Fifth Revised and Enlarge mn 2004 Public DXUineiiceeAtBCOyN Concepts and Theories ONY 14 sy. 01)STERLING PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED A-59, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-Il, New Delhi-110020. Tel : 26387070, 26386209; Fax : 91-11-26383788 E-mail : info@sterlingpublishers.com Website : www.sterlingpublishers.com Public Administration: Concepts and Theories © 1994, Rumki Basu ISBN; 81 207 27630 Third Revised and Enlarged Edition 1994 Reprint 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001 Fourth Revised Edition 2003 Fifth Revised Edition 2004 Reprint 2006, 2007 2008- 2009 All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in INDIA Published by Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi-110 020. Laserset at Vikas Compographics, New Delhi-110020. Printed at |Sterting Publishers Pvt. Lid., New Dethi-110020.CONTENTS Preface to the New Edition v Preface to the First Edition vi 1, Nature and Scope of Public Administration 1 Meaning and Definition; Public and Private Administration; An Art or a Science; Wilsonian Vision; Evolution and Growth; New Public Administration, Minnowbrook II, Ongoing Concerns; Scope 2._Changing Perspectives in Public Administration: Current Concerns Changing Perspectives; Public Choice Approach; New Public Management; Entrepreneurial Government; Good Governance: Concept and Application; Streamlining Government; Contemporary Concerns 3._ Approaches and Relations with Other Subjects 65 Main Approaches — Past and Present; Historical, Legal, Institutional, Behavioural, Systems, The Closed and Open Models, Structural- Functional, Ecological, Public Policy, Political Economy, Marxian Traditions; Relations with History, Law, Economics, Political Science and Sociology 4, Importance and Challenges in Societies 84 Role in the Modern State; Attaining Democratic and Socialistic Goals; Challenges in Developed Societies; Importance of Public Administration in a Developing Society 5._Administration, Polity and Society 103 Interaction with Historical and Political Legacies; Administration and Social Structure; Impact of a Political System; Administration and Economic Structure; An Integrated Perspective 6._ Theories of Organisation 128 Scientific Management; Classical Theory; Human Relations Theory; Bureaucratic Theory; Post-Weberian Modelsx Public Administration: Concepts and Theories ‘L_Administrative Behaviour 2.1 id‘? Bases of Decision-Making; Mary Parker Follett; Decision-Making and Herbert Simon; Theories of Leadership —C I Bernard and Others; Motivation and Morale (Maslow, McGregor, Argyris, Herzberg and Likert) 8. Principles of Organisation 185 Hierarchy; Unity of Command; Span of Control; Authority; Responsibility; Supervision; Integration Versus Disintegration; Coordination; Delegation; Centralisation and Decentralisation; Issues in Field-Headquarters Relationship Structure of Organisation 223 Types of Chief Executive; Functions of the Chief Executive; Line, Staff_and Auxiliary Agencies; Departments, Boards and Commissions; Public Enterprises, Staff Agencies in India, UK and USA 10. Personnel Administration =] 2.2. The Concept of a Career Civil Service; Position Classification; Recruitment; Training; Promotion; Performance Appraisal; Remuneration and Service Conditions; Conduct and Discipline; Employer-Employee Relations 9. 1L._Personnel Administration - II: Some Issues __303 Civil Service Neutrality; Generalist-Specialist Relationship; Integrity in Public Administration: Instituti Devi C Administrative Excesses; Administrative Vigilance and Discipline: The Indian Response; Open Government; Right to Information; Citizens’ Ct 12. Financial Administration 2.2... i322 Significance; Concept of Budget, Types of Budget, Budgetary Process; Instruments of Financial Control; Importance of Audit; Audit and Administration 13._ Administrative Law, Regulation and Reforms 345 Delegated Legislation; Administrative Adjudication; Tribunals; Administrative Reforms; O and M; E-governanceContents xi 14. Development Administration 368 Problems of Developing Countries: Concepts, Features and Its Critique; Contemporary Approaches; Weberian Model of Bureaueracy and Development Administarion! The Riggstan Model and Development Administration 15._Comparative Public Administration - I 392 Significance and Importance; Models and Approaches; The British Administrative System; The United States Administrative System; The Indian Administrative System; Administrative Organisation in India : 16._ Comparative Public Administration - II 412 Comparison between the Weberian Model and the Socialist Model of Organisation and Management; Lenin’s Contribution; Socialist Theory of Organisation; The Chinese Administrative System: Features and Trends; ‘Comparison between the Chinese and the _ 17._Public Policy 436 Significance and Importance in Public Administration; Factors Determining Policy Formulation; Conceptual Approaches to Policy Making; Policy Makers: Official and Unofficial; Need for Policy Evaluation; Evaluation of Public Pi 18. Administration and People 467 The Concept of People’s Participation in Administration; Problems of People’s Participation in Developing Countries; Means of Citizen Participation; Public Accountability and Control: Legislative, Executi 1 udici Bibliography 485 Index BD Copyrighted material1 NATURE AND SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Public administration as an academic discipline is a little over hundred years old whereas public administration as an activity can be traced to the earliest periods of human history when man started living in organised societies. Governmental administration of the earlier times (ancient and medieval) however differed considerably in its structure and goals from state administration in the modern era. Administration of the state in the ancient and medieval periods in both the East and the West was authoritarian, patriarchal and elitist in