The aim of this article is to provide a semi-systematic literature review of the application and diffusion of Bourdieu's works within Public Administration / Public Management (PA/PM) research. While certain concepts associated with his thought, in particular social capital, are widely cited in PA literature, the specific ways in which his concepts are being used indicate that the full significance of his relational mode of thought has yet to be sufficiently apprehended. First, our data show that high citation rates of Bourdieu are due to an almost obligatory "name dropping" (together with Putnam and Coleman) in connection with social capital. Furthermore, Bourdieu is frequently referred to in discussion sections, i.e. in the course of interpreting results, without his concepts being applied in the study itself. Second, at the current stage of analysis, it is already apparent that his concepts of capital and habitus are often used in isolation or used in the context of other frameworks. By the same token, this means, third, that his relational approach utilizing at least the core concepts of field, capital and habitus is only applied to a limited extent. The preliminary results therefore suggest that PA studies might have yet to fully exploit the theoretical and empirical possibilities inherent in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu. Our review aims to reveal the current application of Bourdieu's works in PA/PM, identify unrealized potentials and discuss promising avenues for further research.

To assess the application of Bourdieu’s work in PA/PM, we conduct a citation context analysis as it has been performed in the field of Management and Organization Studies (Sieweke 2014) and sociology (Sallaz und Zavisca 2007). By drawing on Sieweke (2014:533), we make our first three research questions comparable to his results: (1) How have citations to Bourdieu in PA/PM journals developed over time? (2) What concepts from Bourdieu’s work are cited by PA/PM scholars? (3) How comprehensive is the application of Bourdieu's approach and concepts?

Our sample consists of 1726 articles citing Bourdieu, originating from 52 academic journals. Our purposeful sampling strategy aimed to include all relevant journals in the field of PA/PM. To account for relevance in the field under study, we draw on two sources: (a) the Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR) for subject category “Public Administration” (= 130 Journals, grouped in Quartiles plus 7 additional journals) and (b) the Journal Quality List (JQL), compiled and edited by Prof. Anne-Wil Harzing (62nd edition, 3 April 2018), subject area “PSM” (= 65 Journals). Journals in other languages than English, Education journals and journals anchored in Political Sciences were excluded from the merged list. To focus on well-established journals only, we applied (SJR Quartile 1 or Quartile 2) and (QJL=PSM) as general rule for inclusion. To allow for some specific/explorative comparison in the spirit of maximum variation, we included selected journals at the periphery as well as journals dedicated to interdisciplinary research (including public sector organizations).

References

Sallaz, Jeffrey J., und Jane Zavisca. 2007. „Bourdieu in American Sociology, 1980–2004“. Annual Review of Sociology 33(1):21–41. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131627.

Sieweke, Jost. 2014. „Pierre Bourdieu in management and organization studies—A citation context analysis and discussion of contributions“. Management and measurement 30(4):532–43. doi: 10.1016/j.scaman.2014.04.004.

Public administration as a discipline plays a ‘prominent role’ for SDGs. Firstly, because a robust system of governance and public administration is a development goal. Secondly, SDGs are attained through policy instruments designed and implemented in public administration organizations and lastly, most SDGs are ‘embedded and framed’ in public governance (Bouckaert, Loretan & Troupin, 2016). On an operational level, most SDGs are attained though the public service (Jackson, 2020)

Public administration as a discipline is concerned with the operation of government at all levels. Public administrators implement public policy by translating political decisions of elected officials into the everyday reality of citizens. In addition, global and domestic challenges such as the pandemic or the fallout of economic downturn, place responsibilities on government and its administrators at the front lines (O’Flynn, 2022). At the core of the public administration discipline lies teaching an ethical and moral sense of obligation towards the public (Bleach, 2022). While traditionally considered the study of value neutral bureaucracy and later technocracy, contemporary trends in public administration teaching call for grounded and humanized approaches that go beyond western approaches and the technical aspects of the profession (O’Flynn, 2022). As the implementation of SDGs requires an integrated, multistakeholder approach, teaching public servants requires practice oriented curricula that, while grounded in theory, employ methods that nurture capabilities necessary to grapple with grand challenges and wicked problems.

