Public Administration (PA) Genome Project (Brief)

Starting in the year 2000, much effort has been exerted on a long term endeavor known as the Public Administration Genome Project (PAGP). The basic idea is that public administrative behavior has many similarities to the functions of genes in the human body. Moreover, since there are approximately 35,000 genes in each of the human body’s trillions of cells, there are likely to be at least that many “genes” (referred to as single-word “topics” or "cistrons") in public administration. Hence the long term goal for the PAGP is to “map” these topics and clusters thereof (that is, “variables” or "operons"), as well as the relationships ("kineses") between them. The result should be a clearer understanding of public administration actors and their actions, as well as a tool (called "COMPASS") to help use this knowledge productively in every day strategy development and impact identification. 

Currently (as of February 2008) the total number of topics (PA “genes”) is over 5000; variables about 14,000; and bivariate relationships about 15,000. All of these come from 60 sources, including case studies, textbooks, articles, reports, regulations, constitutions, and analogies to the biochemical and genetic world.

The ultimate, quite ambitious objective is to create a database as large as those in the biological and genetic world. For instance, the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has created GenBank -- a collection of over 83 million "sequences" (strings of genes - which might be analogized as variables) from over 400 organisms (as of August, 2006). In addition, a worldwide development of a web-based "Encyclopedia of Life" has started. This is intended to be a compilation of everything scientists know about the earth's 1.8 million recognized species.

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