The Impact of Cybernetics on German Public Administration: On the Origins of the Neo-Verwaltungswissenschaft

In the aftermath of cameral science’s schism in the end of the 19th century (Luhmann 1966), German administrative science rapidly became dominated by jurisprudence. Arguably, this may not have changed all that much. Nonetheless from the 1960s on, Public Administration based on social science’s epistemology could establish itself in German academe. The proposed paper will argue that the concept of cybernetics helped a great deal to form the field of the Neo-Verwaltungswissenschaft by broadening the scholarly discourse after the Second World War: Abandoning the concepts of balance and separation of powers, respectively, cybernetics suggested conceiving of public administration as an integral part of the political-administrative system (PAS). Consequently, public administration no longer was regarded as mere implementer of the executive branch’s will, but became an interesting topic for social science, especially sociology and political science, on its own. As will be argued, cybernetics not only added public administration as a research topic to social science, but coincided with a paradigm shift in theory (e.g. game theory ), methods (e.g. simulations), and the widespread adoption of statistics. Regarding long term effects on Public Administration, the cybernetic model of the state provides an appropriate background to understanding the further development of ‘technical’ Public Administration such as New Public Management. Luhmann, Niklas. 1966. Theorie der Verwaltungswissenschaft. Bestandsaufnahme und Entwurf. Köln, Berlin: Grote.