During the last two decades Public Administration, both as a field of study as well as a focus of serious academic research, experienced what some scholars refer to as "a re-founding movement," or a fundamental rethinking and redirection of its basic purposes, approaches, methods, and ideas. The causes of these re-founding trends remain unclear: were they due to the end of the Cold War? Emergence of a global economy? The rise of America as the last global superpower? Shifting demographics? A pervasive information revolution spawned, in large part, by the creation of an easily accessible, instantaneous, world-wide web? The post-9/11 war on terror at home and abroad? Katrina and other monumental natural disasters? New challenges of environmental warming, a global AIDS epidemic, unchecked immigration, spread of nuclear weapons, and many more issues that demand urgent public attention, discussion, and action?
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