character. Maintenance of law and order, collection of revenue, etc were its compulsory functions whereas welfare activities were purely incidental or optionally undertaken. Administrators were small in number, selected entirely at the discretion of the monarch and their official status was no better than the personal servants of the king. It was only with the rise of modern welfare states and the multiplication of state functions in the nineteenth century that the old patriarchal, hereditary state officialdom was replaced by public bureaucracy, recruited on the basis of public laws, performing largely within a legal framework, tasks which were becoming more and more public oriented. The present era is that of the administrative state. All mass movements since the eighteenth century have contributed to the increasing volume, variety and scope of public administration. The industrial and commercial revolutions brought government into industry and commerce. Nationalism, imperialism and internationalism widened the scope of state functions while increasing population, urbanisation, public communications, and mobility diversified governmental activities. The evolution of democratic, totalitarian and socialist ideas transformed the concept of government. People not only expect uniform national services today, but also expect public administration to reconcile competing class demands and conflicting interests in society. Public administration is indispensably present in all states, be they capitalist, socialist or developing in nature. Modern public administration has usurped more and more functions within its scope. Besides law and order, revenue collection and2 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories security functions, it operationalises a vast array of public laws, provides public services like post and telegraphs and transport facilities in cities and towns, and is the main instrument of socioeconomic transformation in developing societies. In socialist states public administration touches on all aspects of citizens’ lives from education to recreation. The scope and importance of public administration increases with increasing societal complexity, specialisation and differentiation. In the present age there is hardly any aspect of a citizen's life which does not involve public administration or increased public regulation over private concerns. Facing a revolution of rising expectations of the people, public admini: being increasingly loaded with additional work and respons in the name of promoting efficiency, egalitarianism, or rapid socioeconomic development. The relative decline of other societal institutions like the extended family, religion etc in the present age which took care of the individual’s material and spiritual needs earlier, has largely led to this over-dependence on the state. Gerald Caiden has listed the following crucial roles as assumed by public administration in contemporary society:' a) Preservation of the polity. b) Maintenance of stability and order. c) Institutionalisation of socioeconomic change. d) Management of large-scale commercial services. e) Ensuring growth and economic development. f) Protection of the weaker sections of society. g) Formation of public opinion. h) Influencing public policies and political trends. There seems to be an inevitable growing trend in the activities of public administration in the foreseeable future. Men have always needed public administration and will continue to do. This has resulted in public administration becoming a key power constituent in modernised (both capitalist and socialist) and modernising states in its own right. Meaning and Definition Public administration is the management of affairs of the government at all levels — national, state and local. It is a branch of the wider field of administration. The term administration has been variously defined by different writers. In the words of Marx: “Administration is determined action taken in pursuit of a conscious purpose. It is the systematic ordering of affairs and the calculated use of resources aimed at making those things happen which one wants to happen.” According to J M Pfiffner,Nature and Scope of Public Administration 3 “Administration is the organisation and direction of human and material resources to achieve desired ends.”’ Therefore, the two essentials of administration are: (i) cooperative effort, and (ii) pursuit of common objectives. Public administration is any kind of administration in the public interest which, in other words, has simply come to mean governmental administration. Administration of private enterprises is known as private administration. There are many views regarding the scope and range of activities to be included in public administration. Some thinkers take a broader view and include all governmental activities having for their purpose, the fulfilment of public policy, while others take a narrow view and consider only those activities concerned with the executive branch of government as part of public administration. The definitions given by important thinkers reveal the emphasis they lay on different aspects of public administration. There are some who equate the sphere of activity of public administration with the implementation of law and public policy. L D White observes,‘ “Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy.” Similarly, according to Woodrow Wilson, public administration is detailed and systematic application of law. In the words of Dimock, “Public Administration is the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy as declared by the competent authorities... Public administration is law in action. It is the executive side of government.”* There are writers like Simon who define the scope of public administration in such a way as to make it coincide with the activities of the executive or administrative branch only. Thinkers like Pfiffner lay more emphasis on the coordinating role of administration. In his opinion administration consists of “getting the work of government done by coordinating the efforts of the people so that they can work together to accomplish their set tasks.”