What is it about?

Wisdom is increasingly recognized as necessary for better government and governance, and as an antidote to the decline of liberal democratic political behaviour. This article explains what wisdom is, how it works, and how it links to social and institutional structures. In doing so, it provides a framework for public administrators to rethink their work, their workplaces, and the institutional frameworks in which they are situated.

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Why is it important?

Wisdom is a new but old way to consider individual, collective, and civic life. Humility, courage, virtue and generosity are foregrounded in wisdom models and these are the very core of traditional democratic and civic values. Such values are under threat to the detriment of the common good, and this article will help readers to understand how traditional, time-tested liberal democratic values work and how they can be restored.

Perspectives

I don't want to sit back and say that the great macro challenges of our time have overwhelmed me, I want to be part of the solution. This is what has motivated me to commit my professional life as a research and higher education teacher to studying wisdom. Wisdom is a viable, practical and time-tested solution.

Professor David Rooney
Macquarie University

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This page is a summary of: Wisdom in Public Administration: Looking for a Sociology of Wise Practice, Public Administration Review, July 2008, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00909.x.
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