Center for Public Administrators
A civil society organization that strengthens democratic checks and balances .
My website on how to get published in peer reviewed journals is at https://publishpeerreview.org/ It has the information I wish I knew when I started as a practitioner with no academic connections, and eventually became an author, peer reviewer and Associate Editor for peer reviewed journals.
I am honored to receive a 2025 Artists & Scholars Project Grant from the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County. The grant will support my research and writing on Guerrilla Government.
David Reed proposed a research idea at the Sunshine Fest conference at Johns Hopkins University, that civil society should develop reference guides for the wokers in government agencies who respond to Freedom of Information requests. The guides would provide workers with the legal justifications and sample language for making the fullest disclosure provided by law. Agencies’ official procedures for Freedom of Information are often “undercontrolling rules” which superficially comply with law but which workers cannot implement because they are vague, contradictory and require actions that management will not accept. The proposal is at https://pubadmin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/sunshine-fest-research-idea-guide-for-foia-responders.pdf
David Reed is the 2024 recipient of the Larkin Dudley award from the American Society for Public Administration, The award recognizes accomplishments in practitioner engagement.
Thank you to Professor Sarah Young for inviting me to guest lecture at her research methods class . I’m happy to guest lecture on any aspect of my work on Non-Hierarchical Public Administration.
Public Administration practitioners can and should publish in peer reviewed journals. It increases the credibility of their first-hand knowledge, it increases the credibility of the practitioner as an expert, and it adds their experience to the permanent, searchable body of knowledge. It also strengthens the journals by making them more credible and relevant. A webinar on March 5 from the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) will demystify the process of getting published in peer reviewed journals, and show how to avoid the pitfalls that often confront practitioners as authors. We will also discuss a new initiative by Public Administration Review to involve practitioners. Our speakers are:
* Dr. Annette N. Brown, Chief Strategy and Evidence Officer at FHI 360. Author of “Why should practitioners publish their research in journals?”
* Dr. Ronald Sanders, President and CEO at Publica Virtu LLC. Associate Editor for the Practically Speaking section in the journal Public Administration Review.
* David S. Reed, Founder at Center for Public Administrators. Associate Editor for the journal Public Integrity.
Register for free at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5826071759418963549
This peer-reviewed book includes David Reed’s chapter, “How Public Administrators Empower Themselves”. The chapter reveals lesser-known strategies by which public sector workers act against the wishes of their superiors to serve the public interest as the worker sees it.
https://www.routledge.com/Empowering-Public-Administrators-Ethics-and-Public-Service-Values/Olejarski-Neal/p/book/9781032651750
James Madison proposed the radical idea that individuals working in subordinate offices of the government should be “sentinel over the public rights” rather than just obeying their superiors. What convinced him of that? He had been involved in the nascent nation’s first whistleblower scandal. David Reed’s new article in Online Library of Liberty tells the story. https://oll.libertyfund.org/reading-room/2023-11-20-reed-madison-disobedience-public-interest
Sometimes you don’t blow the whistle, just polish it bright and shiny so officials see it and worry that somebody might blow it. My working paper on Whistle Polishing has been accepted by the SocArXiv moderator and is now open-access. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6gba2/
My proposal has been accepted to present Whistle Polishing: A New Strategy for Guerrilla Government, at NECoPA 2023. I’m looking forward to a great conference. https://northeastpublicadmin.org/
Center for Public Administrators 