* F A Nigro’s definition is a more comprehensive one, which also includes besides the above-mentioned aspects, the relationship between public administration and the political and social systems as well. Nigro has defined public administration in the following words’:— Public Administration:— a) is cooperative group effort in a public setting; b) covers all three branches — executive, legislative and judicial — and their interrelationships;4 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories c) has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part of the political process; d) is more important than, and also different in significant ways from private administration; e) asa field of study and practice has been much influenced in recent years by the human relations approach; f) is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community. Public administration is the non-political bureaucratic machinery of the government for implementing its laws and policies in action, eg the collection of revenues, maintenance of law and order, running the railways and postal services, maintaining an army, running schools and hospitals. These are all acts of public administration. Public administration operates within a political context. It is a means by which the policy decisions made by the political decision-makers are carried out. “Public administration is decision-making, planning the work to be done, formulating objectives and goals, working with the legislative and citizen organisations to gain public support and funds for government programmes, establishing and revising organisations, 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, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are realised,”* To summarise, these definitions identify public administration with: The formulation and implementation of public policies; The executive branch of government; Organisational structures and machinery of administration; Administrative processes; Bureaucracy and its activities; Coordination of group activity or social relationship; and Interaction between organisations and their environment. Public and Private Administration ‘There are two different views on the relationship between public and private administration. One group of thinkers, like Urwick, Follett and Fayol, are of the view that administration is an indivisible entity, and its basic principles are applicable equally to all organisations whether public or private. This view is obviously based on certain clearly observable similarities in the practice of public and private administration. NAVY DeNature and Scope of Public Administration 5 In the first place, it is extremely difficult to clearly demarcate the spheres of the two types of administrative activity. Though the activities performed by government agencies are defined as public administration, there are many private agencies which also perform tasks which are strictly public service or welfare oriented. Conversely, there are many tasks performed by the government bureaucracy which may be of a private nature. Secondly, methods and work procedures may be common to both public and private administration. Accounting, statistics, office management and procedures and stock taking are problems of administrative management common to both public and private administration. With the continuous expansion of the public sector in industrial enterprises and the steady growth of public corporations, government has been drawing heavily upon the business knowledge and expertise of private administration to run these enterprises. In fact, in many countries, including India, there is a growing interaction between the public and private sectors. In India candidates from private establishments have often been recruited to senior administrative positions in the government. Ever since private enterprises have been developing into huge administrative giants, with widening network of offices all over the country, private administration has become as impersonal as public administration. Also with the popularisation of the concept of democratic welfare state, the principles of democratic control, public accountability and popular checks on administrative behaviour are increasing in all private organisations. However important the similarities may be, it cannot be denied that there still remain fundamental differences between the two, The major points of difference are in the spheres of “uniformity and impartiality, responsibility, accountability and serviceability.” The four main principles which differentiate public from private administration are: a) uniformity; b) external financial control; ¢) ministe,ial responsibility; and d) marginal return. The popular idea of public administration is that it is bureaucratic, characterised by red tapism, inefficiency and inertia, whereas private administration is efficient and businesslike. The following are the differences between the two types of administration: 1. Political direction or ministerial responsibility: Unlike private administration, public administration is subjected to political direction in most policy matters. It is the minister who lays down broad policy outlines,6 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories under which the bureaucrat has to implement the policy. Operational autonomy is, however, granted to a great extent to public administrators, who are not responsible for their actions to the legislature. It is the minister who represents his department in the legislature, and is held responsible for all acts of omission and commission of his administrative juniors to Parliament. 