Political Approach to Public Administration

Keshav Raj Pande

Public Administration Campus, T.U.
Pande.keshav@gmail.com; krpande@pactu.edu.np
 Presentation highlights

 Democracy and Bureaucracy

 Representation and Participation
 Political efficacy and Political involvement
 Rules and Procedures
 Some key Concepts
 Public administration in all modern nations
is identified with the executive branch.
 Public administration is action part of the
government.
 Policy setting.
 Political participation.
 Democratic Procedures.
 Some key concepts
 Public administration in all modern nations
is identified with the executive branch.
 Public administration is action part of the
government.
 Policy setting.
 Political participation.
 Democratic Procedures.
 Politics
 Politics is the science dealing with the
organization, regulation and administration
of a state, in both its international and
external affairs. Webster’s Dictionary
 Politics is the authentic allocation of
values. David Eastern
 Politics is the process that determines who
get what, when and how. Harold Lasswell
 Public administration is that sector of administration found
in a political setting;
 Concerned primarily with the carrying out of public policy
decisions made by the authoritative decision-maker in the
political system;
 There is no clear-cut boundaries in the field. It is moving
from order to chaos.
 ‘The core of public administration is politics and public
policy’ and that ‘public administration can be defined as the
formulation, evaluation, and modification of public policy’.
(James W.Davis,1974,An Introduction to Public administration: Politics, Policy and Bureaucracy,)
 What is Public Administration?
 Public administration is a component of
government.
 Public administration is perceived more often by
citizens as another component of government.
 Public administration is a subfield of politics.
 Public administration has been described as
determined actions taken in pursuit of conscious
purpose.
 For citizens, public administration is more
concerned because of the services it delivers.
What does public administration do?
Public administration is concerned with means
for the achievement of prescribed ends:
 Public administrator should serve to the political
masters;
 Public administrator has to deliver the services to
the citizens;
 Public administrator is responsible to systems and
rules of the government etc.
 Conclusion
 Political approach to public administration offers
real diagnosis for government and governance
areas;
 Politics based job can make delivery of
government services more effective, responsive
and accountable;
 This approach is able to preserve properly
facilitate through conducive policy instruments,
legal and regulatory environment, and
 It can contribute significantly towards economic
growth, social advancement, social equity, and
ultimately peace and harmony in a society.
 Public Administration involves
 In policy setting functions,
 In policy implementation functions,
 In Decision-making functions,
 In service-delivering functions,
 Interrelated
Politics and administration are interrelated as
following:
 Politics considers policy matters and
administrators involve in the process of policy
formulation.
 Politics determines theoretically what to do in
policy questions, and pubic administration
confines practically how to implement it.
 Politics analyse the government and public
administration manage the governance.
The political approach to public administration was
firmly stated by Wallace Sayre as follow:
 Public administration is ultimately a problem in political
theory: the fundamental problem in a democracy is
responsibility to popular control; the responsibility and
responsiveness of the administrative agencies and the
bureaucracies to the elected officials (the chief executives,
the legislators) are of central importance in a government
based increasingly on the exercise of discretionary power
by the agencies of administration.
 Ivor Jennings (1959) states that the 'civil servants'
(bureaucrats’) function is to advise, to warn, to
draft memoranda and speeches in which the
Government's policy is expressed and explained,
to take the consequential decisions which flow
from a decision of policy, to draw attention to
difficulties which are arising or are likely to arise
through the execution of policy, and generally to
see that the process of government is carried on in
conformity with the policy laid down.
Thanks

THE END