Public Administration

Keshav Raj Pande

Lecturer
Central Department of Public Administration
Tribhuvan University

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 What is public administration?
• Administrator as implementer:
– PA may be defined as all processes, organizations and
individuals associated with carrying out laws and other
rules adopted or issued by legislatures, executives and
courts.
• Administrator as regulator/ service provider:
– Public administration is the use of managerial, public,
and legal theories and processes to fulfill legislative,
executive, and judicial mandates for the provision of
governmental regulatory and service functions.

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 Other definitions
• Woodrow Wilson
– Public administration is detailed and systematic
execution Public of the law
• excludes policy formulation as well as elected
officials
• Shafritz and Russell—the public interest
– Whatever governments do for good or ill.
• It is public administration’s political context
that makes it public--that distinguishes it from
private or business administration. 3
 Key Approaches:
• Managerial Approach (neutral bureaucrat;
apolitical)
– Traditional Managerial Approach: Civil
Bureaucracy (“scientific approach”)
– New Public Management: Competitive,
business-like
• Political approach: Public administrator as
a reflection of the body politic.
• Legal approach: Public administrator as
adjudicator 4
 The Three Approaches
Traditional NPM Political Legal
approach

Value Efficiency; Customer response Representation, Procedural validity

effectiveness accountability

Org. structure Typical Competitive Pluralism Adversary

bureaucracy

Individual Impersonal; Customer Group member Particularistic

rational individual

Decision making Rational Decentralized Muddling through Precedence

Function Executive Executive Legislative Judicial

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Budget Rational (cost Performance based Incremental Rights based
benefit)
 Key components of PA
• The Public/ Electoral relationship
– Constitutional rights
– Public Interest
– Sovereignty
• Regulation
– Policy/ Civil rule enforcement
• Services
– Collective services (defense, welfare)
• Jurisdiction
– Place bound
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 Tensions faced by public
administrators
• Efficiency v. Effectiveness
– reaching public goals or measuring activities?
• Responsiveness v. Accountability
– responding to public needs or filling out
reports?
• Difference between outputs and
outcomes

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 Crossovers
• Autonomous organizations
• Government chartered private
organizations
• Public Private partnerships
• Third party contracting
• Comparative advantage, Cooperation,
cooptation, or competition?

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 Three branches of Government
• Executive: merit based (professional?)
• Legislative: elected
• Judicial: appointed
• Interrelationships?

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 Origins and Growth of PA
• Political Roots
– Constitution; Defense; Welfare
– Clientele departments
• Legal Roots
– Public interest protections
• Managerial roots
– Overhead agencies
• PA and Interest groups
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 The Executive
• National Executive Branch Structures
– Ministry of Council and Office of the Prime Minister
– Cabinet-level Departments
– Independent Regulatory Boards & Agencies
– Government Corporations
– Non Profit Organizations & Associations
• Local Government Structures
– DDC
– Municipalities / VDC

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Approaches to Public
Administration

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Public Administration = Bureaucratic
Organization
Max Weber
– Bureaucratic characteristics (Principles):

• Clear division of labor

• Clear hierarchy of authority

• Formal rules and procedures

• Impersonality

• Careers based on merit

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 Bureaucracy- Max Weber
Problems with the Traditional Model
• Lack of neutrality and professionalism (Politics!)
• Rigidity (red tape) stifles creativity
• Informal networks exist beside the formal ones
• Risk aversion rather than risk taking
• Fixed procedures no longer suitable for the changing
environment
• Input dominating structure ignored outputs and results
• Inefficiency and Ineffectiveness (corruption!)

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 New Public Administration
• The New Public Administration concept came
first time in 1968 in first Minnowbrook
Conference held under the patronage of
Dwight Waldo.

• The 1960s in the USA was a time of social and

political turbulence due to Vietnam war, Civil
Rights movements, campus unrest, etc and
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• In word of Dwight Waldo neither the study nor the practice of public
administration was responding suitably to escalating turmoil and
complications.

• The Minnowbrook conference challenged the traditional

public administration in a manner that it was anti-positivist, and

Unrealistic (anti-technical and anti-hierarchical.

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 N.P.A. has 3 important attacks to PA:

• Relevance: It says that traditional Public Administration

has little to say about contemporary problems

• Values: It says value-neutrality in Public Administration

is an impossibility. It is less neutral and more normative.