2. Profit motive or marginal return: Public administration is service oriented and profit making is not its goal. A businessman will never undertake a venture which is not likely to yield any profit to him. In public administration, there is no correlation between income and expenditure, since most government departments are spending departments and even in the so-called revenue-producing departments, the primary motive is always public service. Public utility services of the Government of India often run at a loss, yet the government is duty-bound to spend on them. 3. Social necessity: Public administration caters to social needs and public utilities. For example, it maintains railways to facilitate movement of goods and passengers; the post and telegraph network facilitates communications; hospitals and dispensaries are meant to provide medical; aid and public health services to the people. The scope of private administration is narrower. It is mostly concerned with providing marketable consumer goods to the public, catering to the economic needs of citizens. Besides, the nature of some of the government services is so wide, comprehensive and expensive that no private administration can undertake them, eg maintaining a vast network of police, army, railways or post and telegraph. 4. Public responsibility: The public administrators are trained and duty- bound to respect the wishes of the public and cater to their needs. In the words of Appleby, “Government administration differs from all other administrative work by virtue of its public nature, the way in which it is subject to public scrutiny and outery.” Private administration has no such obligation, its main objective is to secure its own ends. 5. Uniformity of treatment: Public administration should be consistent in procedure and uniform in its public dealings. This principle is more applicable to public administration than the other, because the former is mostly regulated by common and uniform laws and regulations. Public administration is subject to the principle of external financial control. Government revenues are controlled by the people’s representatives through the legislature. In private administration finances are not controlled by any outside agency.Nature and Scope of Public Administration 7 6. Conformity to laws and regulations: The public administrators cannot do anything contrary to, or in excess of legal power. It has to function within the legal framework, it can never break the law. If it does so, its actions can be declared invalid or, ultra-vires by the courts. Private administration has no such responsibility. Ina private enterprise management has to be efficient if it is to prosper. It needs to understand the techniques of business and the characteristics of the market to maintain a high level of efficiency in terms of output. This involves not only a mastery of certain technical aids to management but also a deep understanding of human factors in obtaining the maximum cooperation of the employees in achieving the firm’s objectives. In public organisations there is a tendency for the professional heads to concentrate upon their personal relations with and responsibilities towards their political chiefs, leaving the managerial processes, as far as possible, to be embodied in internal rules and regulations so that the departments work more or less automatically through the agency of lower officials who themselves are often neither properly equipped nor sufficiently aware of the needs of management. The result too often is that public management conforms to routine and is largely taken for granted. Notwithstanding differences, it must be admitted that there are many similarities between the two types of administration. Both require more or less the same administrative skills to deal with the problems of organisation, finance and personnal. Administration of government corporations and other revenue producing departments like the railways and postal services is usually carried on business lines. Both types of organisation try to maintain good and friendly relations with the public. They find their most difficult management problems in promoting harmonious relations between headquarters and field, in reconciling operational autonomy and overall control and in keeping delays and red-tape at a minimum. The city manager plan of municipal government is an adaptation from business administration. In actual administration there is often a greater difference between small and large organisations than between public and private ones. As a matter of fact, governmental administration should be compared to the corporate form of business administration and not to the non- corporate of individual form of private organisation. The distinction and relative importance given to the private and the public sector is greatly influenced by the political ideology and practices of different states. In the USA, the private sector has always historically played a very significant role in the growth and development of the American capitalistic economy and liberal democratic policy. The public8 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories sector, in the US, is in many ways dependent on the private sector for the supply of goods and services. Due to the economic successes of American capitalism there is a tendency of the public sector to emulate some of the methods and practices of business management. In India, till the 1990s, the public sector had been at the commanding heights of the mixed economy model that we followed and the private sector was constantly subjected to government restrictions and regulation. After the steady downsizing of the public sector with the advent of the new economic policies since 1991, a sharper distinction between the public and private sector is being demarcated in public policy and discourse. However, India still continues to be a mixed economy which is practically an endorsement of public-private coexistence and cooperation. At this stage, a note on the ‘privatisation’ movement the world