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COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION - PA 202

“Introduction to Comparative Public Administration”
WRITTEN REPORT
Prepared by:
ZENDEL L. MENDEZ-FERNANDEZ

INTRODUCTION:

Comparative public administration is a branch of public administration. As an approach,

it considers the workings of government in different socio-economic and cultural settings. Much
like public administration, comparative administration covers a wide variety of activities. Scholars
employing the comparative approach focus on a wide variety of issues including public policy
making and implementation in both the developed and developing areas. Comparative
administration seeks to strengthen our understanding of broader public administrative processes
by trying to expand the empirical basis of the field. By taking a keen look at administrative
processes in all socio-economic and ecological settings, we have a more holistic view of the larger
field.

The Comparative approach has been an important thrust within the field of Public
Administration, committed to human learning and discovery through comparison. The main
concern of Comparative Public Administration is not only to recognize similarities and differences
among administrative systems and functions, but also establish general patterns and to discover
and define successful or unsuccessful practices. Eventually the Comparative Public
Administration advantages is measured through contributions that expand options and alternative
strategies for improving the performance of public worldwide.

The effective application of administrative concepts and processes has become an

almost universal quest. Generally, countries in all regions of the world are striving for more
successful methods of management to deliver public services of better quality and with less cost.
Ultimately, what matters most is the effect of comparative research of expanding the horizon of
choice and facilitating the ability to sort out and adopt the most worthy practices.

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WHAT is Comparative Public Administration?

 The study of administrative systems in a comparative fashion or the study of public
administration in other countries. It is a very significant area of study in Public
Administration as it helps in understanding Administrative setups and their functioning in
various settings and societies/countries and what works and why it works.
 The "quest for patterns and regularities in administrative action and behavior".
 Public administration is a feature of all nations, whatever their system of government.
Within nations public administration is practiced at the central, intermediate, and local
levels. Indeed, the relationships between different levels of government within a single
nation constitute a growing problem of public administration.
 The body of public administrators is usually called the civil service.
Traditionally the civil service is contrasted with other bodies serving the
state full time, such as the military, the judiciary, and the police
 Also, it helps improvise administrative systems making them more efficient together with
helping in adding and improvising the already existing literature/theories of Public
Administration thus leading to a strong and practical theory of the subject with the help of
practical experiments and analysis.

ORIGIN of Comparative Public Administration

The main objective of comparative public administration movement, as Caldwell observed is the
ff:
- to hasten the emergence of knowledge concerning administrative behavior––in brief,
- to contribute to a genuine and generic discipline of public administration. The other being
to analyze propositions about administration of different nations and to build a theory in
public administration for development.

Comparison of administrative systems has had a long tradition. But a focus on this aspect of
administrative studies is about fifty years old. Only after the Second World War and with the
emergence of third world nations in Asia and Africa, a vigorous interest in comparative studies of
Public Administration has evolved. Comparative Public Administration, in simple terms refers to
a comparative study of government administrative systems functioning in different countries,
belonging to different cultural and geographical setting and different periods.

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The Post World War II period has witnessed the emergence of a major interest in the comparative
study of political systems. The Comparative Politics Movement and the Comparative Public
Administration Movement share many common stimuli. Both have experienced strong
dissatisfaction with the traditional approaches; they share the dominating concern with conceptual
frameworks and both are inter-disciplinary in orientation. They have focused predominantly on
the developing nations. In fact, the developments in comparative politics in the post-world war II
period have influenced the emerging developments in Comparative Public Administration. New
theoretical search by political scientists like Almond, Binder, Coleman, La Palombara, Pye and
Weidner has made Public Administration as a sub-field of political system. Political aspects of
administration was given a new thrust in La Palombara’s ‘Bureaucracy and Political
Development’. In fact, this era called to an end the politics–administration dichotomy and felt that
both political science and administration are experimenting with the same problems from different
perspectives.

