CHAPTER ONE

THE NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1.1 Introduction

 Every system of public administration is the product of many influences/factors.

 Its form and content reflect its historical origin; existing patterns are a composite of practices
and procedures of both ancient and contemporary.
 As White (1955:13) noted, no administrative system can be well understood without some
knowledge of what it has been, and how it came to be what it is now.

 Therefore, when we study public administration, it would be indispensable to look at it from a

historical perspective.

 The study of Public Administration is strictly related with the very existence and changing
functions/roles of the government. i.e., the scale, range and nature of PA rely on role of
government. Due to this reason, public administration must always be seen in the context
(framework, situations, perspective) of the problems confronting the government.
 In the ancient time ( before the 19th century), the functions/roles of state was very few/limited
in number which is limited only to;
 Protecting the country from external invasions/external defense
 Maintenance of internal law and order
 Levying and collection of taxes
 Governments do not have any important responsibility in regulating the socioeconomic life of
the society and the management of socio-economic life of the society was not considered as
government responsibility. i.e, the socio-economic life of the society was largely regulated by
private relations/market and people lead their own live without government intervention.
 However, the absence of any kind of significant government involvement in socio-economic
life of the people resulted in a number of problems in the society. These problems initiated
different philosophers and scholars that there must be government intervention in the socio-
economic life of the society. After that people expect more from the government and the
government is started to do /assume more responsibility than before.

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 In general, the following are factors behind the changing role of state and thus of public
administration;

a) Industrialization- the development of industry and the associated growth of towns

(urbanization) led to various socioeconomic problems such as those related to housing, health,
unemployment and so on. These problems were not satisfactorily resolved through the market
system, and thus political demands eventually led to state action.

b) Social cost: as the scale of commercialization increased, it became apparent that the
activities of one organization or individual could impose extra costs upon the society in
general; for example environmental damage from pollution. Thus, pressure upon the state
both to regulate and to take certain responsibilities upon itself became necessary

c) Market inadequacies: certain basic facilities that would bring successful economic
growth were not being effectively provided by the private sector. e.g., road, education, health,
street light, posts etc.

d) Political demands: as a result of many factors like those mentioned above, various
groups organized themselves in order to present their views politically. Those groups
requested an integral and active intervention of the state in their interest and affairs.

e) Exploitation of the weaker by the stronger

f) Insecurity of jobs for employee or dangerous working conditions for employee

g) Exploitation of child labor etc.

 In general, public administration showed tremendous growth, both as a profession/activity

and as a field of study, alongside the expansion of government functions and changing trends
in its essential roles. This has been manifested through the growth of the institutional
machinery and hierarchy of professional bureaucracy as well as through the growing concerns
of scholars in the subject.

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 Public administration as an academic discipline (as a branch of learning or as a field of
study) or the official academic status to the discipline is not more than a century and two
decade century. i.e., especially after the publication of Wilson‟s essay on the “study of public
administration.”

 However, PA as an activity/practice/ is as old as human civilization or from the beginning of

social organization. i.e., PA as an activity has existed long before the systematic study of the
subject.

 Although we acknowledge the age-old practice of administration, governmental

administration of the earlier times (ancient and medieval) differed considerably in its structure
and goals from the modern era.

 features of state administration in the ancient and medieval period:

 Authoritarian, patriarchal, hereditary and elitist (or discriminatory) in character, informal and
fluid structure,

 The so-called administrators were few in number, selected entirely at the discretion (upon the
will) of the monarch and their official status was no better than the personal servants of the
king,

 Performs limited functions or Administrative (state) functions were limited in scope,

 features of state administration in modern period(after 19th century)

 Takes the form of public bureaucracy, and administrators were recruited on the basis of public
law, became more formal,

 More formal structure performing largely within a legal framework,

 Performs multiple of functions, much beyond revenue collection, maintenance of law and
order, as well as security functions.

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 Tasks becoming by-and-large welfare concern and public oriented,

 The scope and volume of modern public administration is increasing with an increasing social
complexity, specialization, differentiation, population, urbanization and public
communication.

