pubar-theory-building

Theory & Argument Building (pubar-theory-building)

At PAR a result is not a contribution until it is attached to an argument public-management scholars can use elsewhere and a practical implication a manager can act on. This skill turns findings into theory: explicit mechanisms, scope conditions, and observable implications — in the idiom of public administration, where context (institutions, law, political control, public values) is central.

When to trigger

• The empirics are strong but the "so what / why" is thin
• A reviewer said the paper is "atheoretical," "ad hoc," or "just a program description"
• You need to state mechanisms, assumptions, and scope conditions explicitly
• A Conceptualizing Public Administration thought piece (theory is the whole contribution)

Build the argument (by mode of work)

Empirical paper with a theory

1. Concept — define the key constructs precisely (e.g., red tape, goal ambiguity, PSM, network integration); distinguish from neighbors and from informal usage.
2. Mechanism — the behavioral/organizational story: which actor (bureaucrat, manager, citizen, politician) does what, under which incentives, constraints, and public-sector context.
3. Observable implications — what we should see if the mechanism operates (and what we should not see). These become the tests in pubar-research-design.
4. Scope conditions — which governance level, sector, or institutional setting the argument holds in. Portability ≠ universality; public-sector context is a feature, not noise.

Conceptual / theory piece (Conceptualizing PA)

• State the field-level problem the concept addresses before the synthesis.
• Build the argument through reasoning and the literature, not hypotheses; engage the strongest counter-view and rival framings.
• Show what the reframing lets the field see, measure, or manage that it could not before.

The dual test (PAR-specific)

Ask two questions:

1. Portability — Could a scholar in another PA subfield import this mechanism/concept? If only your exact case works, tighten it into a general logic or reframe (back to pubar-topic-selection).
2. Practice — Can the mechanism be stated as something a manager could change? If the mechanism has no managerial lever, the Evidence for Practice points will ring hollow.

Anti-patterns

• "Hypothesizing after results are known" (HARKing) — state theory before tests; preregister where possible
• A mechanism named but never made observable
• Universal claims with no scope conditions, ignoring public-sector context
• A practitioner "so-what" that does not follow from the mechanism (decorative Evidence for Practice)
• Burying the argument under the empirics — the contribution paragraph must state it plainly

Output format

【Core claim】one sentence
【Mechanism】the behavioral/organizational story + the managerial lever
【Observable implications】testable consequences → research-design
【Scope conditions】which level / sector / institutional setting
【Portability】who else in PA can use this argument
【Practice so-what】the Evidence-for-Practice seed
【Next】pubar-research-design

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — measurement and analysis tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — PAR scope and contribution expectations