The most important characteristics of the post-World War comparative administration have been
the following:
1. A search for the framework or paradigm for comparative analysis of administration on a global
basis,
2. An interest of the researchers in the administrative problems of newly independent countries
3.Thrust in the transfer of administrative technologies from more developed to less developing
countries, and
4. A continuing effort to devise more productive methods for comparative analysis in the future.

Since emergence of CAG in 1960, the school of comparative public administration has
attempted to be ‘theory building’ in contrast to ‘practitioner-oriented ’bias of ‘ parochial American
public administration”. In the study of comparative administration, the emphasis is upon
comparison of administrative systems.

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The School of Comparative Public Administration addresses five motivating concerns:

1. The search for theory.
2. The urge for practical application,
3. The incidental contribution of the broader field of comparative politics,
4. The interest of the researchers trained in the tradition of administrative law, and
5. The comparative analysis of ongoing problems of public administration.

Initially, the CAG has focused development administration as a Third World problem. But, today
it also includes understanding of a Country’s Public Administration in its global context. The area
for comparative research is wide enough to accommodate the problems of developed and
underdeveloped countries. The major areas of research are bureaucracy, public policies,
motivation, finance, developmental aspects of administration, administrative set up, etc. the
validity of comparative study in these broad fields of Public Administration depends much on
empirical support.

Comparative Public Administration deals with administrative organizations or systems pertaining

to different cultures and settings whose similar or dissimilar features or characteristics are studied
and compared in order to find out “causes” or “reasons” for efficient or effective performance or
behavior of administrators, civil servants or bureaucrats. The ecological perspective is the main
concern of comparative administration scholars. The economic, social and political aspects explain
the way administrative systems operate.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the field of comparative public administration has been
redefined by new research demands in response to major global transformations of political
systems. From a field drawing largely on academic political science and trends in the US foreign
aid policies, CPA has been pulled in several directions by new management and policy needs.

Comparative public administration is still the study of similarities and differences in organization,
management and policy issues for the purpose of creating an institutionalized knowledge base to
aid in making better decisions. But it seems that academic scholars have lost much interest in
comparative studies of administration largely on account of fewer funds. Moreover, host

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governments have become increasingly critical of the administration of their own domestic
programmes. However, using comparative administration lessons help government to improve
domestic policy making and implementation.

Only during the last 50 years has comparative public administration finally become a subfield
within public administration and political science that has demonstrated its vitality, and has gained
recognition and acceptance. After a remarkable burst of activity during the 1960s and early 1970s,
the level of enthusiasm declined, but comparativism has clearly become established as an integral
aspect of public administration and an academic discipline.

Ferrel Heady has distinguished among four important foci of research in Comparative Public
Administration. These foci are: (a) modified traditional; (b) development oriented; (c) general
system model building; and (d) middle-range theory formulation. Writings in modified traditional
approach show continuity with the earlier literature of somewhat parochial character. It includes
basically descriptive comparison of administration in Western Countries with particular reference
to the administrative organizations and civil service systems. The development orientation is
concerned essentially with the problems of Public Administration in the context of rapid socio-
economic and political change. Its emphasis is on the capabilities of administrative systems to
direct socio-economic change in a society. The general system model building is concerned with
the study of administrative systems in the overall contexts of their social environment. Thus its
focus is generally on the whole society. However, the middle range theory is more specific in its
subject of focus, and it concentrates on certain particular components or characteristics of an
administrative system.

CPA Vs Traditional Public Administration

Comparative public administration has two major differences with traditional public
administration.
1. Public Administration is generally ethnocentric (culture-bound), whereas
comparative public administration is cross-cultural in orientation and thrust. Prior to
the abandonment of the principles paradigm, it was assumed that cultural factors did
not make any difference in administrative settings.

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2. While traditional public administration has attempted to build theory and to seek
knowledge, the latter has purely scholarly thrust as opposed to a professional one.

WHO is the father of Comparative Public Administration?

FRED RIGGS the foremost scholar of comparative public administration, observed that there
were three trends, which were evident in the comparative study of public administration - is the
father of Comparative Public Administration.