over may also be in order. New Public Management as it emerged in the lexicon of management in the eighties, came to be broadly defined as a new way of redefining the role of the government. It means relying more on the private sector to meet society’s needs and making government more efficient and cost effective through reform and adoption of private sector management techniques, Due to the ongoing processes of globalisation, the public sector faces increasing demands to run government like a business, importing private sector concepts such as entrepreneurism, privatisation, treating the citizen like a customer and management techniques derived from the production process. New public management seeks to separate politics from administration, emphasising efficient and effective implementation of policies and removing substantive policy questions from the administrative realm. Such a separation resembles the old ‘politics administration dichotomy’ and Herbert Simon’s distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘value’ decisions in policy making. Osborne and Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government (1993) have offered decision-making criteria for choosing public, private, or non-profit action, such as stability, regulation and enforcement of equity (public sector features), expertise and willingness to take risks (private sector attributes) and compassion and promotion of community issues (non-profit sector attributes). Vincent Ostrom (1973-94) has written extensively about intergovernmental arrangements and building institutional capacity that helps citizens to govern themselves. Ostrom emphasises the benefits of a multifaceted, polycentric system of governmental structures and their private and non- profit partners (voluntary organisations) organised to fit the services they offer so that the result is the best possible blend of efficiency with responsiveness to the public. In the final run, the private/public mix ofNature and Scope of Public Administration 9 services need to be decided politically by every community/nation/state and it will obviously very with new challenges in the socioeconomic environment. Jennings (1992) offered two manor approaches to public administration. The ‘bureaucratic approach’ takes efficiency and equal treatment of citizens as its primary values and the ‘market approach’ takes efficiency as its prime value, differing from the former in emphasising diversity of products and maximum consumer choice, Today, most writers of public administration agree that some measures of market like matching of public services to consumer preferences, along with efficient and technically competent public management is desirable. The question is how much, in what ways, and whether there are aspects of public service that should not be governed or managed from a market perspective. It is generally agreed that in public interest, government has to produce certain goods and services which would otherwise not be provided by private firms. These goods and services are called public goods. For example, public transport, education, water supply, unemployment dole or other measures of social welfare. Regulating the activities of the private sector is also the task of government alone. This goes beyond Osborne and Gaebler’s (1993) idea of ‘steering’ rather than ‘rowing’, as the issue is not just what government does (steering or making decisions versus rowing or implementing them) but who has the right and ability to make policy and implementation decisions. This is at the heart of the concepts of citizenship and democracy. In the ultimate analysis, it must be unequivocally stated that democratic government cannot be ultimately guided by a market model of competition and efficiency alone but must bend normatively towards a citizenship model of government. A holistic view places businesslike management techniques in an instrumental position secondary to the bigger sphere of governance. It draws citizens, elected officials (policy makers) and the bureaucracy (policy implementators) together in the tasks of nation-building and socioeconomic progress. ‘Therefore many would agree with the conclusions of Fayol and Urwick who have said, “We are no longer confronted with several administrative sciences, but with one which can be applied equally well to public and private affairs.” Public and private administration function in different environments. But despite that, differences between the two have narrowed down considerably. Prof Waldo has said The generalisation which distinguish public administration from private administration, like special care for equality of treatment, legal authorisation and responsibility for action, public justification or10 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories justifiability of decisions, financial probity and meticulousness, and so forth are of very limited applicability. In fact, public and private administrations are the two species of the same genus. But they have special values and techniques of their own, which give to each their distinctive character. An Art or a Science Public administration lends itself to two meanings. Firstly, it stands for the activity of administering governmental affairs. Secondly, it is also an academic discipline. The first is definitely an art. But is public administration, as a subject of study of governmental affairs, a science? Administration, both public and private, mostly consists of a series of acts or is concerned with the doing of deeds; thus it is undoubtedly an art. In the Art of Administration, Ordway Tead writes: “Administration is the comprehensive effort to direct, guide and integrate associated human strivings which are focused toward some specific ends or aims. Administration is, in short, a fine art, because it summons an imposing body of special talents on behalf of a collaborative creation which is integral to the conduct of civilised living