ANÍBAL BASCUÑÁN AND HISPANIC AMERICAN ADMINISTRATIVE THINKING

Abstract

The article examines the administrative thinking of Aníbal Bascuñán Valdés, deri- ved from the analysis of his book Elementos de Ciencia de la Administración Pú- blica (1963). It highlights the value of Bascuñán to the intellectual history of the discipline, for being the first Hispanic American thinker who without hesitation supported the autonomous status of public administration and for conceiving it as scientific knowledge under an ontic approach, where his being is endowed with an identity and able to develop principles. It is concluded that the work of Bascuñán is one of the most developed within the discipline during the 1960s, above all because it considers public administration as an autonomous science and social science.