Public Administration

Module One: Chapters One & Two Summaries and Outlines

The Scope, Purpose, and Formal Structure of Public Administration

Chapters Summary

Chapter one examines the various definitions of Public Administration outlining the core issues that are central to the numerous definition of the subject. It discusses the legal, political, administrative and managerial dimensions of public administrations and also explains the subject matter as well as the purpose of the public administration. It examines the history of public administration in the US focusing on a detail analysis of the effort of Woodrow Wilson to promote the study of Public Administration through his article on the Study of Public Administration published in 1887. The chapter also examines the politics and the administration dichotomy espoused by Wilson. Chapter two on the other hand examines the concept of bureaucracy in the US. It discusses the different types of leadership and structures of bureaucracy and outlines the formal elements of bureaucratic structure as identified by Max Weber. The chapter also examines the manner of operations and the power of employees of bureaucratic institutions and explains how the activities of the bureaucracies affect the general public.

Lesson Outline and Lecture Notes

Definition of Public Administration:

There is no one overarching definition of Public Administration because of the diverse and continuously evolving nature of the subject in the twentieth century. Stillman (2010:4) maintains that generally, the definitions of the subject focuses on: (1) the executive branch of government (yet it is related in important ways to legislative and the judicial branches); (2) the formulation and implementation of public policies; (3) the involvement in a considerable range of problems concerning human behavior and cooperative human effort; (4) a field that can be differentiated in several ways from private administration; (5) the production of public good and services; and (6) a discipline rooted in the law as well as concerned with carrying out laws. The uniqueness of administrative events, which are facilitated by the complexities and many variables that characterized the subject, has made it impossible to provide one encompassing definition of public administration. Therefore, attempt at defining the boundaries, scope and purpose of public administration has become a preoccupation and difficulty facing public administration scholars in recent decade. Two of such definitions of Public Administration are:

Public Administration may be defined as all processes, organizations, and individuals (the latter acting in official positions and roles) associated with carrying out laws and other rules adopted or issued by legislatures, executives, and courts (Milakovich 2006).

Public Administration is the use of managerial, political, and legal theories and processes to fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial governmental mandates for the provision of regulatory and service functions for the society as a whole or for some segments of it ( Rosenbloom and Goldman, 1997)

Understanding Public Administration Today

Stillman (2010) maintains that in order to understand Public Administration in modern period, it is essential to examine the rationale for creating the field as outlined in the essay of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is considered the founder of Public Administration in the US because he wrote the first essay on Public Administration titled “The Study of Public Administration”, which was published in the Political Science Quarterly in 1887. In the paper, Wilson called for the necessity for a new field to administer the US Constitution in its second century. In the first century of the adoption of the US Constitution, events like the geographical isolation of the US, the absence of national security threat, the agrarian self-sufficiency, and limited demands for public service, etc, insulated US from the successfully studying Public Administration.

However, the technological innovation like the automobile and telephone, the international involvement in the Spanish – American war, and the increasing public engagement in democratic government created the atmosphere for the expanded and effective administrative service. Therefore, Wilson advocated for the development of Public Administration to handle important administrative services that will ensure the survival of the Constitution. He called for the division of government into two spheres (1) politics, whereby the decision about what government should do are handled by the majority of elected representatives, and (2) administration, which serves to carry out the dictates of the populace through efficient procedures relatively free from political meddling. (Refer to pages 6 -15 of your textbook for the full article Woodrow Wilson). Stillman (2010:5) maintains that Wilson found it difficult to reconcile the notion of politics that focus on constitutional democracy and centers on popular control and participation with the theories of administration that stresses efficiency, professional administration, and influence. He argues that in spite of the fact modern administrative scholars do not agree with drawing a hard and fast line between politics and administration, there are certain merits to the issue raised by Wilson which helps to understand Public Administration.