1.2. Meaning and Scope of Public Administration

Definition:

 the term administration come/derived from two Latin words

 public-people

 administration-management

 public administration-to care or look after people or

 to manage governmental affairs at all levels

 there is a slight differences between administration and public administration

 Administration –different writers define administration in d/t ways;

 Administration is a determined action taken in pursuit of a conscious purpose. It is a

systematic ordering of affairs and the calculated use of resources aimed at making those
things happen which one wants to happen (Marx).

 It is the organization and direction of human and material resources to achieve desired
ends…getting the work of government done by coordinating the efforts of the people so that
they can work together to accomplish their set (predetermined) tasks(piffner)

 Administration is a process common to all group effort, public or private, civil or military,
large-scale or small scale... (L. D. White)

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 Administration is the activities of groups cooperating to accomplish common goals (Herbert
Simon).

 In general, administration exists whenever people cooperate to achieve the goals of their
groups/organization and such achievement requires planning, organizing, cooperation and
control.

 It involves the mobilization of resources and direction of human and material resources to
attain specific goals.

 A brief analysis of the definitions listed above reveals that administration comprises the
following essentials, namely, (1) cooperative effort, and (2) purposefulness and systematic
application. One does not find any administration if there is only a common purpose without a
collective effort or vice-versa.

 Public administration- is any kind of administration in the public interest or government in

action/administration.
 So, the difference between administration and public administration is seen in terms of scope.
Scope of public administration

 It is the major concern of PA as an activity and as discipline and there are d/t views regarding
the scope and ranges of activities to be included in PA.

 Narrow view- some tinkers view it narrowly to consider only those activities concerned with
the executive branch of government as PA.

 Public administration consists of all those operations with the purpose of the fulfillment or
enforcement of policy ( White).

 Public administration is detailed and systematic application of law"(Wilson).

 Public administration is the fulfillment or enforcement of policy as declared by the competent

authorities…it is law in action, it is the executive side of the government", (Dimock).

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Broader view-

 Nigro (1965) defined public administration in a more comprehensive way to include, besides
the above-mentioned aspects, the relationship between public administration and the political
and social systems as well. For him public administration:

 Is cooperative effort in a public setting

 Covers all the three branches of the government; i.e. executive, legislative, and judiciary and
their interrelationships

 Has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus part of the political
process

 Is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to
the community

 Prevailing view- divides the scope of Public Administration into two

Parts namely, administrative theory and applied administration.

1) Administrative theory-include the following aspects,

a) Organizational Theory -

The Structure, organization, functions and methods of all types of public authority engaged in
administration, whether national, regional or local and executive.

b) Behavior - The functions/behaviors of administrative authorities and the various methods

appropriate to different types of functions. The various forms of

c) Public Personal Administration -The problems concerning personnel e.g. recruitment,

training, promotion, retirement etc. and the problems relating to planning, research,
information and public relation services.

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2) Applied administration- include the following aspects,

a) Political functions -

It includes the executive - legislative relationship, administrative activities of the cabinet, the
minister and permanent official relationship.

b) Legislative function -

It includes delegated legislation and the preparatory work done by the officials in connection
with the drawing up of bills.

c) Financial functions -

It includes total financial administration from the preparation of the budget to its execution,
accounting and audit etc.

d) Defense - Functions relating to military administration.

e) Educational function - It includes functions relating to educational administration.

f) Social welfare administration -It includes the activities of the departments concerned with
food; housing, social security and development activities.

g) Economic Administration -It is concerned with the production and encouragement of

industries and agriculture.

h) Foreign administration -It includes the conduct of foreign affairs, diplomacy, international
cooperation etc.

i) Local administration -It concern with the activities of the local self-
governing institutions.

