JPART 21:i45–i51 MINNOWBROOK III: A SPECIAL ISSUE The Case for Public Administration with a Global Perspective Yilin Hou*, Anna Ya Ni   , Ora-orn Poocharoen à , Kaifeng Yang § , Zhirong J. Zhao** * University of Georgia;   California State University San Bernardino; à National University of Singapore; § Florida State University; ** University of Minnesota ABSTRACT Globalization has been challenging the theory and practice of Public Administration at an unprecedented level. Major policy issues cross national boundaries cannot be solved without international collaboration—even domestic issues will be better understood and addressed with a global perspective. To advance Public Administration theory building, we need to examine issues across national and ethnodemographic divisions in order to better understand and explain context-specific phenomena. To ensure Public Administration’s relevance to practice, we must reach out to the global public administration community in academic exchanges, global innovation and diffusion of best practices, and collaborative education. In the Minnowbrook spirit, we advocate moving toward ‘‘Public Administration with a Global Perspective’’ (PAGP) to render our teaching, research, and engagement more relevant to the changing reality of globalization. PAGP emphasizes serving a global community by building theories that offer greater explanatory power, have higher acceptability, and are more responsive to the demands in diverse and specific contexts. INTRODUCTION The pursuit of relevancy has been a lasting theme at the Minnowbrook conferences. As an interdisciplinary applied field, Public Administration 1 should develop theories useful for both scholars and practitioners in order to stay relevant. In the 21st century, critical public problems are increasingly interdependent across national boundaries. The traditionally US- oriented Public Administration is no longer adequate, nor is the traditional comparative Public Administration. In the Minnowbrook spirit, we advocate ‘‘Public Administration with a Global Perspective’’ (PAGP) to advance knowledge building, address practical is- sues, improve Public Administration education, and, ultimately, increase the relevancy of the field. PAGP emphasizes theory building that bridges ‘‘particularism’’ and ‘‘universal- ism,’’ attending to observations in specific ethnic, cultural, and political contexts, while at the same time looking for greater explanatory power, wider practical implications, Address correspondence to the author at zrzhao@umn.edu. 1 In this essay, we use the lower case ‘‘public administration’’ as a function or phenomenon and the upper case ‘‘Public Administration’’ for the research and study thereof, that is, the scholarship. doi:10.1093/jopart/muq070 ª The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article/21/suppl_1/i45/914111 by guest on 12 April 2022