The Study of Public Administration in the US: The Eminently Practical Science

Unlike other countries, the study of Public Administration in the United States can be understood only within the context of a radically antistatist political tradition (Stillman 2010: 17). He argues that core framing document, US Constitution, is silent on civil service, budget, executive departments, planning, or Public Administration, which are considered essential to promoting effective performance of the government. Instead excessive limitations – federalism, separation of powers, periodic elections, and enumerated powers, the bill of rights, etc – were placed on the governments by the Great Charter of 1787. These limitations were aimed at negating public power but not to enhance it to secure the “life” “liberty” and “the pursuit of independence”, which are the embodiment of the Declaration of Independence. The founders framed the US Constitution to establish a strict social contract between the government and the public to provide defense, courts, foreign affairs, trade relations, and to coin money, etc. This made it difficult to accommodate the positive administrative actions and thoughts of the twenty-first century. The immigrants, who were fleeing harsh state maltreatment of communism, and fascism etc, further reinforced the American belief in antistatism in the seventeenth century, which solidified the perception of the nation state as evil and unnecessary.

The Uniqueness of the American Public Administration Thought

The American antistatism helps to understand why Public Administration arrived late as an academic study in this country. It was not until 1887, a decade after the adoption of the US Constitution that the first article on Public Administration was published by Woodrow Wilson. Moreover, the first textbook on Public Administration – An Introduction to the Study of Public Administration by Leonard White (1926) took almost nearly four decades to be published. In addition, it was not until the 1930s and 1940s that the growth of Public Administration research and training of significance took shape in this country. The development of Public Administration in the form of a professional civil service, military and diplomatic corps became urgent priorities in the late nineteenth century due to contextual forces, which compelled Americans to establish an administrative enterprise to respond to the closing of the frontier, massive migration from abroad, and rapid technological, urbanized, industrial change, which was associated with the harsh “economic boom and bust”. The American Public Administration developed in a haphazard and unorganized way from grass root reforms filled with protestant moral and democratic idealism unlike the European Public Administration, which was developed in response to top-down rational administrative science facilitated by top-down state building. As a result the US Public Administration or administrative thought has always stayed in a flux, chasing shifting constitutional-democracy of each new American generation and has never been defined as a fixed doctrine or set of doctrines.

POSDCORB Orthodoxy 1926 – 1946

At earlier indicated, Public Administration did not start early in the US because of the antistatist element. Some have argued that intellectual date for the beginning of the American Public Administration was 1926 when Leonard White wrote The Introduction to the Study of Public Administration in which he used the ideals of POSDCORB as guidelines for American civil service and Public Administration. POSDCORB is stands for planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting and it was considered the logical sequence for practicing a good administration. White applied this applied this administrative principle in his book and projected it as the right doctrine for the American civilian government. The book emerged at the time that the first batch of students with MPA were about to graduate from major Universities and the administrative doctrine became the core principle for addressing the problems of the great depression and World War II. POSDCORB was also an academic rationale for establishing graduate programs that advance research and it was also applied at all levels of government from the federal, states and locals.

Social Science Heterodoxy 1947 – 1967

After the United States has successfully addressed the problem of the Great Depression and fascism, it emerged as a postwar free world leader and engaged in a fierce cold war with communism for four decades. The politics of the cold war intend shaped the American society, its public administration, and its administrative science in significant ways. The activities of the cold war drove America into self protectionist frenzy of administrative state building that facilitated massive military industrial complex in the form of Pentagon as well as other domestic programs like the space program, educational assistance, scientific research and the National Defense Highway Act (1955) to promote national security and also beat the Russians. In the midst of these, new Public Administration scholars like Robert Dahl wrote a seminal Public Administrative Review essay that challenged a rethinking of the normative assumptions underlying American Public Administration. Dahl in his “The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems” (1947) also called for the expansion of the conception of human behavior beyond the view of a narrow, technical “rational man” to explain how human act in an organization in a more realistic way. He also called for the embracement of a broader historical, economic and social condition as influential factors that affect administrative results. Other scholars like Herbert Simon also published a book the same year as Dahl which made a profound and original theoretical impact on the postwar administrative science in the US. Simon’s book Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Process in Administrative Organization (1947) used logical –positivist and continental analytic philosophy to analyzed the POSDCORB and concluded that POSDCORB has failed to meet it true scientific methodology. He uses an entirely interdisciplinary decision making model and theory known as bounded rationality to explain administrative behavior. Other scholars like Dwight Waldo, Norton Long, James Fesler, Carl Friedrich and Herman Finer became involved after Simon which brought competing ideas to explain the Public Administration. Subsequent scholars brought variety of rich ideas from economics, political science, psychology, comparative studies, decision sciences, business and other disciplines to provide understanding of the numerous administrative challenges at home and overseas. American Public Administration therefore became complex, far broader, more theoretical and even academically more respectable, enriched by multiple doctrines, methodologies, ideas, new data and factual information. The field also moved into social science departments in universities and the way of thinking and dominant value became more dynamic and process-oriented, which emphasized realism, behaviorism, and science.