 There have been also attempt to define public administration with respect to its internal and
external dimensions:

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o Internal administration is defined to mean the management of an organization or agency
that involves systems, processes and methods through which needed resources of personnel,
material and technology are used to perform certain prescribed functions.

o External administration on the other hand refers to activities and processes of

administration, which are needed to establish and to activate relationships with agencies and
groups outside the administrative control of an organization to achieve its objectives.

 Generally, public administration is the non-political bureaucratic machinery of the

government, but operating within the political context, for implementing its laws and policies
in action such as the collection of revenues, maintenance of law and order, maintaining an
army, providing/running social and economic services.

 It covers all branches of government though it tends to be concentrated in the executive

branch

 Provides regulatory and service functions for the people in order to attain good life

 It is an interdisciplinary subject in nature as it draws upon other social sciences like political
science, economics and sociology.

1.3. Role and Importance of Public Administration - In today‟s modern state and in
developing countries, functions and role of Public Administration is very important. The role
and importance of Public Administration are as follows,

1. It is the basis of Government - It is possible for a state to exist without a legislature or

judiciary; but not even the most backward state can do without administrative machinery.

2. It is the instrument of change in the society - Public Administration is regarded as an

instrument of change and is expected to accelerate the process of development. In our country,
the government has undertaken the task of leveling down the economic inequalities, spreading
education among all abolishing untouchability securing equality of status, rights of women
and effective and all round economic and industrial development. The burden of carrying out
these social changes in a planned and orderly way rests upon the Public Administration of the
country.

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3. It plays vital role in the life of the people –

Today every aspect of human life come within the range of Public Adminstration. Various
departments of government such as education, social welfare, food, agriculture, health,
sanitation, transport, communication etc. are run by the department of Public Administration.
Thus Public Administration is rendering various types of services to the people from birth to
death of an individual.

4. It is a stabilizing force in the society as it provides continuitys

Public Administration is carried on by the civil servants who are the permanent executives.
Political executives i.e. ministers may come and go, systems of government or constitutions
may undergo change but administration goes on forever. Hence, Public Administration is a
great stabilizing force in society. It is a preserver of the society and its culture.

5. It is instrument of national integration in the developing Countries which are facing class
wars

 Gerald Caiden (1971) has listed the following crucial roles as assumed by public
administration in contemporary societies:

(i) Preservation of the polity

(ii) Maintenance of stability and order
(iii) Institutionalization of socio-economic changes (not haphazardly)
(iv) Management of large-scale commercial services
(v) Ensuring growth and economic development
(vi) Protection of the weaker section of the society
(vii) Formation of public opinion (working towards public interest)
(viii) Influencing public policies and political trends

1.4. IS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AN ART OR A SCIENCE?

 Art- is the knowledge acquired by learning and practice

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- It is characterized by making decision y using commonsense judgments/, personal feeling,
belief, creativity, impulses etc.

- It is know-how, skills or how to accomplish a desired objective with insufficient data or

information.

 Science- it is the act of doing an activity in the systematic way.

- It is characterized by making conclusions based on the actual facts and verifies knowledge
through cause-effect relationship

- Absence of normative/ethical value, predictability of behavior and universal application are

the basic features of science.

- It be generally learnt, thought and researched to know the universal truth.

 Public administration holds two meanings;

 The first stands for the activity of administering governmental activities which can be learnt
through experience. With this regard, it is definitely an art.

 2nd –it is also an academic discipline/ field of study or an area of intellectual inquiry. And
what needs analytical explanation is the science aspect of public administration.

 There are different arguments for and against this issues;

 The controversy has originated b/c „science‟ has, historically, stood for only physical science
like chemistry and physics and it studies lifeless objects which have no will of their own and
can be manipulated the way the experimenter chooses.

 It is characterized by regularity/you can verify/, predictability and reproducibility of behavior.

 However, the concern public administration is not only with lifeless objects, it deals also with
human behavior who thinks, has a will of his own and acts in accordance the dictates of his
will with different attitudes, perception and orientations. So, shall we get those behaviors of
physical science in public administration and other social science?

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 There have been many people writing or arguing public administration as possessing an
element of science since the 1880s.