 In 1962 Fred Riggs in his article “Trends in comparative study of Public Administration”.
He is well known for his works in Comparative Public Administration specially Riggsian
Model.
 The public administration was first established in the time period of late 19th century. And
the establishment of the public administration was conducted by Woodrow Wilson and
that's why he is globally known as the father of public administration.
 He stated that if studies of Public Administration had to become really comparative then it
has to shift from being Normative(Establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or
norm, esp. of behavior) to empirical (Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by
observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic), from Ideographic(case by case
study and not related to one another) to nomothetic(relating to the study or discovery of
general scientific laws) and from non ecological(closed and confined to one area) to
ecological(open and cross cultural).

TRENDS OF COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ACCORDING TO FRED

W. RIGGS:
1. NORMATIVE TO EMPIRICAL

Traditional studies on comparative politics or administration emphasized ‘good

administration’. Efficiency and economy were considered to be the primary goals of all
administrative systems. These studies focused on discovering facts about political structures
and behaviours of administrative systems rather than in describing as to what was good for each
system. Two trends which were noticeable have influenced the character of some

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administrative studies in the 1960s. The first, the concept of ‘development

administration’, which focused on the goal-orientation of administrative systems, is
a normative concept. Comparative public administration seems to have emerged from the study
of public administration in the 1960s as a synthesis between the normative and the empirical
elements of analysis. The second trend was the emergence of the label ‘New Public
Administration’, which emphasized the idealistic goal to be achieved by an administrative
system and, thus, attempted to bridge the gap between the ‘is’ and ‘should’ aspects of public
administration.

2. IDEOGRAOHIC TO NOMOTHETIC:

Riggs used the words ‘ideographic’ and ‘nomothetic’ in specific contexts. The ideographic
approach attempts to focus on unique cases; for example, study on a single country or a single
agency (agricultural administration unit). On the other hand, the nomothetic approach seeks to
develop generalizations and concepts which are based on analysis of regularities of
administrative behavior. Traditional studies tended to focus on the structure of individual
political institutions or single countries. No serious attempt was made to compare various nations
or systems. These studies did no help in the process of theory building or in developing
generalizations. Nomothetic studies, on the other hand, tried to analyse different
administrative systems in comparative context in a way that will help in developing hypotheses
and theories. The objective of such studies isto examine similarities and differences of
different administrative systems of nations and then draw certain generalizations. Very few
studies are available on comparative administration systems of different nations.

3. NON-ECOLOGICAL TO ECOLOGICAL

Traditional studies, as already pointed out, were not only descriptive in nature but also non-
ecological in approach. In these studies, no serious attempt was made to relate administrative
systems with the environment in which they functioned. However, in the 1960s, Fred W. Riggs
and few others stressed on the ecological approach for comparing administrative systems. This
approach examines the interactions between an administrative system and its external

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environment. However, the analysis relating to the influences of the administrative system on the
environment is still inadequate.

R.B. Jain concluded that “by looking at the problems from a comparative perspective, public
administration will be widening its horizon of interest and thereby would be in a much better
position to offer relevant and practical solutions to the problems being faced by the mankind”.
Thus, the study of comparative public administration is very important. Time is now ripe to
strengthen relations among institutions (designed for the improvement of public administration in
practically all countries of the world), both national and international, in order to forge new
modalities for concerted action to improve public administration for development. For this
purpose, it will be quite useful to establish a network of these institutions to enable flow of
information and provide opportunities for collaboration on projects.

SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:

The significance of the study of Comparative Public Administration is well accepted today.
It has now established itself as one important branch (sub-discipline) of Public Administration.
The subject of Comparative Public Administration virtually constitutes a study in the direction of
the ‘expanding horizon of Public Administration’. Jun opined that comparative perspective
is needed for improving public policies and for theory building in a field of Public
Administration. Comparative method has been used in studying the contemporary system of
government and administration. The chief aim of earlier approach was to prescribe ‘ideas’ or at
least a better pattern of administrative structure and action. This approach is implicit in the so-
called ‘principle’ of Public Administration which reached its height in the ‘scientific
management movement’ with its stress on the ‘one best way’.