The Reassertion of Democratic Idealism, 1968-1988

Democratic idealism is attributed to the introduction of New Public Administration which challenged the old ways of thinking from the left and focused on public choice economics championed by Minnowbrookers and Ostrom to analyzed Public Administration. The seven legacies of the democratic idealism are: (1) Clashing moral absolutes, (2) The two Es and one L, (3) A cry for relevancy (4) The fragmentation – decline? – of generalist Public Administration, (5) The proliferation of subfields and techniques, (6) A field in intellectual crisis, (7) A widening gap between theory and practice.

The Refounding Movement, 1989 to the Present Day

Activities of the twenty-first century like the end of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin wall made US the sole superpower, which came with a new global role and responsibilities that also affected the governmental challenges and administrative services of the US. This also affected the American Public Administration, which reformed itself to meet the new challenges of the American government. Seven school of thought evidently portrays this new thinking in the modern American Public Administration: (1) The Reinventors (2) The Communitarians (3) The VPI refounders (4) The interpretivists (5) The tools-makers (6) The new bureaucratic analysts (7) From management to governance

Conclusion: The Public Administration as “The Eminently Practical Science”

The US Public Administration will continue to be dominated by its unique brand of inductive, experimental, reformist mindset, closely interconnected to the practicalities of coping with the immediate needs of democratic governance unlike Public Administration in other countries. The greatest strength of the field of study in the US will be it dynamism to respond to the immediate public demand of the moment.

The Formal Structure: The Concept of Bureaucracy

Most Americans have a bad image of bureaucracy and disrespect and criticize bureaucracy. Generally, bureaucracy is best described with emotional words like inefficiency, red tape, stupidity, secrecy, smugness, aggressive, and self-interest.

Definition of Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is the general, formal structural elements of a type of human organization, particularly a governmental organization. It is the lens through which we may dispassionately view what Carl Friedrich has appropriately tagged “the core of modern government”.

Max Weber, a German Social Scientist is credited for the development of the most comprehensive, classic formulation of the characteristics of bureaucracy through his analysis of different religions to show how ideas are linked with the evolution of political, economic, and social systems.

Weber believed that civilization evolved from the primitive and mystical to rational and complex and he maintained that human nature progressed slowly from primitive religions and mythologies to an increasing theoretical and technical sophistication. Weber identifies three ideal types of authority to explain why individual have historically obeyed their rulers:

Traditional authority of primitive societies: This type of authority rested on established belief in the sanctity of tradition. People obeyed the rulers based on traditions that the family of the rulers always rules and so they have legitimacy to rule and to be obeyed. This type of leadership is characterized by time, precedent, and tradition, which gives the rulers legitimacy in the eye of the ruled. Examples of this type of leaders are Kings and Queens who rule on royal blood ties.
Charismatic authority: This type of leadership is based on the personal qualities and attractiveness of leaders. Charismatic leaders are self-appointed leaders who inspire belief because of their extraordinary, almost superhuman qualification. Examples of this type of leaders are military leaders, warrior chiefs, popular party leaders, and founders of religions.
Legal –Rational authority: This type of leadership is the basis of modern civilization and it is based on the legitimacy of pattern of normative rules and the rights of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue command. Legitimacy and obedience is based on a legally established, impersonal set of rules rather than individual personal ruler. The legal-rational leadership vets power in an office instead of the person who occupies the office and therefore anyone can become the leader so far as the person comes to the office through the established and accepted rules. Weber argues that the legal – rational authority is the basis of bureaucracy and that the formal structure of bureaucracy rested on three important formal structure and attributes of bureaucracy, which are (1) division of labor, (2) hierarchical order, and (3) impersonal rules.