• Social Equity: Public Administration fails to work for

changes which try to redress the deprivation of
minorities;therefore, will likely be eventually used to
repress those minorities.

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 N.P.A - Significance

• Change: It attacks on the status quo and deep rooted

power in permanent institutions. It requires positive,
proactive and responsive administrators rather than
authoritarian and ivory tower bureaucrats.

• Equity: It focus more on democratic norms than

operating in down top structure.

• Involvement: Involving org’s members and its clients

in decision making process.

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 New Public Management
• New Public Management is a management
philosophy used by governments since the
1980s to modernise the public sector.

• The main hypothesis in the NPM-reform wave

is that more market orientation in the public
sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for
governments, without having negative side
effects on other objectives and considerations.
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 NPM Conti.
• NPM, compared to other public management theories, is
more oriented towards outcomes and efficiency through
better management of public budget.

• It is considered to be achieved by applying competition,

as it is known in the private sector, to organizations in the
public sector, emphasizing economic and leadership
principles.

• New public management addresses beneficiaries of public

services much like customers.
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 New Public Management
(Mid 1980s and 1990s)
Major shift from traditional model with new main
focus on achievement of results rather than on
process
Move away from classic bureaucracy to more
flexible forms of organization.
Clear identification of objectives plus
performance indicators that enable measurement
Senior staff politically committed to government
Government involvement need not always mean
government provision/production
A trend towards reducing the scope of
government (privatization/decentralization) 21
 Main Criticisms Directed to
NPM
• 1- Focus on Efficiency: and the belief
that government could and should be run
like a business.

• 2- Focus on Customer rather than

Citizen: A customer oriented model puts
citizen in a reactive role.
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 N.P.M. Criticism
• Treating Americans as "customers" rather than
"citizens" is an inappropriate borrowing from the
private sector model, because businesses see
customers are a means to an end (profit), rather
than as the proprietors of government (the
owners).

• people are viewed as economic units not

democratic participants.
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 N.P.M

• Nevertheless, the model is still widely

accepted at all levels of government and in
many OECD nations.

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Reinventing Government as NPM
1. Catalytic Government, Steering Rather than Rowing;
2. Community-Owned Government, Empowering Rather than Serving;
3. Competitive Government, Injecting Competition into Service Delivery;
4. Mission-Driven Government, Transforming Rule-Driven Organizations;
5. Results-Oriented Government, Funding outcomes, Not Inputs;
6. Customer-Driven Government, Meeting the Needs of the Customer, Not the
Bureaucracy;
7. Enterprising Government, Earning Rather than Spending;
8. Anticipatory Government, Prevention Rather than Cure;
9. Decentralized Government, from Hierarchy to Participation and Teamwork;
10. Market-Oriented Government, Leveraging Change Through the Market.
(David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, 1992, Reinventing Government, pp.280-282)

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 New Public Service – N.P.S
• This model's chief contribution is a focus
on Americans as "citizens" rather than
"customers" and strong interest in the
adoption of private sector practices and
values (e.g., efficiency).

• Accordingly, the citizen is expected to

participate in government and take an
active role throughout the policy process. 26
 New Public Service (NPS)
Principles / (Denhardt: 2003)
- Help citizens articulate their mutual interest
rather than to steer society in new directions.

- Create collective and shared notion of public

interest (dialogue rather than aggregation
individual interests).

- Effective and responsive policies and

programs achieved through a collective effort
and collaborative process. 27
 New Public Service (NPS)
Principles / (Denhardt: 2003)
- PS is attentive to more than market .

- Shared leadership is the way for successful

public organizations / programs.

- Public interest served better by PS and

committed citizens than by managers acting as

if public money were their own.
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 New Public Service

Public servants do NOT deliver customer

service..
They deliver Democracy!

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 Challenges for the Future of
Public Service
• Economic Changes and Redefining Government
(restricted expenditure / new issues / PPP/
privatization / decentralization)
• Globalization (growing international dimension of
public administration)
• Technology and Work Environment (new people and
new values / E-Government
• The Role of Citizens in the Governance Process (NPS
and interactive decision making)
• Ethical and Moral Dimensions (PS are Guardians of
Public Trust)
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 NPM /NPS - Criticism
• Some authors say NPM/NPS has peaked
and is now in decline.
• The cutting edge of change has moved on
to digital era governance focusing on
reintegrating concerns into government
control, holistic government and
digitalization (exploiting the Web and
digital storage and communication within
government). 31
 .

