Untangling Public Values: Incorporating Regime Values to Advance Research and Practice

Abstract

The concept of “public values” is receiving increasing attention in the field of public administration. Much of the focus has been on the micro-level implications of public values for the behavior of bureaucrats and public institutions. This article argues that the public values approach could benefit from more systematic and detailed consideration of the macro-level implications of public values, that is, the nature of the public sector’s expected and legitimated contribution to society. Building on the work of John Rohr and Peter Overeem, it highlights how the concept of “prescriptive regime values” already provides a relevant foundation for this purpose and could help to untangle and better structure the plethora of public values currently found in the literature. To build and support this argument, the article reviews the public values literature, seeking to answer the following questions. First, what constitutes the public values perspective in public administration? Second, what are more “macro” public values? Where can they be found and how can they be characterized? Finally, what do “macro” public values do? To conclude, implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed, including a future research agenda that specifically incorporates prescriptive regime values as “macro” public values.