Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University

LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy

The workshop is held at Fudan University, Shanghai, in the afternoon of March 28th, 2025

The rediscovery and investigation of foundational issues in the field of public governance, public affairs and public administration (hereafter collectively referred to as PA) has been gaining traction recently.

Rediscovering philosophical thinking in PA for addressing foundational issues is a thriving area of inquiry. A special issue significantly titled ‘Eastern and Western Philosophies: Rethinking the Foundations of Public Administration’ (forthcoming 2025 and published in the journal Public Policy and Administration, guest-edited by Edoardo Ongaro and Alfred T. Ho) highlighted how philosophical thought can be profoundly beneficial for the development of public governance, public management, public policy and public administration across different regions of the world. The special issue articles display the adoption and application of philosophical perspectives both eastern and western, showcasing the significance of mobilising in a combined way both eastern and western philosophies to revisit foundational issues in public administration.

A forthcoming book (Ongaro, E., 2025, Connecting Philosophy and Public Administration: Directions of Inquiry, London, Palgrave) outlines a conceptual map for enabling the connection between philosophical ideas and perspectives, on one hand, and PA themes and problems, on the other. The book outlines four approaches to connect philosophical thinking and PA:

1. Philosophy for PA: this approach is based on mobilising philosophical thinking (one or more specific philosophies or philosophical notions) to enable revisiting and addressing key PA themes. One or – possibly more effectively - a plurality of philosophical streams can be applied, in a combined way, to tackle PA problems.

2. Mapping backwards to unveil the often-implicit philosophical premises of PA publications: this approach focuses on critically reviewing extant publications in the field of PA to ‘trace’ their philosophical, often implicit, underpinnings (e.g. via bibliometric analyses, or through narrative analysis methods) – this approach is centred on uncovering the underlying philosophical bases of extant PA research.

3. Aligning Philosophy and PA: this approach is centred on the ideational bases of PA doctrines intended as elements of knowledge, both analytical and normative, pertaining to the configuration of the administrative system (examples of sets of PA doctrines include, e.g., the New Public Management, New Public Governance, or the New Weberian State) – the political philosophical, ethical, epistemological, language philosophy, and ontological ideational bases of PA doctrines are critically revisited, highlighting how all administrative doctrines are inherently philosophical (there is no such thing as a philosophy-free public administration!)

4. Philosophy of PA: this is perhaps the most ambitious approach of all – it is centred on working out a full-fledged philosophy of PA for the 21st century.