today.” Quite obviously public administration is the art of government; in reality, it is government in action. Woodrow Wilson, the pioneer of Public Administration as a subject of study called it the “Science of Public Administration” as early as 1887. Writing in 1926, W F Willoughby asserted that in administration there are certain fundamental principles of general application analogous to those characterising any science. In 1937, a collection of papers on the subject made its appearance under the significant title of Papers on the Science of Administration edited by Luther Gulick and L Urwick. Existence of a body of principles in a discipline entitles it to claim the title and status of science. If public administration can prove that it has developed a set of principles, it obviously qualifies to be rated as science. Does public administration have a set of such principles? The essential characteristics of science are absence of normative (or, ethical) value, predictability of behaviour, and finally, universal application. All these three features are as yet imperfectly present in public administration. Public administration cannot be called a science until the following three conditions are fulfilled. First, the place of normative values in public administration should be clearly identified and made clear. Second, greater understanding should be gained of human nature in the field of public administration. And third, the principles of administration, could be derived from a body of cross-cultural studies, thereby making them relatively free from cultural bias.Nature and Scope of Public Administration u ‘The last hundred years have however seen a remarkable development of the science of public administration. The transformation of the laissez- faire state into the modern welfare state has enlarged its sphere, added to the functions of government and aroused interest in the problem of efficiency in government, which had remained for long an art proceeding by way of trial and error. Industrial engineers like Taylor pioneered the scientific method with its emphasis on experimentation, observation, collection of data, classification and analysis, and the formulation of laws and principles. The subsequent progress of the scientific method added substantially to such facets of administration as organisation, planning, personnel administration and budgetary control. The last few decades have seen a veritable mushrooming of writers on administration and management, like Metcalfe, Fayol, Emerson, Follett, Mooney, Drucker and others. Gradually the contributions of these sources have been unified into the science and art of public administration. Public administration is today a multidimensional study. It is both an art as well as a science. Wilsonian Vision Asan academic discipline, the intellectual history of public administration can be traced back to the seminal essay by Woodrow Wilson published in the Political Science Quarterly in 1887 entitled “The Study of Administration”, in which he called for a politics/administration dichotomy, stressing the need for a scientific study of administration. His essay was a pioneering attempt in delineating administration (government in action) as a field for analytical study and a symbolic beginning of public administration as a subject of enquiry. Born on December 28, 1856 in Virginia USA, Thomas Woodrow Wilson received his PhD from Princeton in 1886 and was Professor of Political Science (1886-1902) before being elected President of USA in 1913. He was an outstanding scholar and statesman who wrote eight books and published several papers. Wilson's contribution to the academic discipline of public administration can be visible in three distinct and interrelated areas: a) His emphasis on a politics/administration dichotomy by distinguishing the special features of administration. b) His advocacy of a scientific study of the subject of administration. c) His early initiatives for the adoption of the comparative methods in the study of administration. . The study of administration developed, according to Wilson as a consequence to the increasing complexities of society and the resultant12 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories growth in the functions of governments. By the 19th century, growing population, complexities of trade and commerce, emergence of huge corporations, coupled with the problems of personnel management made the problems of governance complex and difficult in all States. This ever- growing galaxy of functions raised the question as to how and in what ‘directions’ these functions should be performed. To this, Wilson categorically stressed the need for reforms in the government specially in its administrative sphere. The object of enquiry was to discover what government can do properly and how it can do so with efficiency and economy. To Wilson, administration was government in action and the most visible side of the government. Students of political science were mostly concerned with the constitution, the structure of the state and forms of government. Administration became a neglected area of enquiry. Issues that provoked students of politics were invariably related to ‘who’ should make Jaw and ‘what’ that law should be. Yet the question as to how the law should be implemented seemed to nobody's concern. Wilson begins by arguing that administration and politics are separate and should be kept so. He insists that administrative questions are not political questions, politics is the field of the statesman and administration is that of the technical official. To Wilson, public administration is a detailed and systematic execution of public law. Every particular application of a general law is an act of administration. Illustrating the point, he argues that the broad plans of governmental action are not administrative though the detailed execution of such plans are. The distinction is between policy