 Woodrow Wilson, who was known as the pioneer of public administration, called it the
"science of public administration" as early as 1887.

 Willoughby (1927), who was one of the early writers of the field, also said that there are
certain fundamental principles of general application in public administration analogous to
those characterizing any science i.e, there is agreed principles in public administration
(POSDCoRB).

 Collections of papers were also presented in 1937 on the subject under the title of "Papers on
the Science of Administration". Writers of those papers reflected their positions in that for
any discipline to claim the title and status of science, there should exists a body of principles
embodied in it.

 The outcome of good administration can be predicted to be efficient work force and efficient
and productive output. Therefore, the ability to determine future occurrence through present
indices makes Public Administration Science-oriented in nature.

 On the other hand, writers like Basu, argued said that all the three features science are yet
imperfectly present in public administration. In other words, the debate is that public
administration cannot be called a science until the following three conditions are fulfilled.

 The place of normative values in public administration should be clearly identified and made
clear,

 The nature of human behavior in the area of public administration is better understood and his
conduct is more predictable

 The principles of administration could be derived from a body of cross-cultural studies,

thereby making them relatively free from cultural bias. i.e, public administration has had its
growth in the cultural framework of the west which may not hold valid in other parts of the
world.

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In general, public administration is a mixture/has element of both science and arts b/c,

 It has an organized body of knowledge/agreed principles/ which contains certain universal

truth(science element/

 It requires skills which are personal possessions of administrator/art elements/

 Administrators to be successful in his profession, he must acquire knowledge of science and

the art of applying it. So, science provides knowledge/principles/ and arts deals with the
application of those knowledge and skills. i.e, science and arts are not mutually exclusive
rather complementary to each other.

 With this regard, science is a root and art is a fruit.

1.5. Public administration vs. Private administration

 Public administration governmental administration concerned with achieving state purpose

while private administration is concerned with the administration of private business
organization which is not owned by government.

 Differences

 the primary aim of Public administration is public services while the primary of private
administration is profit maximization

 the beneficiary of public administration is the whole society while the beneficiary of private
administration private individual owner or who are capable to pay

 the efficiency of public administration is measured/evaluated by social costs such as public

service, accountability and social responsibility. Even in order to promote public interest,
government undertake unprofitable projects or provide at subsidized rates while that private
administration is measured by financial costs and benefits or minimum cost and maximum
output

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 with regard to level of complexity, public administration is more complex in terms of size and
activities b/c they need to respond to more conflicting demands of public interest while
private administration is less complex

 public administration is characterized by slow in decision making and bureaucratic(red-tape)

in nature due adherence to rules and regulations while p private administration is fast in
decision making

 public administration is highly affected by the work of politics or work with political context
while private administration is less affected by the work of politics or non-political

 decision making criteria in public administration is not based on commercial forces rather
based on public criteria/interest while that private administration is based on commercial
forces

 with regard to vice versa influence, public administration is less likely to be affected by
private administration while private administration is highly affected by decisions, laws and
procedures of public administration

 similarities

 both are working with scarce resources

 both sectors requires effective mobilization and use os resources( human and material )
resources to achieve goals

 both rely on common skills, techniques and procedures

 Both have same kind of organization structure or hierarchy, superior – subordinate

relationships, etc.

 Both carries on continuous efforts to improve their internal working and for efficient delivery
of services to people or customer

 Both service the people

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1.6. THE ENVIRONMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Environment in the context of this topic refers to actors and forces that affects or determines
public administration or in which it operates. The environment under which public
administration operates, that would have major implications on its success or failure as well
as in shaping its basic features, can generally be classified as internal and external.

a) Internal environment- refers to those conditions, which are in most cases within the control
of the administration, yet having their own challenges and/or advantages. These may includes,

 The organization itself i.e., structure, pattern of authority in the formal hierarchy, purpose and
tradition, historical legacies or traditional practice and internal network and working
procedures of the organization.

 The behavior and structure of formal and informal groups like peer groups, labor unions, and
advisory council have also strong influence on the style of administration.

