Patricia M. Shields

Patricia M. Shields
Born	1951
Main interests	Research methods, civil-military relations, gender studies, public administration, pragmatism, privatization
Notable ideas	Applying pragmatism to public administration
Influences John Dewey, Jane Addams, Charles Moskos, Herbert Parnes, Robert Backoff, Morris Janowitz

Patricia M. Shields (born 1951) is a Professor of Political Science at Texas State University. She is also the current editor of the journal Armed Forces & Society. Patricia M. Shields is notable for her publications focusing on research methods, civil-military relations, gender issues, and the importance of classical pragmatism in public administration. She received a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland - College Park, an MA in Economics and a PhD in Public Administration from The Ohio State University.

Patricia M. Shields is perhaps most widely known as a scholar for promoting the classical pragmatism of C. S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey as an "organizing principle" for the discipline of public administration. Her publication, "The Community of inquiry: Classical Pragmatism and Public Administration" (2003), began an ongoing, interdisciplinary, academic debate in the journal Administration & Society. She applies the feminist pragmatism of Jane Addams to Public Administration.

Shields is also notable in the public administration community for utilizing pragmatism to advance research methodology in the field. For example, Shields is responsible in part for popularizing Dewey's notion of the working hypothesis as a method of preliminary, qualitative, exploratory research, in addition to the concept of the practical ideal type for program evaluation.