The arts and public administration: How artworks can be a source of knowledge, inspiration, motivation, and understanding in public administration

We argue that art can be a source of knowledge, inspiration, motivation, and understanding in PA and can thus enrich the field. The hermeneutics of art can be especially helpful in PA when studying the moral dimension of the value-laden practice, for example when answering the question "when is governance good governance?" Due to the current managerial state of the discipline and practice of PA – even though public governance is value laden – normativity of governance has seldom taken center stage in the study of PA. Furthermore, we argue that this current managerial state of PA means that "public administration, as a field of academic study and realm of management and policy practice, has since its origins been cut off, for the most part, from a rich source of cultural nourishment. This source is the humane, provocative, imagination-firing qualities of the arts, both fine and applied" (Goodsell & Murray, 1995a, p. 4).