Rethinking the Field’s Origins, Narratives and Future

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Gedeon M. Mudacumura
May 1, 2026

At a recent gathering of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), a simple but profound statement was made: Africa is the cradle of humanity. That observation invites a deeper question, one that has significant implications for our field:

If Africa is the cradle of humanity, what is its place in the genealogy of public administration?

Public administration, as both a discipline and a practice, has long been shaped by dominant narratives rooted primarily in Western intellectual traditions. These frameworks have contributed significantly to the development of administrative theory and practice. Yet they do not fully capture the breadth, diversity and historical depth of governance systems that have emerged across other regions of the world, particularly in Africa.

Across the African continent, precolonial and postcolonial societies have developed rich and sophisticated systems of governance, public leadership, conflict resolution and community-based administration. These systems were not merely informal or ad hoc; they embodied structured norms, institutional arrangements and ethical principles that guided public life. Concepts such as ubuntu, emphasizing shared humanity and collective responsibility, and abunzi, community-based approaches to mediation and reconciliation, reflect deeply rooted administrative values that continue to shape governance practices today.

However, these contributions have often been underrepresented in mainstream public administration scholarship. As a result, the discipline risks presenting a partial narrative, one that overlooks important sources of knowledge and limits its own capacity for innovation and relevance in an increasingly interconnected world.

This is not simply a matter of historical correction. It is a matter of intellectual expansion and disciplinary renewal.

Revisiting the genealogy of public administration through a more inclusive and globally grounded lens offers several important opportunities. First, it allows us to recover and document diverse administrative traditions that can enrich contemporary theory. Second, it strengthens comparative public administration by broadening the range of cases, concepts and analytical frameworks available to scholars and practitioners. Third, it enhances the practical relevance of the field by aligning governance approaches with the cultural and institutional realities of different societies.

In this context, Africa should not be viewed as a peripheral case within public administration but as a foundational contributor to its evolution, past, present and future.

This perspective invites us to consider a broader intellectual movement for the discipline, one that unfolds in three interconnected phases. The first involves reclaiming origins by documenting and analyzing African administrative traditions and their historical significance. The second calls for reframing the canon by integrating these contributions into the core of comparative public administration. The third seeks to reshape the discipline through sustained institutional impact, including research, teaching and policy engagement.

Such an effort is already taking shape through initiatives that foster scholarly dialogue, collaborative research and new platforms for knowledge exchange. These efforts are not intended to replace existing frameworks but to enrich and expand them, moving the field toward a more inclusive and globally representative foundation.

Ultimately, the question is not whether public administration has benefited from diverse traditions, it has. The question is whether we are prepared to fully recognize, engage with and integrate those contributions into how we teach, study and practice the discipline.

The answer to that question will shape the future of public administration.

African public administration is not a footnote in the discipline, it is a foundation, and reclaiming it is essential to reshaping the future of governance.

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Author: Dr. Gedeon M. Mudacumura is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Chair of the Section on African Public Administration (SAPA) of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). His work focuses on governance, institutional development, and advancing a globally grounded understanding of public administration, including the integration of African administrative traditions into the discipline.

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