​The comparative approach to the study of public administration and policy has started to attract the attention of scholars and academic institutions during the past few decades. Future generations of public administrators and policy scholars and analysts thus need training that helps them address increasingly complex problems in scholarly analysis and development management, and draw lessons in implementation from different countries with an appreciation for culture and context. This article overviews the development of the fields of public administration and policy, Arab scholars’ approaches to the development of both fields, as well as the main topics under study. Following this overview, this article recommends a number of issues that Arab scholars and academics in public administration and policy can focus on in their comparative studies in order to contribute to some of the real needs of reform in the region. It conclude with stressing the importance of understanding context and culture in research and teaching of public administration and policy, and then comment on the main contributions to this issue.