Behavioral Public Administration: Connecting Psychology with European Public Administration Research

Abstract

Well-known public administration scholars have stressed the importance of psychological research for the study of public administration. Neighboring disciplines such as economics and political science, have witnessed the emergence of the psychology-informed subfields of behavioral economics and political psychology. Along the same lines, an emerging behavioral public administration is an approach characterized by the interdisciplinary analysis of public administration from the micro-perspective of individual behavior and attitudes by drawing upon recent advances in our understanding of the underlying psychology and behavior of individuals and groups. In the chapter we connect past calls for a behavioral public administration with current research in public administration, and outline a path for future integration of public administration and psychology in European public administration.