Editors’ Essay: Questioning Our Past, Moving into the Future

Abstract

As we take the helm of Perspectives on Public Management and Governance (PPMG), we want to take this opportunity to communicate our direction and ideas for the future of the journal. This starts with considering theory and its role in public management. The role of theory is to help us make sense of the world around us—to take stock of what we know and attempt to bring order out of chaos. Across academic fields and disciplines, peer-reviewed journals that focus on the development and advancement of theory are the home for that kind of knowledge. PPMG, as such a journal, has an obligation to cast a wide net to capture how knowledge and important relationships shift over time in public management. Good theory is enduring. Scholars who develop theory have an obligation to remain open to questioning their fundamental assumptions and biases—and we all have them—so that these underlying currents are surfaced and explored to determine how they affect how we view the world and how those currents change over time.