TOWARD AN IMAGINATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A PROPOSAL FOR MINNOWBROOK IV

Abstract

This study advances Imaginative Public Administration (IPA) as a Minnowbrook IV-level paradigm that reconfigures governance by treating imagination as an epistemology, AI as a cognitive partner, symbolic meaning as the core of legitimacy, and strategic capital allocation as the foundation of sovereign resilience. Based on document analysis, the study positions IPA as a substantive departure from Minnowbrook I-III, portraying the state as a cognitive-symbolic ecosystem structured around three Wings and two strategic Extensions. The IPA Policy Cycle supplants traditional linear models with an imagination-driven process strengthened by power-market, capital-market, and risk-market feedback loops. Although this enhances the state’s anticipatory capacity, it simultaneously introduces dual-use dangers, including managerial overreach and the fabrication of engineered legitimacy. The study ultimately finds that IPA forms a coherent paradigm for governing contemporary hybrid systems composed of states, markets, non-state forces, and AI infrastructures.