making and policy execution. He sought to make a distinction between political activity and administrative activity in public organisations. Administration, in his view, should be concerned with the efficient management of government business and should be removed from the uncertainties and strife of politics. Though Wilson wanted administration to be apolitical and emulate the values of business, viz economy, efficiency and effectiveness in order to professionalise it is also evident that Wilson was aware of the interdependence between politics and administration. Scholars are divided in their ideas on Wilson’s intentions on the subject. For instance some stressed that Wilson made the most vigorous statement on the politics-administration dichotomy. Others think that for Wilson though politics and administration are closely interrelated, administrative actions are scarcely conceivable except as the implementation of public policies formulated by the political executive. For Wilson, therefore, administrative development could not take place in a political vacuum. Wilson strongly advocated merit as being the sole criteria for selectionNature and Scope of Public Administration 13 and training of civil servants. Although Wilson believed that administrators were in principle not involved in the political process, he was strongly opposed to the creation of a bureaucratic elite not subject to democratic control. The second major concern of Wilson was his advocacy of a scientific study of the art of administration. Wilson started writing at a time when there was a crying need to eliminate corruption, improve efficiency and streamline service delivery in pursuit of public interest in the US. ‘Science’ meant to Wilson a systematic and disciplined body of knowledge which he thought could be applied to the study of public administration. He was aware that administrative science was well developed in Europe by French and German scholars to meet the requirements of well-knit territorial states and centralised forms of governments. An important element for the slow progress of the growth of the science of administration in America was in Wilson’s view, the reigning concept of ‘popular sovereignty’ and the multitudinous monarch called ‘popular opinion’. This led to slow administrative reforms based on compromises. More important that the collective American obsession with constitutional principles was the need for a systematic development of administrative science since American administrative practice was devoid of any scientific method, Wilson repeatedly emphasised that it was easy to frame constitutions than implement and work one. The real challenge, therefore, was to run an efficient administration which meant effective implementation of public policies in every state, says Wilson. Wilson is regarded as the founder of comparative public administration. He rejected the philosophical method and emphasised the historical and comparative methods. Without comparative studies in government, Wilson asserted one can never see the virtues, shortcomings or peculiarities of any system. Comparative studies are a learning experience. American democracy can learn a lot from the efficient administrative methods of European autocracies. To conclude, Wilson in his dual capacity as scholar-administrator enriched both the theory and practice of public administration. His writings were epochal in delineating the conduct of administration as a separate subject of study, in civil service reform in the US and in furthering comparative studies on public administration. Evolution and Growth Public administration as an activity is as old as civilisation but as an academic discipline is a little over a hundred years old. This, however,14 Public Admunistration: Concepts and Theories does not mean by implication that thinkers in earlier ages had never said anything significant about public administration. Functioning of the governmental machinery has attracted the attention of scholars and administrators since the earliest periods of history. Kautilya’s Arthashastra, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the maxims and teachings of Confucius in the realm of Oriental thought contain many profound observations about the organisation and working of government. In the history of western political thought, Aristotle’s Politics and Machiavelli's The Prince are important contributions to administrative thought and practice. Scattered thoughts, however, do not constitute a discipline though it is interesting to note that even without systematic teaching and study of the subject, great cities, public works and monuments have been built, vast empires administered, huge armies organised, taxes collected, effective law and order maintained and enforced throughout history. Therefore public administration as an activity preceded long before systematic study of the subject began in the eighteenth century. Official academic status to the discipline did not come until World War'I when professional chairs in public administration were established and subject textbooks published. “Only when governments could be differentiated from other societal institutions and their activities developed to the point where professional administrators were indispensable for their effective performance, could modern public administration emerge. The term public administration began to creep into European languages during the seventeenth century to distinguish between the absolute monarch’s administration of public affairs and his management of his private household. The contemporary discipline arose out of the bureaucratisation of the nation-state when the church was separated from the state and government was superimposed on all other social institutions within a definite territory.”” Modern public administration was first taught as a part of the training course of public officials-on-probation in Prussia. The subject was largely