Now there is a shift from presenting a mirror of our ideal system before other countries or
to one’s own country to descriptive and analytical information for its own sake. Thus,
the normative study of comparative administration merged gradually into the empirical and
explanatory writings on different administrative systems. The recent trend is towards a
nomothetic approach, which showed interest in concentrate situations, case studies and particular
facts. Comparative Public Administration emphasizes on theory or testable propositions which

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assert regularities of behavior and correlations between variables. It involves a greater interest
in the environmental factors as they interact with Public Administration.
It is argued that through Comparative Public Administration hypotheses,
generalizations, models and theories can be constructed which can collectively help in the
scientific study of Public Administration. The study of Comparative Public Administration also
contributes to a greater understanding of the individual characteristics of administrative
systems functioning in different nations and cultures. Besides, comparative studies also help in
explaining factors responsible for cross-national and cross-cultural similarities as well as
distinctions in the administrative systems.
It is an approach to revitalize the declining pace of Public Administration’s theory
making capacity. It offers to study the administrative processes and organizations in order
to explain the common problems and to find remedies to solve those problems. It attempts to
identify the characteristics of various administrations in terms of certain established analytical
categories in the light of which identification of administrative phenomena becomes probable for
as many administrative systems as possible. Policy recommendation is one of the important
outcomes of Comparative Public Administration. Waldo points out the following
significance out of Comparative Public Administration study: (a) to discover, define and
differentiate the stuff that is to be compared, whenever in the world it may be; and (b) to
develop criteria of differentiation that is useful in ordering and analyzing the ‘stuff’ once it
has been identified.

The significance of Comparative Public Administration lies in its academic utility in

terms of scientific and systematic study of Public Administration and in improving the
knowledge about other administrative systems so that appropriate administrative reforms and
changes can be brought about in different nations. The comparative study in Public
Administration has played an important role in making the subject broader, useful and inter-
disciplinary. It has brought politics and administration closer to each-other. It has brought greater
scientific outlook in theory building. It has added increased significance to the study of
administration of the developing countries. It is certainly on account of the adoption of this
inter-disciplinary study by the writers on Comparative Public Administration that the subject of
Public Administration is said to have ‘undergone a revolution of sorts.

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The study of comparative public administration is not merely an intellectual exercise of

the scholars, nor is it limited to mere comparative studies. Its conclusions have important
bearing on the whole range of public administration. The basic contribution of the comparative
study is that it has helped eliminate the narrowness of ‘provincialism’ and ‘regionalism’. The
increasing trend of comparative study in public administration has played an important role in
making this subject broader, deeper and useful. Comparative study has brought politics and
public administration closer to each other. The comparative methodology has broadened the
field of social science research which was earlier confined to cultural limitations. Comparative
revolution has brought greater scientific outlook in theory construction. Finally, it
has encouraged the process of broadening the field of social analysis.

LIMITATIONS OF COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:

The comparative administration adopted the approach especially following Riggs, via
grand theory on the model of system sociology. For example, Riggs’s approach emphasizes the
development of elaborate models that “might eventually help us understand more about
administrative behavior”. The basic fault in it, according to Golembiewski, is that “eventually is
likely to be a very long time indeed.
The development of comparative administration is lacking in terms of empirical
theory. There is inadequate methodological base, lack of experience and traditions for
empirical research. Moreover, comparative administration efforts are often a scientific, if not anti-
scientific.
Lastly, comparative administration did not develop a viable applied aspect. That
means that it did not develop goal-based empirical theories. The need for practical application
was central in comparative administration’s early formative period, but it soon became a very weak
urge. Golembiewski remarks that “comparative administration is inadequately developed as a
social science, and only fitfully applies its methodology… is seen as ‘academic analysis’ and as
more beholden to the ‘knowledge for its own sake’ bias of university settings.”

