. In this article Frederickson describes the need for a "moral basis of bureaucracy" in the West. He argues, "the moral justification for bureaucracy in systems of democratic self-government is stronger in Eastern thought than in Western philosophy and practice."[5] In this article, Frederickson describes the several "central features" of Confucianism.[5] He then compares them to Western approaches to bureaucracy; providing "contemporary examples."[5] These central features are: "(1) the rule of man versus the rule of law, (2) the characteristics of the good official, (3) the nature of moral conventions and their importance to governing, (4) the importance of education and merit, (5) how to serve those in power, (6) the nature and order of society, and (7) the definitions of virtue and morality."[5]High reliability organizationsEditIn the article, Airport Security, High Reliability, and the Problem of Rationality, Frederickson "applies the concepts and logic of high reliability organizations to airport security operations".[6] Frederickson examines both the internal and external properties of High-Reliability Organizations (HRO). He argues, after September 11, 2001, the American commercial air travel industry needs to be operated as a HRO in order to prevent future catastrophes. "For commercial air travel to be highly secure, there must be very high levels of technical competence and sustained performance, regular training, structure redundancy, collegial, decentralized authority patterns, processes that reward error discovery and correction, adequate and reliable funding, high mission valence, reliable and timely information, and protection from external interference in operations."[6