LECTURE 02

PUBLIC POLICY IN PAKISTAN

MPA401
 Introduction

• As an activity, public administration is as old as the human

civilization itself. The academic discipline of public

administration is just hundred years old.

• However, modern public administration differs considerably

from the ancient and medieval form of public administration

 Public policy versus public Administration

• Public policy is the mechanism to frame any kind of mechanism,

system/process or procedure to address any phenomenon.

• Public Administration- It is the implication of the said policy

through different instruments.

• It is concerned with the implementation of government policy,

and is an academic discipline that studies this implementation

and prepares civil servants for working in the public service.

 Approaches
• Behavioural approach
• Systems approach
• Ecological approach
• Public choice approach
• Contingency approach
• They were authoritarian, patriarchal and elitist in character

• Major concerns of the earlier public administration have

been the maintenance of law and order, collection of
revenue, while the welfare has been purely incidental or
optionally undertaken
• Administrators were small in numbers

• The administrators were selected at the discretion of the

monarch or ruler or king.
• They were just personal servants of the king

• The officials had been hereditary.

• The following forces has changed the nature and scope of

public administration in modern times

• The rise of capitalism

• The industrialization revolution

• Spread of socialist ideas and democratic ideals

• Welfare state
 The impacts on the government

• Governmental problems have become all encompassing

• It touches our lives from cradle to grave. Some times even before we

are born and after we die

• This implies a multiplication of state functions and these functions are

highly specialized

• The former system of Administration has become inadequate and

incompetent to deal with the complex political and public problems of

modern world.
 What is public administration

 Public Administration has different definitions

 The most common definition

 “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.”

 Inclusive definition: administrators are the foremost, but not

the only individuals in PA

 Gordon/Milakovich
 Political Definitions of Public Administration
• Public administration is what government does.

– As a profession, public administration has developed

values and ethical standards, but as an activity it merely
reflects the cultural norms, beliefs, and power realities of
its society.

– Public administration is the totality of the working day

activities of all the world’s bureaucrats – whether they are
legal or illegal, competent or incompetent, decent or
despicable.
 Political Definitions of Public Administration

• Public administration is both direct and indirect.

– Direct – provision of services like mortgage insurance,

mail delivery, and electricity.

– Indirect – when the government pays private contractors

to provide goods and services to citizens (space shuttle,

dams).
 Political Definitions of Public Administration

• Public administration is a phase in the policy-making cycle.

– Administration does not end with implementation because

someone will always think it can be done better.

• Public administration is implementing the public interest.

The public interest is the universal label in which political

actors wrap the policies and programs that they advocate.

The public interest is a commonly accepted good.

 Legal Definitions of Public Administration

• Because public administration is what a state does, it is both

created and bound by an instrument of the law.
• Public administration is the law in action.
– Public administration is inherently the execution of a public
law.
– Every application of a general law is necessarily an act of
administration.
– In the Pakistan, the Constitution of 1973 (with amendments)
is the law of the land.
 Legal Definitions of Public Administration

• Public administration is the king’s largesse.

– It is whatever goods, services, or honors the ruling authority

decides to bestow (monarchy). Plaques and political machines.
• Public administration is theft.

– The primary culprit is redistribution.

– Ayn Rand – the only proper function of the government of a free

country is to act as an agency which protects the individual’s
rights.
– John Kenneth Galbraith – It is a simple matter of arithmetic that
change may be costly to the man who has something; it cannot be
 Managerial Definitions of Public
Administration

• Public administration is so much a branch of management that

many graduate schools of management (or business or

administration) are divided into public and private – and now

increasingly nonprofit – programs.

• Public administration is the executive function of government.

– Government agencies put into practice legislative acts that

represent the will of the people

 Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

• Public administration is a management specialty.

– Top managers make the big decisions and are responsible
for the overall success of the organization.
– Public administrators are found in middle management, the
group responsible for the execution and interpretation of
top management policies and the day-to-day operation of
an organizational unit.
 Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

• Public administration is Mickey Mouse.

– Anything that requires considerable effort with few
results.
– Often used to mean “red tape”, excessive formality and
attention to routine. Red ribbon that official used to use
to tie up public documents.
• Use because they promote efficiency and equity
overall, although not always in individual cases.
 Managerial Definitions of Public
Administration

• Public administration is art, not science – or vice versa.

– Public administration is actually both.
• It requires judgment, panache, and common sense.

• It also requires technical skills that allow for the

digestion and transference of information.
– Just because you have the academic credentials does
not mean that you can function as a high level
administrator.