KLB 2213: Introduction to Public Administration

Chapter 2:

Issues in Public Administration:

Theory and Practice
 Introduction
• The Issues in Public Administration:

(i) Politics and Administration

(ii) Accountability
(iii) Bureaucracy and Democracy
(iv) Efficiency versus Responsibility
 Public Administration as a Developing Discipline

• Development administration refer to “the

process of guiding an organization towards the
achievement of progressive political, economic
and social objective” (Edward Weider).

• It involve the establishment of machinery for

planning economic growth and mobilizing and
allocating resources to expand national income.
• To sum up, development administration is
concerned with:

(i) The formulation and implementation of

plans, policies, programmes and projects for
national development, and

(ii) Development of administration machinery

and process adequately suited to the task
of national development.
 action-oriented and
 goal-oriented administrative system.
The Evolution of Public Administration as a Developing
Discipline consist of:

 Paradigm 1: Politics and Administration Dichotomy

 Paradigm 2: The Principles of Administration

 Paradigm 3: Public Administration as Political Science

 Paradigm 4: Public Administration as Management

 Paradigm 5: Public Administration as Public Administration

 Paradigm 6: From Government to Governance.

 The Beginning
• The concerns of Public Administration move
begin when WILSON (1887) sought to
investigate the organization and methods of
government offices toward:
i. What government can properly and successfully do,
ii. How it can do these proper things with utmost
efficiency and at least possible cost either money or
energy.
 Paradigm 1:
Politics and Administration Dichotomy
• A sharp distinction between politics and
administration had been drew by Wilson (1887) –
politics and administration dichotomy.

• He wrote that ‘administration lies outside the

proper sphere of politics and administrative
questions are not political questions”, rather
they are managerial questions – a field of
business.
• The reasons:
 It is getting harder to run a Constitution than frame
one.
 Much of political science is focused on politics which
is developing constitution
- concerned with policy making
 More work needs to be done on learning how to
administer these law
- concerned with policy implementation

• The basis for understanding the public

administration is management, not law.
 A new science of administration was establish to
make the operation of government more business
like.
 Paradigm 2:
The Principles of Administration
• After the World War 1, the administrative
problems grew as government become
increasingly complex.
 changing nation from a rural agricultural society to an
urban industrial nation.

• Led to the discovering the principles of public

administration that emphasis on economy and
efficiency as the sole goal of administrative
activity.
 PERIOD of ORTHODOXY
(public administration development pattern between the world wars)

• Democracy and efficiency are identical, and that

the work of government could be neatly divided
into (i) decision making and (ii) execution.

• The understanding of administration was concern

with ORGANIZATION and CONTROL.
Control need to be built into organizational structure and
design as to assure accountability and efficiency.
 Control can be done thru proper administration with
discoverable principles.
THE PRINCPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
by Frederick Taylor

 Improve organizations’ efficiency and productivity

 “One best way” found through measurement

 Convert workers’ rule of thumb knowledge to scientific principles

 Connect pay to production, not attendance

 Workers placed in optimal roles

 Managers design work flow, need worker cooperation to

implement scientific principles
 THE BUREAUCRATIC THEORY
by Max Weber

 Formal, fixed rules, laws, regulations govern the work

 Rules are stable, can be learned

 Hierarchical structure, lower offices supervised by higher ones

 Extensive recordkeeping, office

 Expert trained staff

 Official work is done regardless of time

 Office is a vocation, training, profession, career

 Appointed position/career tenure position, move through hierarchy

 Compensation
 Weber’s Ideal Type of Bureaucracy characteristics:

 Bureaucracy is based upon RULES WHICH ARE ACCEPTED by the

members of the organization.

 Bureaucracy is relatively COUNTINUOUS in its operation.

 The area of bureaucratic administration COMPETENCE are

SPECIFIED.

 Bureaucracy is based upon the idea of HIERARCHY.

 The official are TRAINED so that the structures can function in the
ways intended.

 The successful and continuing operations of bureaucracy depends to

a large extent upon the WRITTEN RECORD.
 Some Problems with Bureaucratic Organization

 Expertise
Changing conditions
“Trained incapacity”

 Rules as ends, not means

Goals of organization?
Inability to adjust

 Careerism
Vested interests
Risk averse
Defend turf, withhold information

 Impersonalization
Bureaucrat-client relationship, “case”
If lacking = favoritism
 ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT
(Principle of Administrative)
by Gulwick and Urwick

• Seven principles of administration to help the

administrators function more efficiently - the
anagram of POSDCORB:

i. Planning –
Working out in broad outline the things that need to
be done and the methods to accomplish the goals

ii. Organizing-
Establishing the formal structure of authority
iii. Staffing-
The personnel functions including recruiting, training &
maintaining the favorable conditions of works.
vi. Directing –
Task of making decision and embodying them in general
and specific orders and instructions and serving as the
leader of the organization
v. COordinating –
Manage all the important duty and interrelating the
various parts of the work.
vii. Reporting –
Supplying information through recordkeeping, research
and inspection.
viii. Budgeting –
All aspect of budgeting including fiscal planning,
accounting, and control.
 Gulwick and Urwick thought on how administrators can
function more efficiently;

i. Span of Control:
It should be kept narrow and limited between 6 and 10
subordinates

ii. One Master:

Each subordinates should have only one master/
superior

iii.Technical Efficiency through the Principle of

Homogeneity:
Task should be grouped by their degree of similarity
The differences between Bureaucratic Theory
and Administrative Management
 ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY

• Early formative of Public Administration

focused on Internal Issues
management practice & problems, organizational
behavior & structure and personnel

The Issue:
How can we ensure that governmental administration
will act legally and responsibly in pursuing the role of
being responsive to the interest groups?
• Administrative responsibility best assured
internally through professional standards or code.
 Internal check and balances necessary – increasing
complexities of modern policies
 Consequently, little review made by an outsider – political or
legislative body

• Administrative could only be assured externally

through legislative or political control
 External checks and balance, the way to ensure the
accountability of bureaucrats
 Internal power of control would ultimately lead to
corruption.
 ADMINISTRATIVE BEHAVIOR
by Herbert Simon’s

• Counter the principle approach to Public

Administration
POSDCORB is inconsistent, conflicting and in applicable to
many administrative situation.

