Questioning the Constitutional Order: A Comparison of the French and the U.S. Politics–Administration Dichotomy Controversies After World War II
比较二战后法国和美国关于公共行政在宪政秩序中地位的争议，揭示政治-行政二分法这一核心概念在不同时空背景下被拒绝的不同逻辑与后果。
By comparing the French and the U.S. controversies on the appropriate position of public administration within the constitutional order of the state after World War II, this article aims to contribute to the historical clarification of the politics–administration dichotomy as one of the key ideas of administrative research and theory. The article underscores that the same phenomenon—the rejection of the dichotomy—has led to different conclusions among administrative scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, the dichotomy was rejected in favor of a reinforcement of the legislature and the judiciary as well as a more representative administration to preserve the plurality of interests of American society. In contrast, the French rejection was aimed toward strengthening the executive and the administrative elite as guardians of the general interest. The article illustrates how ideas and values about public administration change according to different spatiotemporal contexts. If these contexts are disregarded, understanding remains fragmentary at best, if not misleading.