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CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE COMPARATIVE PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION:

1. The Comparative Public Administration is in its ‘youth’. It is a relatively new field or

study in the sense that it only emerged after the Second World War. In the words of
Raphaeli, “Comparative Public Administration is a newcomer to the community of
academic instruction and research”. He has traced its origin to the 1952 conference on
Administration held at Princeton University. It was during this conference that a sub-
committee under the committee on Public Administration, entitled “Comparative Public
Administration” was established “to develop a criteria of relevance and a design for field
studies in foreign countries.”

2. The Comparative Public Administration is to use Thomas S. Kuhan’s term, in a

‘preparadigmatic’ stage, which is characterized by a diversity of approaches and
the absence of a dominant model or paradigm. In fact, there exists a plethora of
competing approaches in the field. These approaches have been classified by Fred W.
Riggs in 1962 as normative, empirical, nomothetic, ideographic, non-
ecological and ecological approaches.

3. Comparative Public Administration, according to Riggs, is characterized by the

following three trends: (a) a shift from normative to empirical approaches; (b) within
the empirical category, there has been a change in emphasis from ideographic to
nomothetic studies; and (c) a shift in focus from non-ecological to ecological approaches.
In 1962, when Riggs first described these trends, he noted that the first trend was fairly
clear, but not the second and third trends which were only beginning to develop.
The second and third trends have since then become more dominant in Comparative
Public Administration as can be seen in the emphasis given to nomothetic and ecological
approaches in the field. However, this does not mean that normative concerns are not
important in Comparative Public Administration any more. Indeed, it can be argued that
there has been a resurgence of normative concerns in Public Administration in general
and Comparative Public Administration in particular especially with the emergence

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of the “New Public Administration” movement which arose from the post-behavioural
revolution in Political Science

4. The field of Comparative Public Administration has been dominated until recently by
American scholars on Public Administration in general and members of the CAG in
particular. The CAG made a tremendous contribution to the study of Public
Administration in general and Comparative Public Administration in particular through the
sponsorship of research seminars and conferences and its prodigious output of publications,
which included a newsletter, seminar reports, teaching materials, occasional papers and
various volumes in the CAG series published by Duke University Press.

5. Comparative Public Administration emphasise on two primary ‘motivational

concerns’; theory building and development administration. This concern for theory
has been recognized by most scholars in the field, especially by Heady, Heaphey and
Raphaeli for example. Theory building efforts in Comparative Public Administration have
so far concentrated on two types of theories: general and middle-range theories. Examples
of general theories are Fred W. Rigg’s macro models of Agraria and Industria and his
theory of Prismatic Society. The best example of a middle-range theory in Comparative
Public Administration isMax Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy, which has been critically
reviewed by Alfred Diamant, and tested in Egypt by Morroe Berger and in Turkey by
Robert Presthus. In recent years, there has been a shift in emphasis from general theories
to middle-range theories in Comparative Public Administration.

‘CLASSICAL’ CPA Vs ‘NEW’ CPA

Spurred and triggered by events at the international level, comparative public administration
moved from the theoretical emphasis of the ‘classical era’ to a new empirical emphasis that tries
to make better decisions in public policies and management. For modernizing governments to
improve domestic policy making and implementation, they need to know what systems and skills
are required to make them work.

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The classical CPA era (generally speaking, from 1961 to 1980) includes influences of the periods
of the US foreign and programme, bilateral programmes of theFrench and English with former
colonies and of UN agencies such as UNDP, WHO, the World Bank and the IMF. But the driving
force of most CPA scholarship during this period was the United States-AID- Cag doctrines. The
systematic successes of the post-war Alliance Programme in Europe and the Marshall Plan (a
programme of reconstruction for Western Europe became the prevailing model of development
for the new nations), for example, generated optimism and excitement about using administrative
means for administrative reforms in the developing countries. In short, CPA in this period stressed
transfer of Western technology, export of political democracy, modernization of the government
machinery through external inducement, training by foreign experts, designing planning systems
and setting of institutes of public administration. Like the Alliance Programme itself, which
applied to advanced industrial nations, the approach to developing countries was top-down and
presumptuous. The classical era produced mostly rhetorical debate about the meaning of
development and strategies of achieving goals of nation-building and socio-economic progress.
Issues between Western democracy and socialist alternative were debated, producing an
appreciation for the complexities of local cultures and institutions. But lacking the infrastructure
and skills of the original Marshal Plan target countries, few developing countries grew or
developed under the influence of their foreign aid or CPA model building.