• Introduced the concept of "BOUNDED

RATIONALITY”
People are rational decision makers – within limit.
Understood that administrative decision makers wanted to
make rational choice – the single “best choice”
But, there were a lot of variables constraint the way of
locating the most rational decision.
• It was not possible to take the value-free process of
business and apply them to government.

• From the analysis by Robert A. Dahl, the main

concerns of Public Administration discipline should:
 Recognizes the complexities of human behavior
 Deals with the problems of normative values in administrative
situations, and
 Take into account the relationship between administration and its
social setting.

• The pattern of Public Administration had

returned to the fold of political science and
managerial practice – the politics and
administration lost its viability.
 Paradigm 3:
Public Administration as Political Science
• After the Second World War 2, the public
administration in most countries had transform into
a modern bureaucratic state - the principles of public
administration is inadequate.

The Issues:
The nature and effect of bureaucratic organizations and the
political dimensions of the new administrative state.
 It was not possible to take the value-free processes of business and
apply them to government
•Political Perspectives on Public Administration.
Government different from private organizations
and businesses.

Power to make decision, representation is

important in government organization.

Bureaucracy:
 Representative, pluralism
 Interests, groups, lobbying
 Decentralization- close to the people, but coordination
problems and susceptible to “pork” spending
 Connection between bureaucracy and legislative committees
 Paradigm 4:
Public Administration as Management
• Management was a viable alternative for a
significant development in administration.

The Issue:
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT is the primary concern†.
Achieves the goal of public policies by executing related
programs in an efficient and effective manner.
Management is the effective utilization of human resources
and material to reach the known goal.
Through it scientific management and principles gave way to
better organization in government.
 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT THEORY

• Values the “democratization” of bureaucracies and “self-

actualization” of individual members of organizations.

• Improve organization by focusing on human interaction –

critical to success

• More trust, support, and cooperation among members

leads to better problem solving.
 Consultation
 Group Activities, team building
- Trust, openness
- Conflict resolution
- Promote enthusiasm and creativity
 Organizational Psychology
 Paradigm 5:
Public Administration as Public Administration
• Focus was shifted to the NEW PUBLIC ADMINSTRATION
– call for independence from both political science &
management that always been emphatically practical
rather than normative in approach.

• New Public Administration dealt with:

 Values, ethics
 Development of individual member in organization
 The relation of client with the bureaucrats
 The broad problems of urbanization, technology and
violence.
• Most government institutions perform
increasingly complex tasks, in competitive,
rapidly changing environments, with customers
who want quality and choice - the concept of
entrepreunial government

• The return of public administration as an

independent field giving a new meaning,
direction and purpose in study and practical
application of public administration such as:
 (i) REINVENTING GOVERNMENT

• Most government institutions perform increasingly

complex tasks, in competitive, rapidly changing
environments, with customers who want quality and
choice.

 Reinventing Government = The Concept of Entrepreunial

Government

• David Osborne and Ted Gabler (1992) describe the

ENTREPREUNIAL GOVERNMENT as:
 ENTREPREUNIAL GOVERNMENT
ENTREPREUNIAL GOVERNMENT
CATALYTIC GOVERNMENT
COMMUNITY OWNED GOVERNMENT
COMPETITIVE GOVERNMENT
MISSION DRIVEN GOVERNMENT
RESULTS-ORIENTED GOVERNMENT
CUSTOMER-DRIVEN GOVERNMENT
ENTERPRISING GOVERNMENT
ANTICIPATORY GOVERNMENT
DECENTRELAIZED GOVERNMENT
MARKET-ORIENTED GOVERNMENT
DESCRIPTION
steering rather than rowing
empowering rather than serving
injecting competition into service delivery
transforming rule-driven organizations
funding outcomes, no inputs
meeting the needs of the customer, not the
bureaucracy
earning rather than spending
prevention rather than cure
from hierarchy to participation and teamwork
leveraging change through the market
 (ii) NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT (NPM)

• NPM is reform-oriented that seek to improve

the public sector performance.

Traditional bureaucratically organized public

administration is "BROKE" and "BROKEN“,
 Consequently the public has lost faith in
government.
• Today, NPM becoming the dominant and the
standard language and practice of public
administration that focus on:
Result oriented
Customers focused
Employee empowerment
Entrepreneurship and
Outsourcing

• The public administrative culture is changing to

be more flexible, innovative, problem solving,
entrepreneurial and enterprising - opposed to
inputs focused.
 Paradigm 6:
From Government to Governance
• Governance entails a move away from
traditional hierarchical forms of organization
and the adoption of network forms
(partnership).

• It also entails a revision of the relationship

between state and civil society in a more
participatory direction.
• Governance refer to the institutional capacity
to provide goods and services demanded by
their citizens in an effective, transparent, fair,
and accountable manner that subject to
resource constraints (World Bank, 2000).

The totality of interactions between the government, the

public as well as the private actors participate with an
aimed in solving societal problems or creating societal
opportunities.

Focus on the role of networks, in pursuit of common

goals with ethical conduct.
 Conclusion
• Current debate on Public Administration
emphasis on “What Matters” not “What We
Do”
 The ends do not justify the means = result oriented.
Thank You 