​This article looks at why Arab public administration scholarship has lagged behind the needs of political and administrative reform and situating public administration within the context of political governance. This article draws insights from the development of the field in the US experience, its fuzzy boundaries, and value conflicts resulting from the three tributaries that have fed into its structure and content, namely law, business administration, and political science. The study concludes with a discussion of how different origins and political context have meant public administration research in the Arab world is disconnected from the ontological and methodological diversity that contribute to the richness of the field in the US experience.