THANKS

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 Political Approach
Prerequisites of Political approach to P.A.
• Participation,
• Decentralization,
• Representation,
• Responsiveness,

• Proponents: by Dwight Waldo, Robert A.

Dahl, Herbert Simon, result : N.P.A.
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 Political Approach…
• Political scientists concentrate on the
political role of public organizations and
their relationships with legislators, courts,
chief executives, and interest groups.
• Paul Appleby (1949) observed that
government organization is different from
other types of organization because
government is politics. The implication is
that public administration is a product of, 34
and cannot separate itself from, politics.  
 Progressive Democracy &
Administration
• Progressive public administrator is the expert, making decisions
based on his/her expertise, using objective data derived from
science, in order to maximize some general idea of the public
interest;
• The Progressive public administrator is assumed only to be
implementing those decisions that have already been made by
the democratic process;
• Because politics and administration are separate, there is no
need for the public administrator to include the citizen in
decision making;
• According to Progressive principles, democracy does not
happen at the point of administration; democracy happens in the
political process. 35
Assumption
• Bureaucrats are competent, neutral,
efficient and professional.
• Agency leaders guide how the law is
implemented through internal management
practices.
• Administrative agencies can serve political
ends.

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In reality
• Public administrators/managers do not act in a
vacuum and public administration practices have
historical roots in political ideas, some of which
are still influential today.
• Thus, although public administration is
inherently instrumental, it cannot be viewed
clearly without some light from basic political
science concepts, and
• A brief look back to the genesis of these concepts
is important to understand the business of
government in contemporary times. 37
Theoretical Draw-backs
• Politics/Policy : what is to be done ?
• Administration: how it is to be done ?

• Results: producing both bad policy and

unrealistic implementation.

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 External influence and
Administration
• Existing accounts (political approach) of the
nature of bureaucratic power and external
influence on bureaucratic decisions are usefully
grouped into five broad categories:
(1) the bureaucracy as ungovernable,
(2) Legislative or committee dominance,
(3) structural or design constraints,
(4) interest group influence, and
(5) multiple involvement.
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 Citizen-Govt. Relation ?
(a) citizens believe government is using its
power against them;
(b) citizens perceive government as
ineffective, inefficient, or otherwise
problematic; and
(c) citizens feel ignored, misunderstood, and
disenfranchised by government.

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Limitation
• Traditional /convention / classical public
administration and their limitations are as
following :
(1) vertical governing;
(2) professional dominance;
(3) instrumental-technical rationality;
(4) bureaucratic difficulty;
(5) procedural complexity;
(6) avoiding citizens; and
(7) dualistic thinking. 41
References:
.
Schiavo-Campo, Salvatore and McFerson, Hazel M. (2008) Public Management in Global Perspective,
Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Waldo, D. (1948) The Administrative State. New York: Ronald Press.
Waldo, D. (1978). “Democracy, Bureaucracy and Hypocracy.” Royer Lecture, given at the University
of California, Berkeley, May 13, 1978, on the occasion of Professor Emeritus ceremonies for
Victor Jones.
Stillman, II, R. J. (1987). The American Bureaucracy. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Waldo, D. (ed.) (1971) Public Administration in a Time of Turbulence. Scrawton, PA: Chandler.
Weber, M. (1978) Economy and Society. Vols I-II. Berkeley: University of California Press, (Original
German edition 1922.)
Humber, Gregory A. (2007). The Craft of Bureaucratic Neutrality: Interests and Influence in
Governmental Regulation of Occupational Safety, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Appleby, P.H. (1949) Policy and Administration. Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
King, Cheryl Simrell and Stivers, Camilla (2001). " Reforming Public Administration: Including
Citizen" in Kuotsai Tom Liou (ed.) (2001) Handbook of Public Management Practice and
Reform, New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.
Dwight Waldo (1948). The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public
Administration, New York: Ronald Press.
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 What next ?

• Managerialism !

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