 Groups and individual within the organization

 Internal resources( human, material, financial/ available for the organization

b) External environment- refers to those factors, which is outside the control of the
administration but having major impact in shaping the features and determining the success or
failures of the overall objectives that public administration. It includes the following factors
which is abbreviated as PEST,

 Politically, the type of government and the resultant constitution, policies, laws and
directives; national and international political trends and changes; bilateral and multilateral
agreements and policies;

 Economically, national economic trends and level of growth and development; the global
market and economic situation as well as the extent of mutual economic assistance and
cooperation;

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 Socially, population/demographic trends and changes; societal beliefs, values, attitudes,
cultures, and lifestyles; public expectations and demands;

 Technologically, ability or access to use the type of technology being used elsewhere in the
world, such as in communication and production;

1.6.1. Public administration in developed countries

In the context of this note, the term "developed" or "industrial" societies refer to those
countries of Western Europe and USA where industrialization has brought about major
changes in economic structure and growth accompanied by political and administrative
modernization. Nevertheless, it should be noted that administrative modernization is not a
typical or exclusive feature of developed countries. Because some developed countries might
not have modern administrative system, while we could find a developing country that
employs modern administration. Despite individual differences, the following are features
administrative system of developed countries;

 Government organization is highly distinguished and functionally specific and the roles are
based on achievement criteria than on attribute or assumed power. The bureaucracy is marked
by a high degree of specialization or professionalism. Recruitment of personnel is generally
based on merits.

 Laws and political decisions are largely rational. Public policy making is effectively made by
professional public administrators.

 Administration has become to take all-encompassing functions that affect major spheres of the
lives of citizens.

 There is high correlation (association) between political power and legitimacy (legality) and
there is an extensive popular interest and involvement in public affairs.

 Incumbents of political or governmental offices are generally considered as lawful or

reasonable holders of those positions,

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 Transfer of power and positions tend to occur in accordance with prescribed rules and
procedures.

 Public administration is more responsive and responsible to the society. i.e, they provide
efficient and effective public services and performs both routine and welfare tasks

 Extremely affected by the development of modern science and technology, communication

and networks.

 Administrative institutions are relatively autonomous

1.6.2. Public administration in developing/third word/ countries

-3rd world countries, 1st world countries and 2nd world countries based on the
social, economic and political criteria

 Most of them have got their independence from colonialists immediately after the Second
World War they have been in the process of transition facing serious problems of social
turmoil and disturbances, economic depression (downturn) and administrative chaos
(confusions).

 Note: in theory, the tasks of public administration in industrial societies do not differ from the
developing ones but, features of administrative systems are highly relates the environment
they exist.

 The following points are indicators of the general administrative patterns currently
found in 3rd world countries;

 The basic pattern of public administration is imitative (copied) rather than indigenous
(original). They follow style of bureaucratic model of developed countries( especially of their
colonies)

 The bureaucracies are deficient (lacking) in the requisite skills necessary for development
programs. In spite of abundance (plenty) of labor (employable manpower) in relation to other

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 resources in most of the developing countries, trained administrators with management
capacity, developmental skills, and technical proficiency are extremely in shortfall.

 Give more emphasis to non-productive and developmental orientation than the productive one

 Extensive (huge) discrepancy or disagreement between form and reality, which Riggs has
called it "formalism", i.e, what is actually performed is always differ from what has been
reported.
 They report as if productive targets are met, which in fact remain only partially fulfill.
 The bureaucracy in developing countries is likely to have high degree of operational
autonomy as a result of several operating forces in newly independent states.

 There is always surplus of employees in public organization. B/c they use public services as a
substitute of social security program or to relieve the problem of unemployment.

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 Chapter Two

2. Evolution of Public Administration and Organization Theories

2.1 Evolution of public administration

 Public administration as an activity/action was as long as human civilization or has a long

history.