compiled and taught in a descriptive manner by professors of cameral sciences, which then included all knowledge considered necessary for the governance of an absolutist state. The cameralist approach continued to influence European studies in public administration well into the twentieth century, until it was replaced by the administrative law and legal studies approach. Ideologically cameralism gave way to bureaucracy. Civil service recruits had to study administrative law and gradually all over Europe public service training schools started offering courses on administrative law.Nature and Scope of Public Administration 15 In English-speaking countries with emphasis on generalist administrators, circumstances were unfavourable for the emergence of a discipline of public administration. Special preparatory courses were not required for training the new recruits in a majority of services except the highly technical ones. The scope of government administration was traditionally lower than in Europe and administration was considered more of an experimental art rather than a subject to be taught theoretically. With the expansion of governmental functions, the need for training practitioners in the art of public administration was felt. The study of public administration began in the United States, which led to its acceptance as a full-fledged discipline. Hence the evolution of the subject will be traced here largely in the context of the United States. With the expanding governmental functions public administration as an activity became highly diversified, complex and specialised. There was a growing need for better management of public affairs through scientific investigations into governmental functioning and specialised training of public servants in the USA. An essay by Woodrow Wilson in 1887 symbolised the beginning of what was later to be an autonomous academic field of inquiry. Many factors had contributed towards the growth of the study of public administration in the USA as a separate academic discipline in the 20th century. Firstly, the development of modern sciences and technology made an impact on the life of the people and the functioning of the government. From the later half of the 19th century industrialisation gave birth to large scale organisations with complex problems of coordination and cooperation. Rapid technological development created large scale social dislocations which made state intervention imperative and desirable. Hence scholars came to pay increasing time and attention to the problems of organisation and management. Secondly, the Scientific Management movement founded by F W Taylor which began in the USA towards the end of the 19th century, gave great impetus to the study of public administration. Taylor's ideas had a revolutionary impact not only in the US but throughout the world. His _main thesis was that all work processes are separable into units; the efficacy of each unit can be tested and improved; the techniques can be extended upwards in every organisation, making industries and governments, even societies, more efficient and rational.16 Public Administration: Concepts and Theories A third factor which significantly helped in the growth of the subject of public administration was the gradual evolution of the concept of welfare state. The philosophy of state functions everywhere has now decisively shifted from the traditional notion of laissez-faire to that of social welfare. The welfare movement has tremendously enlarged the scope of governmental functions, and administration, since public administration has become the chief instrument of social welfare. Lastly, the movement for governmental reform gathered momentum in the USA from the early years of the present century when intellectual efforts were systematically made for the steady development and growth of an autonomous and specialised field of knowledge based on the structure and functioning of public administration. The quality of public services was poor and left much to be desired. The ‘spoils system’ of recruitment had led to considerable corruption and nepotism in appointments. Public finances were disorgainsed, and frequent scandals concerning public officials had caused great damage to their image. All this culminated in an insistent demand for administrative reform in the US. It was against this background of the reform movement that the emerging discipline of public administration in the USA took shape. The evolution of public administration as an academic discipline falls into a number of critical stages. The first stage which begins with the publication of Woodrow Wilson's The Study of Administration in 1887 can be called the era of politics-administration dichotomy. Wilson is considered the founder of the academic discipline of public administration. Making a distinction between politics and administration, he argued that administration is concerned with implementation of political policy decisions. Another notable event of the period was the publication of Goodnow’s Politics and Administration in 1900, which endorsed the Wilsonian theme further by conceptually distinguishing the two functions. According to him, “Politics has to do with policies or expressions of the state will,” whereas “administration has to do with the execution of these policies.” Apart from this, the institutional location of these two functions were differentiated. The location of politics was identified with the legislature and higher levels of the government where major policy decisions were taken. The location of administration was identified with the executive branch of the government and the bureaucracy. He also believed that political control was too strong in the US, it subverted the popular will to partisan interests and undermined efficient administration. Direct democracy should be strengthened and non-partisan administrative functions should be depoliticised. He equated party politics