Development of Public Administration Research with a Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Recently, several studies adopted bibliometric methodology to estimate the development of the field of public administration (PA). However, only a small scope of journals was covered in their analyses. Few of those investigated the evolution of the entire field. To make a progress, this paper included a 19-year timespan, 53 journals, and more than 20,000 items for analysis in a bibliometric way. Both the activity and the quality indicators of research results were applied from the bibliometric perspective with 3-year and 5-year citation windows at three aggregation levels including journal, country, and institution by using publications in PA indexed in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). “Resident” journal is proposed as a new concept to explore differences between traditional and emerging research forces. The results suggest that resident journals maintain a large advantage over other journals in terms of higher quality journal indicators and citation impact indicators. Moreover, international and national collaboration shows a growth tendency, especially for the international type. The majority of active institutions are from the US and the UK, which indicates their dominant position over others. This study provides more comprehensive comparisons through large-scale data and acknowledged methods to explore the development of PA field research.