 But, as a discipline, it is not more than a century. i.e, it traced back to the publication in 1887
“the study of public administration” by Woodrow Wilson. It may thus, regarded as among the
newest of social science.

 Public administration has developed/passed as an academic field through a succession of six

paradigms/shifts/phases/periods.

 Each paradigm may be characterized by according to whether it has „locus’ or ‘focus’.

 Locus is institutional „where‟ of the field while focus is the specialized „what‟ of the field.

 Paradigm I-Politics-administration dichotomy(1887-1926)

 Proponents- W.Wilson-father of PA and originator of politics-administration

dictotomy

-White and Goodnow

 They argued that politics and administrations are different b/c,

 Politics-deals with policy formulation and has to do with the expression of state will

-its location is in legislature and higher level of government where

decision would be made

 Administration- deals with the execution of policies impartially and its

location/institution center in government bureaucracy

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 Due to this they must be separated.

 Paradigm II-Principles of administration/1927-1937/

 The central belief of this period was that there are certain principles of
administration/existed and it is the task of the scholars to discover them and to promote their
application.

 This period opened by the publication W.F. Willoughby‟s principles of administration on

1927 followed by the publication of number of works such as

 Mary Pater Follet’s-creative experience

 H. Fayol’s –industrial and general management

 Mooney’s and Reiley’s-principles of organization

 Uwrick and Gulick’s papaers on the science of administration and they coined principles
of administration called POSDCoRB.

 All these papers/works showed that these principles can be studied as a technical question
regardless of the purpose of the organization, the personnel comprising it or any
constitutional, political or social theory underlying its creation.

 In general, this period were the golden years of „principles‟ in the history of public
administration b/c, it was during this time that

 It was considered/got the status of science/called science of administration

 It commanded high degree of respectability and its products were in great demand both in
government and business

 Different principles and theories of administration were developed

 Principles of organization were discovered etc

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 Paradigm III- Era of challenges (1938-1947)

 During this period’

The idea of politics-administration dichotomy was rejected/challenged b/c, for one thing politics
and administration in any cannot be separated rather they do co-exist, for the second thing,
Administration is not only concerned with policy decision but it deals with the policy
formulation

The principles of administration were also challenge by behavioralist/Human relation proponents

such as Chester I.Bernard and Simon.

They argued that there could be no such thing as principles of administration and what are
paraded as principles are in truth no better that „proverbs‟ of administration(Simon) b/c for
one thing, it only depends on the formal structure of the organization and give emphasis on
efficiency but ignore human aspects/elements. For the second thing, for every principles of
administration, there was a counter principle or mutually contradictory

The idea that public administration is a science is challenged

 Paradigm IV-Era of Identity crisis( 1948-1970)

 During this period, public administration lack identity or loss its focus and renewed locus i.e,
government bureaucracy.

 Some argued that is part and parcel of political science which is the biological parents or
mother of the field while others said that due its secondary relation, public administration is
part management. i.e, to administrative science or generic science

 Paradigm V-Public administration as an independent discipline(1971-1990)

 Public administration as a successful field of study or practice

 In 1970, the national association of schools of public affairs and administration (NASPAA)\
was founded.

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 The association is composed of 250 colleges and university that offers the country‟s master
public administration programs

 The formation of NASPAA represented not Only an act of secession by public

administrationists from political science or Management science, but a rise of self-confidence
As well.

 1973, there were over 26,000 students enrolled in master degree programs in public
administration and public affairs.

 Progress, particularly in the area of Organization theory and information\ Science, has been
made in this direction.

 Additionally, considerable progress has been made in refining the applied techniques and
methodologies of public administration.

 Paradigm VI-Governance (1991-present)

 It is the movement away from government or control over citizens and delivery of
public services by institutions of the state to configuration of policies, laws, organization,
cooperative arrangement and agreement that control citizens and delivery of public benefits.

 Here, governments are institutional while governance is institutional plus network.