This is a case presentation of a comparative governance and public administration module in the MPA program of the University of the West of Scotland (London Campus) that has been designed with that in mind. This module embeds SDGs and translates theories to work-like situations through the use of innovative learning methods. This paper will provide an in-depth review of how three elements, relevant SDGs, theories and learning design to nurture practice have been holistically integrated. The alignment of learning outcomes with theory and learning action or tasks will be discussed in detail.

Summary of Module

All over the world government employees do things that affect the lives of their fellow

citizens. They run government business by sometimes performing public services, identifying wicked problems, facing grand challenges, and supporting elected officials to craft solutions that translate into public policy. Public administration and management are, what government does. This module equips you with the core theoretical underpinnings of Public Administration and Management as a field and a comparative view of how various events and contexts have shaped public administration and management in national and regional settings. You will gain an understanding of bureaucracy, policymaking processes, public services, reforms, regulations, accountability and ethics and the impact of contemporary technologies such as AI and e-government. Upon completion of this module, you will be able to identify good governance practices and connect theory to practice through innovative learning approaches.

Bleach, J. (2022) ‘Real-world ethical experiential practice-based action learning for the new normal’ in Bottom,K. , Diamond,J., Dunning,P., Elliott,I. (eds) Handbook of Teaching Public Administration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 139-147.

Bouckaert, G., Loretan, R. and Troupin, S. (2016) ‘Public administration and the sustainable development goals’, Paper presented at 15th Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration, April 2016, New York, NY, available at (PDF) Public Administration and the Sustainable Development Goals (researchgate.net)

Jackson, E. A. (2020) ‘Importance of the Public Service in Achieving the UN SDGs’, Springer Nature Publisher, pp. 1-16.

O'Flynn, J. (2022) ‘A global perspective on public administration? The dynamics shaping the field and what it means for teaching and learning’ in Bottom,K. , Diamond,J., Dunning,P., Elliott,I. (eds) Handbook of Teaching Public Administration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.13-25.

One of the government's main challenges is to build a sustainable society addressing environmental, social, and economic concerns to achieve long-term transformation and intergenerational equity. The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development's "Our Common Future" report defines sustainable development as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. In 2015 the United Nations introduced the 2030 Agenda, incorporating 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a more sustainable and just world. These goals aim to reduce poverty and hunger, enhance environmental conservation for biodiversity and climate change, ensure justice, reduce inequalities, and improve governance, inclusion, and security.

Despite recent public administration reforms addressing aspects of sustainable development, there is a need for more adaptive and dynamic organizations with effective leadership that engages and educates citizens on sustainability development relevance. Sustainability as a public administration value necessitates incorporating these aspects into education to equip public workers and leaders with the tools and concepts necessary to address sustainability within public organizations.

The growing importance of sustainability development and SDGs, including in the public sector, highlights the need to integrate these aspects into education, particularly higher education. This inclusion benefits public workers and leaders by fostering reflection, action, and awareness of sustainability challenges.

This study explores how the SDGs can be incorporated into Public Administration courses, analyzing gaps, omissions, overlaps, and redundancies in SDG-related content in Public Administration programs at a Portuguese university. We use a qualitative approach that involves three stages: i) using keywords identified in Rangarajana & Joshi's (2019) study to analyze course titles and descriptions, trying to identify the sustainable development dimensions these courses address; ii) creating an alignment matrix between the SDGs and courses through keywords for each goal; iii) offering recommendations for public administration programs with more content related to sustainable development dimensions and the SDGs.

This study aims to provide valuable insights related to sustainability development and SDGs in an academic context, focused on their integration into Public Administration programs, intending to enhance capacity-building for sustainability. Our findings indicate that there is a significant space for improvement in incorporating more content related to sustainable development across social, economic, and environmental areas.