Characteristics of Bureaucracy

Official jurisdictional areas are fixed and ordered by rules, laws and administrative regulations:
Regular activities required for the purpose of the bureaucratically governed structure are distributed in fixed way as official duties
The authority to give command required for the discharge of official duties is distributed in a stable way and is strictly delimited by rules concerning the coercive means, physical, sacredoral or otherwise, which may be placed at the disposal of the official
Methodical provision is made for the regular and continuous fulfillment of these duties and for the execution of the corresponding rights, and only persons who have the generally regulated qualification to serve is employed.
Hierarchical order of office and authority: Office are ordered in system of super and subordination whereby higher officers supervise the activities of lower officers and there is an imbedded possibility of appealing the decision of lower officers to its higher authority

The management of modern office is based on written documents (files): All activities are properly documented and filed for continuity and administration

Office management is modern, specialized and are held by expertly trained officials
When fully developed, the official activity demands full capacity of officials
The management of the office follows general rules that are mostly stable, less exhaustive and can be learned

The Position of the Official

The position of the bureaucrat is based on expert training, is held for a long period of time and is has special examination as prerequisite for employment.
The personal position of the official
has social esteem compared to the governed, is governed by rules and the official enjoys special privileges
the official is normally appointed by superior authority. However, we have some offices in modern times that are elected such as the county mayor position
normally the official’s job is based on tenure ( holds the position for life)
the official receives compensation in the form of a fixed salary for the office
the official is set for a career with the hierarchical order of the civil service and can obtain promotion based on experience and grades achieved in required examinations

Technical advantages of the bureaucratic organization: the fully developed type of bureaucratic organization is characterized by technical advantages, precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction, and of personal and material cost.

The permanent character of the bureaucratic machine: once fully established, bureaucracy is among the social structures that are difficult to destroy

Economic and social consequence of bureaucracy: the bureaucracy has social and economic consequences because it engages in the distribution of economic and social power and the direction that the power directing the bureaucracy offers to it.

The power position of bureaucracy:

The issue of bureaucratic power has become controversial following the emergence of privatization, interest groups, non official expert, non expert lay representatives, the establishment of local, inter-local, or central parliamentary or other representative bodies or other occupational association that seem to compete with the bureaucratic organization. Moreover, the bureaucrats always face some sort of opposition from the political master for the way the expert carries out his/her routine responsibilities. This statement is true whether the master is the people who through their tax dollars administered by the bureaucrats become the indirect boss of the bureaucrats or the legislators who through their power of the purse offer substantial control over the bureaucratic organization.

How to analyze Public Administration Case Studies

Case study analysis is one of the best ways that the students of public administration understands the reality of the discipline. Case study analysis helps the students to connect the theoretical and practical aspects of public administration and provide the necessary tool for making a difference upon completion of public administration courses. Moreover, case studies analysis helps to develop and improve management skills and leadership abilities (Stillman 2010). Therefore, many of the discussion questions and assignments in public administration courses are case studies analysis. The questions below provide a guideline on how to analyze case studies to obtain the maximum understanding of public administration issues.

Stillman (2010) list four important questions that help in analyzing cases as follows:

What is the central problem of the case? (summarize the central problem of the case)
What is the history or the major factor in the development of the policy/management problem?
What alternative or motivation exited for resolving the problem?
What possible solution would have been best for addressing the problem
What are the likely cost/benefits of adopting the solution?

Reference:

Stillman II, Richard J (2010) Public Administration: Concepts and Cases Ninth Edition Wadsworth: Cengage Learning

Stillman II, Richard J (2010) Instructional Manual for Public Administration: Concepts and Cases

Preview…………….

Public administration can be described as all the processes, organizations and individuals that are associated with carrying out laws and other rules that may be adopted or issued by legislatures. Therefore, the public administration makes use of any form of leadership authority be it political, managerial or legal to be able to execute either of the three arms of the government, namely, legislature, executive or the judiciary for the purpose of serving citizens. ……….

APA 91 words