mapping the discipline of public administration on the basis of isi articles

the main purpose of this article is to draw the map of the discipline of public administration. due to the heuristic nature of the research and also regarding the fact that the investigation is a uni-variable study, the research does not require any hypothesis. the main question of the present research is: ‘based on the scientific articles of “isi” covering the years 2000 to 2010, how feasible is it to draw the map of he discipline of public administration map?’ in order to answer the above question, in the first place, the articles obtainable at isi on public administration were reviewed, and then the closest fields to this discipline were identified, and finally, the map of the discipline of public administration was drawn. research findings indicated that there were 233 topical areas in the field of public administration. exercising the ‘pareto rule’, the above topical areas were reduced to 46, and further employing the cluster analysis, the 46 topical areas were reduced to 12. research findings revealed that ‘economics’ was the closest field to public administration, and anthropology the remotest one. further, research results also demonstrated the environmental factors and conditions that influenced the trend of changes in public administration during the period under, thus influencing the development cycle of the articles. to make the discipline more meaningful and indigenous, the obtained results were analyzed and a number of suggestions offered.