 Major developments during this period,

 Institutional distinctions between public, non-profit and private sectors as well as

federal, state and local governments are blurred/fuzzy/

 Governments hierarchy is flatten and spread/restructured

 The size and capacity of government is reduced or withering/shrinking/ state

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 2.2. APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF PUBLIC SADMINISTRATION

 An approach is a way of gaining access to the understanding of a

subject or a discipline

 It also refers to a particular manner of dealing with the problem.

 The study of public administration has been approached from various

angles,

a) Mechanical approach

 Contributors-Taylor, Gulick,Uwrick,White and Warner

 It is the earliest approach to the study of public administration.

 According to this approach, administration is a mechanical organization and it is

possible discover certain principles of administration which will make the organization
function efficiently and effectively

 E,g., F.W.Taylor-one can discover best way or principles of doing or managing

everything.

 It give more attention on how public administration achieve efficiency ,

 Efficiency alone was considered as a sole goal of public administration

 It consider human beings as a machine

 Gives more emphasis for formal structure and they believe that people motivated by
only economy/money

 Limitation-ignore human aspects/elements

b) Structural/institutional approach

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 Structure- a device through which human beings working in the organizations are
assigned tasks and related to one another

 . It is believed that the effective functioning of the organization depends upon the
structure that a group of human beings build and operate.

 It studies administrative organization, personnel management, financial administration and

administrative accountability in terms of structure of public administration.

 So, it gives more emphasis on the structure of the organization

 Limitation- it ignore the ecological study, human factor, and development administration
aspects of the organization

c) Juridical/legal approach

 This approach studies public administration from view point of law.

 It lays emphasis on constitutional structure of public administration.

 It also takes into account aspects such as languages of various constitutions, decisions of
judicial bodies and codes of law

 Concerned with legal obligations and rights of citizens

 Limitations-ignore human elements

d) Behavioral approach

 Pioneer- Herbert Simon

 It is new approach to the study of public administration.

 mainly concerned with the scientific study of human behavior in diverse social environments

 it examines public administration by studying individual and collective human behavior in

administrative situation

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 takes into account the organizational behavior and human psychology

 limitation-ignore economic and other human elements

e) Human resource, ecological, development and public policy are approaches that are more
recent to the study of public administration.

2.3. ADMINISTRATIVE THOUGHTS (ORGANIZATION THEORIES)

Organization theory relevant to public administration has developed rapidly since 1920s. The
primary purpose of organization theory as an academic study is:

a) To understand and explain organizational problems as they related to the structure, inter-
relationship, coordination and internal functioning.

b) To understand and explain how people in organizations behave and how organizations
function.

 Four broad schools of thoughts to organization or administrative theory may be discerned

namely, "classical theories", "neo-classical theories", “systems theory" and theory of
bureaucracy.

2.3.1. The Classical Organization Theories

 It is also known as structural or scientific administrative theory and it includes the following
sub-theories;

 Scientific management theory-F.W. Taylor

 Administrative management theory- Henery Fayol, Gulick and Uwrick, Mooney and Reily

 Theory of bureaucracy- Robert Michael, Karl Marx and Max Weber

1) Scientific management theory

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 It is one of the classical organization theories that give more emphasis the application of
scientific methods to discover new knowledge and scientific study of work methods to
improve work efficiency. i.e, improving workers‟ efficiency through scientific study of work.

 So, the objective of this theory is to find the most efficient method of performing any
tasks and to train workers on that method. i.e., he believed that it is possible to find „one best
way’ of doing an activity which is applicable to all kinds of human activity.

 He argued that management is a true science which comprised a number of principles

applicable to all organizations be it private or public.

 He focused his unit of analysis on the physical activities of workman-machine

relationships and how productivity and efficiency can be enhanced. This indicates that he
gives more emphasis on productivity than workers.

 To him workers were truly rational and real economic men who could be programmed to
be efficient machines.

 So, according to him, the main objectives of management is to secure maximum

prosperity to the employer, coupled with maximum prosperity each employees and customers.

 i.e, the result of higher productivity should equally benefit all people through higher
wage/salary to workers, greater profit for organization/management and payment of lower
prices for the product to the customer.

