History and Public Administration: Meanings, Problems, Usefulness in Policy-making

The aim of this chapter is to outline the interplay between history and public administration. It considers the various definitions of administrative history and it outlines a broad definition of administrative history. The chapter assesses the usefulness of history for public administration from an applied history perspective, the toolkit that historians can deploy in their analysis, the meaning of history for policy-making and administrative reforms, and the relationship between history and social sciences in public administration.