Definition - Public Administration, An Introduction

Introduction to Public Administration

As an aspect of governmental activity, Public Administration is very old and it is as old as human history. The term Public Administration began to appear during the 17th century which signified to separate the absolute monarch's administration of public affairs from his private Affairs. Activities like maintenance of law and order and defense are undertaken in public interest in every society which are performed by a system of organization – Public Administration.

Decision makers (Elected official or monarch) set the goals and Public Administration performs these works for the realization of those goals. The modem administrative state has made the scope of Public Administration larger each day which we can witness in its growing importance in

•           the conduct of human affairs and  the birth of numerous public laws,
•           growth of public profession,
•           accumulation of huge arms
•           Increasing coverage of taxes and public expenditures etc  

Let’s see the domain of state functions in various countries:

1.  It is almost all-comprehensive in socialist countries like Former USSR, Vietnam, Combodia, Venezuela etc.   
2.  In the capitalist states like USA, UK , it has expanded their functions under compulsion  of welfare considerations.  
3. 'Third-world' countries (post-colonial) have embarked upon Development Administration to speedily bring about state sponsored socio-economic reconstructions.

Aspects of Public Administration

To look Public Administration in terms of an activity, it is an aspect of more generic concept i.e., Administration which has been defined as a cooperative effort towards achieving some common goals. It can be found in various institutional settings such as a business firm, a hospital, a university, a government departments, etc.Thus Public Administration, as an aspect of this generic concept, is that kind of administration which operates within a specific political setting and functions is an instrument for translating political decisions into reality. 

Or we can plainly put, it is "the action part of government, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are realized".  

According to Nigro and Nigro (1980) - five important characteristics of Public Administration:

• A cooperative group effort in a public setting.
• Covers all three branches (legislative. executive and judicial) - and their interrelationships.
• Has role in the formulation of public policy, and is thus a part of the political process.
• Different from private administration in significant ways.
• Closely associated with many private groups and individuals in providing services.

Common definitions of Public Administration by Scholars/Thinkers

Public Administration is a specialized academic field which essentially deals with the machinery and procedures of government activities. 

Public Administration is - decision making, planning the work to be done, formulating objectives and goals, working with the legislature and citizen organizations to gain public support and funds for government programmes, establishing and revising organisation, directing and supervising employees, providing leadership, communicating and receiving communications, determining work methods and procedures, appraising performance, exercising controls and other functions performed by government executives and supervisors.

 Public Administration is defined by some well known scholars as follows:

1. "Public Administration is detailed and systematic execution of public law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration" - L.D. White.
2. Public Administration is "the art and science of management applied to the affairs of the State" - D. Waldo.
3. "By Public Administration is meant in common usage the activities of the executive branches of the National, State and Local Governments'' - H. Simon.

'Public' as the name suggest in ‘Public Administration’ can be interpreted formally to mean ‘government'. Thus, it is government administration, the focus being specifically on public bureaucracy. So to understand different type’s states/Government, and what we can understand by the term 'public',let’s look into some of the terminologies/type of states:

• Absolute Monarch: The King/Queen/Emperor is the head of the state and government and exercises unlimited/absolute power for life. Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc are the examples of Absolute Monarch.
• Capitalist State: It is the State where the ownership and control of capital/Means of Production is in private hands. USA is an example of Capitalist State.
• Police State: A state where its political stability is dependent upon police supervision of the ordinary citizen and the police are given necessary powers. [In subsequent post, I will give elaborate explanation of police state]
• Socialist State: The country where the means of production, distribution and exchange are owned and controlled by the community as whole such as the former USSR.
• Welfare State: It is the state which provides various necessary provisions for under-served or deprived sections of its people.

India can be termed as a welfare state, as the state is taking up many social development programs like Ayushman Bharat, Mid-day Meals programs etc to serve various section of undeserved population of the country. 

Thus the term Public in public administration would signify its role and responsibilities according to the types of states/governments of the country or the region.The polity of the state determines the work or responsibilities of the public administration of the state. So, In India the Public Administration would be responsible for various activities such as Public Health, Transports and aviation, Construction of road and bridges, Law and order, Policing activities, defense etc. The scope of PA is very huge and in order to understand or study the Public Administration, we need to understand the Scope of the subject in hand. Otherwise our study would be pointless or would be difficult concertize the matter of subject. 
[In Future, I will post explain all this terminologies in debt in order to have a better understand the polity of such types of states].

Characteristics of Public Administration as a discipline 

Public Administration as a discipline is continuously evolving over decades because of various reasons like ever changing societal conditions and new developments in the allied Social Sciences. The intention to improve Governmental Performance, which was the original disciplinary interest, has led to its separation from Political Science. With the aim to reform and make administrative agencies more businesslike and bring productivity, as a discipline, it has tilted towards the ‘management sciences’.

Today, the ever increasing reliance on administrative and managerial tools and principles such as budgeting, management techniques, application of operations research methods, computer technology, etc. This is the clear indication of heavy management orientation which robs the discipline of its social science character. So in short, we can say it has distanced itself from Political Science and almost merged itself into management studies.[In future post, we are going to learn more about the evolution and history of Public Administration]

With the objective of producing better public managers/administrators, the discipline has gradually come to assume a vocational character, like the management institutes produce a cadre of managers for the business domain. Thus, we can observe here, there are shifts of disciplinary focus now and then, so, these have been questioned by many. It is being acknowledged that Public Administration has borrowed knowledge from multiple disciplines but at the same time, it is also a valid point to mention the concerns of Public Administration of today which are:

• Nation Building
• Social Regulation
• Public Administration on development etc.

But the discipline needs not be a copy of private management practices though it brought into use of management sciences and its techniques.There is a basic alignment of Public organizations towards public interest which brings in certain necessary constrains in decision making and bureaucratic behavior. But such a thing is lacking in private and profit oriented organizations.

The bureaucracy has to follow whether they like it or not certain administrative norms which are quite different from private management, because they have to work under the compulsions of public law and under the glare of open public and legislative criticism. 

So, there are certain desirable qualities of a bureaucrat, such as certain sensitivity to politics, readiness to appreciate the citizen’s demands and multiple interests of clientele. On the other hand, the manager of private organization may be inward-looking and secretive [which may not be desirable for the public servants].

What did Golembiewski say?

    So, this dilemma of Public Administration as a discipline was tried to address by Golembiewski in terms of choice of Locus and Focus. Let’s learn more on these two terms for a while.

Locus – Position or Place where something occurred i.e., the institutional ‘where’ of the field. Say Public administration as a discipline was in most case related to Political Science (field) but at times with fields like History, Economics etc.     

Focus – Point of Interest or specialized ‘what’ of the field. In recent time, there is increasing tendency to lay focus on administrative techniques [not much on public policy]

Further Golembiewski has highlighted that the shifting paradigms i.e. substantive concerns of Public administration could be studied in terms of locus or focus – while Locus has been sharply defined, the Focus may be ignored and vice-versa. 

In my next post, I will be covering the Scope and Domain of Public Administration. So guys, keep visiting my blog and boost your knowledge on Public Administration.