It was established in 1923[1] and was ranked in the top of its field by a 1983 survey.

[2] In 2021, the journal was ranked as second in the field of public administration.

[3] One of its founders was the Liberal and later Labour statesman Richard Haldane (1st Viscount of Haldane), and the journal awards an annual prize in his honour to the most distinguished practitioner essay published in Public Administration in that year.

"[7] Initially, the journal was edited by state of the Institute, though the journal elected Norman Chester from Nuffield College, Oxford as its first academic editor-in-chief in 1943.

After the Institute's closure in 1992, the journal's editor approached Blackwell Publishers about taking over ownership and distribution of the journal to prevent its closure.