Nature and Scope of PA.pptx

Public Administration

1. Meaning, Nature and Scope Public Administration

2. WHAT IS ADMINISTRATION ? The word ‘administer’ is derived from the Latin word administere, which means to care for or to look after people, to manage affairs. Administration may be defined as “group activity which involves cooperation and coordination for the purpose of achieving desired goals or objectives”. Broadly speaking, the term administration appears to bear at least four different meanings or different senses depending upon the context in which it is used: (1) As a Discipline: The name of a branch of learning or intellectual discipline as taught and studied in colleges and universities. (3) As a Process: The sum total of activities undertaken to implement Public Policy or policies to produce some services or goods.

3. Noted below are definitions by a few famous writers. L.D. White “ The art of administration is the direction, co- ordination and control of many persons to achieve some purpose or objective ”. Luther Gullick “ Administration has to do with getting things done, with the accomplishment of defined objectives”.

4. What is Public Administration? (Public = Government usually). Is the study of the management of the public agencies that carry out/implement public policies to achieve the public interest. Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programs as well as the behaviour of officials (usually non- elected) formally responsible for their conduct".

5. Definitions of Public Administration “Public Administration is a detailed and systematic application of law .” by Prof. Woodrow Wilson “ Public Administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment of public policy as declared by authority.” by L. D. White. “By Public Administration is meant the activities of the executive branches of the national, state, & local governments.” by Simon . “Public Administration is the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of the state.” (Waldo)

6. Political Definitions of Public Administration 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. The rise of administrative discretion in the face of legislative vagueness means that the job of the anonymous administrator is to define the public interest.

7. 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 United States, the Constitution of 1787 is the law of the land. All legislation must conform.

8. 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.

9. Importance of Public Administration the basis of government (contributing in social fairness). Important role in the life of the people. Executing policies, regulations, and programs in the country or city. Providing public goods and services (such as water).

10. NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION There are two views - Integral and Managerial . I ntegral view - ‘administration’ is the sum total of all the activities – manual, clerical, managerial, etc., which are undertaken to realise the objectives of the organisation. In this view all the acts of officials of the government from the Attendant to the Secretaries to the government and Head of the State constitute Public Administration. Henri Fayol and L.D. White are the supporters of this view.

11. According to the managerial view of administration, the managerial activities of people who are involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling constitute Public Administration. This view regards administration as getting things done and not doing things. Luther Gullick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg and Thompson are the supporters of this view. The managerial view excludes Public Administration from non- managerial activities such as manual, clerical and technical activities.

12. SCOPE OF PUBLIC AD M INISTRATION By the scope of Public Administration, we mean the major concerns of Public Administration as an activity and as a discipline. Scope of Public Administration as an activity Broadly speaking, Public Administration embraces all the activities of the government. Hence as an activity the scope of public administration is no less than the scope of state activity. Public administration covers every area and activity within the ambit public policy. Thus, the scope of public administration is very wide in modern state.

13. Scope of Public Administration as a Discipline The scope of public administration as a discipline, that is subject of studies, comprises of the following: The POSDCoRB view Several writers have defined the scope of public administration in varying terms. Gullick sums up the scope of the subject by the letters of the word POSDCoRB which denote: Planning, Organisation, Staffing, Directing, Co-ordinating reporting the Budgeting. Planning means the working out in broad outline the things to be done, the methods to be adopted to accomplish the purpose. Organisation means the establishment of the formal structure of authority through which the work is sub- divided, arranged, defined and coordinated.

14. Staffing means the recruitment and training of the personnel and their conditions of work. Directing means making decisions and issuing orders and instructions. Coordinating means inter-relating the work of various divisions, sections and other parts of the organisation. Reporting means informing the superiors within the agency to whom the executive is responsible about what is going on. Budgeting means fiscal planning, control and accounting. According to Gullick the POSDCoRB activities are common to all organisations. They are the common problems of management which are found in different agencies regardless of the nature of the work they do.

15. The Subject Matter View We all know that public administration deals not only with the processes but also with the substantive matters of administration, such as Defence, Law and Order, Education, Public Health, Agriculture, Public Works, Social Security, Justice, Welfare, etc. These services require not only POSDCoRB techniques but also have important specialised techniques of their own which are not covered by POSDCoRB techniques.

16. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION Public administration is governmental administration concerned with achieving state purposes, determined by the state. Private administration, on the other hand is, concerned with administration of private business organisation and is distinct from public administration.

17. DISTINCTION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION According to Simon, the distinction between public and private administration relates mainly to three points: Public administration is bureaucratic whereas private administration is business like; Public administration is political where as private administration is non-political; and Public administration is characterised by red- tape where as private administration is free from it.

18. The more important distinguishing features of Public administration may be described under the following sub-heads: Political Direction : Public administration is political, while private administration is non-political, public administration takes place in a political context. Absence of profit motive : The absence of profit motive from the Public administration is another feature, which distinguishes it from the private administration. The primary purpose of governmental organisation is to provide services to the people and promote social good. Prestige : Public administrators who serve in the Government enjoy high status and prestige in comparison to their counterparts in private enterprises especially developing countries.

19. Similarities between Public and Private Administration Both public and business administration rely on common skills, techniques and procedures. In personnel management, the private organisations have been influenced greatly by the practices of public organisations. There is a similar type of hierarchy and management systems, both in public and private sectors. Both have same kind of organisation structure, superior – subordinate relationships, etc. Both Pubic and private administration carries on continuous efforts to improve their internal working and also for efficient delivery of services to people or customers.

20. Evolution of public administration Developmental phases Phase I: The Politics/Administration Dichotomy (1887- 1926) Phase II: The Principles of Administration (1927-1937) Phase III: Criticism and Challenges (1938- 1950 Phase IV: Crisis of Identity (1950-1970) PhaseV: Public Administration as an Independent Discipline (1970 Onwards)

21. Phase-I:The Politics/Adminis tration Dichotomy (1887-1926 ) Woodrow Wilson was the first scholar who mainly set the tone for the early study of Public Administration through his essay entitled „The Study of Administration‟ appeared in 1887 in which he emphasized the necessity of developing the scientific foundations of the discipline. He originated the ‗politics/administration dichotomy‘- the distinction between political activity and administrative activity in public organization by observing that it ―is getting harder to run a constitution than to frame one.

22. PhaseII:The Principles of Administration (1927-1937) During this phase, scholars believed that Public administration is a separate activity with its own well marked field and principles. In 1927,W.F.Willoughby‘s book „Principles of Public Administration‟ was published in which he asserted that ―in administration there are certain fundamental principles of general application analogous to those characterizing any science.‖ They could be discovered and administrators would be expert in their work if they learned how to apply these principles. Further, they propounded the famous concept of POSDCORB – final expression of these principles. Resultantly, Public Administration touched its zenith and this phase is regarded as a golden era in the evolution of the discipline.

23. PhaseIII: Criticismand Challenges (1937-1950) In the very next year (1938),the mainstream Public Administration was challenged with the publication of Chester I. Barnard‘s „The Functions of the Executive‟. The challenge came basically in two forms: first, rejection of the idea of politics administration dichotomy and second, principles of public administration lacking in scientific validity

24. PhaseIV:Crisis of Identity (1948–1970) The discipline was in quandary and suffered from the crisis of identity due to the abandonment of politics- administration dichotomy and the principles of public administration. So the scholars of public administration reacted to this crisis by reestablishing the linkages of Public Administration first with Political Science and then with the Management. Speaking in terms of Political Science, it can be said that most of the writings on Public Administration in the 1950‘s spoke of the field as an emphasis,‘ and area of interest‘ or even as a synonym‘ of Political Science.

25. PhaseV:Public Administration as an Independent Discipline(1970Onwards) However, even when the discipline of Public Administration was at its lowest ebb, it was sowing the seeds of its own renaissance. Couple of factors, complimentary to each other, contributed in this process. The first was the development of interdisciplinary programs focusing upon policy science. In this regard three distinct inter theoretical linkages – a) politics-administration union, b) Economics-administration confluence, and c) organization theory-administration intermixing -- can be identified.

26. The second was the emergence of New Public Administration (NPA) – an outcome of first Minnowbrook Conference held in 1968 sponsored by Dwight Waldo -which put more emphasis on values replacing the traditional goals of efficiency and effectiveness. The overall focus of NPA movement was to make administration less generic and more public, less descriptive and more prescriptive, less institution- oriented and more client-oriented, less neutral and more normative, but it should be no less scientific all the time. All these developments led to the rise of an independent field of public administration