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By Kenzlee E. Ybañez
University of San Carlos, Philippines
MPMD 1st Sem
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James Q. Wilson


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This paper initially begins to answer the question on: What is Public

Management? Generally, we understand public management to mean performing certain

tasks related to policy implementation in publicly supported programs.1 Others define

Public Management as a term that considers that government and non-profit

administration resembles private-sector management in some important ways. As such,

there are management tools appropriate in public and in private domains, tools that

maximize efficiency and effectiveness.2 Whatever, the meaning of Public Management is

the next quest is to answer: For whom and for what is this discipline for?

Public management is the subject of a rapidly growing literature that is

have been at the heart of public management from its foundation as a field of study and

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Jones, L. R., Fred Thompson and William Zumeta. Y#

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_management
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Lynn, Laurence E. Y#

  (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 2001).
practice. The objective of public management is to provide theoretical and empirical

foundations for addressing both public questions in the bureaucracy and the myriad

specific questions that arise in organizing and carrying out managerial responsibilities in

government departments, bureaus, and offices:4

Pubic Management stems from the discipline of Political Science and Public

Administration. Political Science concerns much on the policies or expression of the state
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will, while public administration has to do with the execution of these policies. Either

or, it has something to do with the government and the bureaucracy. Administration is the

core of the government. Without it, we are left with an empty bag of rules for how we are

to get along.6

The creation of political science in the late 1900s has a big impact on schools. But

in every theory or discipline there has something to be a counter-discipline: a method

commonly known in the arts, the dialectics. Public administration stems out from

political science, a quest that took for about half a century. A battle approved and

disapproved by a lot of scholars.

There is a need to trace the history of Public Administration through its various

loci and foci. As Goodnow defined the two distinct functions of the government is

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4
Lynn (2001).
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Henry, Nicholas. 

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 (ASPA: Public Administration Review,
Vol. 35, No. 4, July-Aug, 1975), pp. 378-386.
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Guy, Mary E. Ties That Bind: ! Y()Y  YY 
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(Cambridge University Press: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 3, Aug 2003), pp. 641-655
politics and administration. Paradigm 1 made public administrationists as the center in

the government¶s bureaucracy. It is where public administration received its first serious

attention through the emergence of the ³public service movement.´ Later on, in Paradigm

2, the creation and the issue of ³principles´ has been very crucial. Other scholars think

that there are no principles, but to some scholars ³principles´ exists, and the execution of

these ³principles´ matters most in public administration. Paradigm 3 notes the existence

of Public Administration within political science. It notes the locus of the governmental

bureaucracy, but it tends to loss its focus. Paradigm 4 has the emphasis of public

administration as part of the administrative sciences. Paradigm 4 has a concrete focus but

not on locus since public administration belongs to the administrative sciences. Paradigm

5 strengthens the notion of Public Administration as Public Administration. It gives a

concrete autonomy of Public Administration as a field of study. It garnered curricular

autonomy in schools and universities. Since then Public Administration has been an

independent field of study, having a definite focus and locus

For many years public administration has struggled for its independent position in

the social sciences. While in its early years it was part of the more conservative fields of

Law, Politics, and Economy, it has been developed today to a unique field, independent

in many ways but still enjoying mutual contributions of other disciplines in the social
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sciences. Since 1970s Public Administration is public administration, the fifth

paradigm. Whether or not, public administration cannot be separated from the political

process, the journey and quest of public administration is linked and tied with political

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 , p. 1.
science, even if it exists today as an independent field of study. The logical conceptual

connection between public administration and political science: i.e., the public policy-

making process.8 For Holden, ³the attempt to understand politics separate from

administration is folly.´9

The ³where´ and ³what´ of public administration can be traced through its

development as an entity. It has been part of political science, it emerges then as an

administrative sciences, and today it now exists as an independent body, a public

administration of its essence.

The world in which public managers function is rapidly changing and vastly

different from that contemplated by the early intellectual stalwarts of public

administration. The common sense of public management is relatively straightforward.

Good public managers, whatever their particular positions or responsibilities, are men

and women with the temperament and skills to organize, motivate, and direct the actions

of others in and out of government toward the creation and achievement of goals that

warrant the use of public authority.10 The public managers have the people as their focus

in wherever they are. According to Mary E. Guy, ³Government is for us, and it is ³us´

that should be the focus.´11

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Nicholas *
, p. 381.
9
Guy (2003), p. 652.
10
Lynn (2001).
11
Guy (2003), p. 653.
 Administration has something to do with principles. These principles are crafted

and exist. The new thrust of public administration is to use these existing principles in

their daily tasks and that would be making them experts in their field. The study of public

administration should also then concern of the philosophical framework of the student.

The student should be crafted with principles and theories that would be use in his quest

for good public administration. Students of public administration should know how to

link politics and administration, the crafting or formation of policy to the execution of

this policy.

Today the development of Public Administration has been very significant in the

changing society. The need for good public administrationist has been a great challenge.

In Moore¶s view, the gist of public management is ³conceiving and implementing public

policies that realize the potential of a given political and institutional setting,´ potential

he later termed µpublic value¶12

Today, public administration is already very different from what it used to be

forty, thirty, and even twenty or ten years ago. In the coming years it is going to be even

more different. The challenge of today¶s generation is to produce efficient and good

public administrationists and managers that would cater to the total development of the

bureaucracy. A challenge stemmed and mandated from the people. In the Philippines, the

use of efficient public management has been a quest and forever be a quest.

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Moore, Mark H. Y& YYY#

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(1984), p. 3.