There were very few comparative studies of programme or policy administration. The field studies
that were performed were largely case studies of particular programmes, from which comparative
lessons were often proffered but rarely followed up in later studies. In developing countries
comparative studies often boiled down to case studies, such as the Braibanti study of the Pakistani
civil service. In the early 1980s, the agenda of comparative public administration was affected of
a long period of fiscal conservatism and skepticism in the Unites States, the United Kingdom and
elsewhere. In the early 1990s, it was also affected by the pull of events in Eastern Europe, the
Soviet Union and Latin America requiring new applied knowledge.

The general trend in foreign aid programmes has been to shift funds from direct government
assistance to NGOs and private agencies as well as efforts to reduce the state in productive

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activities through (SOEs). Trade and investment are becoming the preferred solutions to nation
building. To the extent that the government was the focus of aid, it was primarily to downsize of
budgeting, personnel and programme management. Also, the CPA agenda was affected by the
notion that traditional government solutions were not very effective either in the United States and
Europe or in the developing countries. The focus became models of reform and methods of turning
around government agencies.

Faced with the problem of fewer resources and increased scepticism, the new CPA agenda has
been less interested in theory building than in application and translation of existing theories into
practice. As with the past CPA efforts, stimulating democratic capitalism. With these interests new
CAP studies have poured out in the traditional areas of public budgeting, public personnel
management, intergovernmental relations, and public management. In contrast to past debate over
such items as turf or field definition, and the quest for middle-range versus systems theory, CPA
research began to focus on the application of organization theory to comparative management and
policy problems. For the first time a concerted effort has been made on several fronts to examine
the determinants of organizational efficiency and effectiveness in comparative perspective. It may
be mentioned here that the CPA agenda is no longer simply determined by the flow of US foreign
aid money. Funding for applied public sector administrative studies is now solidly multinational,
primarily through such institutions as UNDP, EC-PHARE, the World Bank and the IMF.

To conclude, a fortuitous set of circumstances exists for comparative public administration work
in the future. The new CPA approach has been strengthened by (a) application of older
perspectives, such as ‘functionalism and systems analysis’, and introduction of new theoretical
perspectives, such as ‘public choice’, ‘new institutional economic’ theories, ‘reinvention of
government’ and ‘good governance’, and (b) focusing research on public policies and public
management in the developing countries.

It is observed that comparative administration is moving towards a ‘reinvigorated functionalism’,

stimulated by the growth of new public management as a significant influence in public
administration and in development administration particularly. New public management (NPM),
essentially a market-oriented approach in public administration that distinctly included

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performance-based management and institutional reform is concerned with operational

capabilities of intuitions. Public management is seen as ‘managerialism’ by some, and as ‘ill-
defined economicism’ by others, who view it as a ‘neoliberal austerity programme” uncritically
oriented towards economic growth at home and aboard, through an array of disparate goals and
means that include privatization, globalization and liberalization, reduction of government
spending and lowered trade barriers. The NPM has become a dominant perspective in public and
comparative administration. The NPM approach is accepted by many developed and developing
countries because of its utility and emphasis on performance management and accountability. This
approach is views as a new mode of governance.

Neoliberal policies of reduced government size and lowered trade barriers are given much credit
for improved Asian economies (particularly in China and India), but doubts have been raised about
the possibility and desirability of their wide application. Critics point out that, over the long term,
the East Asian model is unsustainable in the absence of a balance between economic and social
policies (violation of human and labor rights). A few scholars have criticized the World Bank’s
neoliberal institutionalism, in particular for taking management techniques to replace what are in
fact governance decisions. Stubbes Writes: The tenets of the approach have certainly infused
development agencies, INGOs and ICCs, (with) the core components of the new public
management (being) the de-regulation of line management; the conversion of civil service
departments into free-standing agencies and enterprises; performance-based accountability
through contracting; and competitive mechanism including internal markets.

In USA, UK, and in many European countries, public management has focused on the government
reinvention and governance. The comparative focus has been on practical issues of policy and
administration, ranging from performance-based procurement and contracting to performance
budgeting and performance measurement. One group that is promoting the comparative study of
public management as the focus for Comparative Administration is the International Public
Management Network (IPMN), which began in USA, it is broadly international. With its two
journals, International Public Management Journal (IMPJ) and the web-based International Public
Management Review, the IPMN promotes the comparative study of public management as the
focus for comparative administration.

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For doing comparisons in the European Union, the public management institute at Catholic
University at Leuven, Belgium has been instrumental in developing a set of performance indicators
comparing national-level public sector performance in policy areas such as health and public
welfare. In addition, the European Common Assessment Framework (ECAF) has been developed
at the European Institute of Public Administration in Maastricht, Belgium in concert with Public
Management Institute to assess programme quality and policy performance across public sector
organization in Europe.

Managerial approaches such as NPM, to development have growth in influence notwithstanding a

“disjunction between processes and effects” in the application of discourse originating in the
developed world to different dominion of developing nations. But because of its emphasis on
government accountability, performance-based managerial approach can prove to be conducive to
institutional responsiveness and responsibility. Significant theoretical and applied consensus in
comparative administration and, in particular, in development administration, may be built around
this prospect. Guess and Gabrielyan conclude that “a fortuitous set of circumstance exists for CPA
work in the future”. They add, “While the challenges created by a changing world order have never
been greater, the use of applied methods and growing international interest in the results of public
sector reform have created a variety of scholarly resources equal to these new challenges” thus the
study of comparative public administration promotes a reinvigorates theory building in public
administration.

OVERVIEW OF ADMINISTRATION AND POLITICS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES:

1. USA
- Federal republican form of government where President is the national as well as
executive head.
2. UK
- Constitutional and hereditary monarchy. In practice it is a Parliamentary democracy.
The Monarch is the head and performs functions akin to the President of India.
3. FRANCE
- It is a mixture of Republican as well as Parliamentary form of govt. President is the
Chief executive and enjoys tremendous powers in the legislature as well as Parliament.

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Here the President is directly elected by the people. The Prime Minister is then chosen
and appointed as per the President's wish from the Parliament.
4. JAPAN
- The Constitution of Japan rests on three principles - a) sovereignty of people , b)
guarantee of Fundamental Rights, c) renunciation of war. The Emperor performs the
role akin to Indian president. The Japanese people elect their representatives to the
Japanese Parliament called Diet which is bicameral that is, House of Councilors and
the House Of Representatives.

CONCLUSION
Today’s public administration functions in a different time and faces different challenges,
requiring new concepts and methods. Realizing the massive influence of unfolding
globalism, comparative public administration opens the door for effective adjustment and
transition from traditional, ethnocentric perspectives to a wider scope that integrated
knowledge from various places and cultures. There is no one way to get to the place where
public administration ought to be. However, clear objectives, ratified application of theoretical
perspectives, and updated research instruments would give the comparative approach a better
chance of constructing frameworks and contributing to scholarship that enriches public
administration and ensures its adaptability to current global conditions.

REFERENCES:
1. Introduction to Public Administration by Sabine Kuhlmann and Helllmut Wollman
2. Public Administration One by Tanya Fransz
https://publicadministrationtheone.blogspot.com/2012/08/comparative-public-
administration.html
3. Comparative Public Administration by Prachi Juneja
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/comparative-public-administration.htm
4. https://publicadministrationtheone.blogspot.com/2012/08/comparative-public-
administration.html
5. http://upscfever.com/upsc-fever/en/pubad/en-pub-chp4.html

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