 This means his philosophy scientific management is that there is no inherent conflict in
the interest of employers, workers and customers.

 To increase productivity and profits, he under took different studies;

A) Time and motion study

 Objective: to standardize activities for workers or determine a full-day‟s work Time and
motion study involves breaking down the task into various elements, or motions, eliminating
unnecessary motions, determining the best way to do the job, and timing each motion to

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 determine the amount of production that could be expected per day (without allowances for
delays).

 In this study he wished to know how long it would and should take a machine or workman to
perform a given process to produce a part using specified materials and methods under
controlled stations. He used stop - watch system to start and finish the test. This study
permitted the determination of practical, relatively precise and reliable standards of output.
That is, the study enabled him to set feasible standards per man or machinery usually higher
than the average of current performance of that time.

B) Uniform method of routine tasks

 Objective: to adjust worker with workIt is intended to prepare and direct the effort of those
responsible for establishing the conditions under which these standards could be set and met.
With this objective in mind he worked out such techniques as: instruction cards, order of work
cards, material specialization, inventory control systems, material handling standards.

C) Functional foremanship study - which man for which work.

 Objective: to scientifically select the best worker for a given job It was concerned with
assuring which man will be best for which job, considering his initial skill and the potential
for learning.

D) Individual Incentive/PIECE RATE SYSTEM/

 Objective: to determine the appropriate wage or salary In order to solve the problem of wage
systems that encouraged soldiering, Taylor also advocated the use of wage incentive plans.
His study reached higher pay would serve as an incentive for workers that would result from
the increased productivity. During his (Taylor‟s) time there was a reduction of rates if the
workers earn beyond an acceptable limit. But his view was that, having scientifically
measured the worker‟s jobs and set rates accordingly, and then efficient workers should be
rewarded for their productivity without limit.

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 Based on his study, he developed the following principles of scientific management;

1. The development of true science- he Develop a science for each element of a job, which
replaces the old rule-of-thumb1 method.

2. Scientific selection of workmen- Scientifically select and then train, teach and develop
the worker, whereas in the past a worker chose her own work and trained herself as best she
could for their own and the company's -prosperity.

3. There is an almost equal division of work and responsibly between management and
workers. The management takes over all work for which they are better fitted than workers,
while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown
upon the workers

4. Intimacy and friendly cooperation between management and workers- Heartily cooperate
with the workers to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the
science, which has been developed.

However Taylor testified that in order for these principles to be successful “a complete mental
revolution” on the part of management and labor regarding their duties, towards their work,
towards their fellow workers and towards all of their daily problems. It demands the
realization of the fact that their mutual interest is not antagonistic; and mutual prosperity is
possible only through mutual cooperation. i.e, they have common interest in increasing
productivity and mutually cooperate.

 In general, the major theme of scientific management was;

 Work could be studied scientifically

 Work processes are separable into units

1
Rule of thumb is the usual practice at work organizational level, leaving workers to work
according to the initiative of them by managers.

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 The efficiency of each work unit could be testified and improved through careful scientific
analysis

 Techniques could be applied universally

 Contributions of scientific management school to the development of public

administration(Taylor’s contribution)

 Initiate better performance –through specialization of activities

 The methods of scientific management can be applied to a variety of organizational activities,

besides, those of industrial organization.

 It provides an ethos and mission in life

 Scientific selection and development of workers has recognized in all organization

 Efficiency techniques(time and motion study) was still applicable in any organizations

 Limitations/criticisms/of scientific management theory

 Taylor misread the human element

 He equated people (workers) with machine.

 He said, workers are extension of machine (cops of machine).

 It is impersonal and under emphasis the human factors

 Division of work and specialization was criticized on the ground that

 Workers get depersonalized/disordered

 Workers loose the sense of participation

 It leads to automation of workers

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 He did not consider the organization as a whole but give more emphasis for production and
technical level. i.e, less interested/concerned about the total work situation rather more
interested in the mechanical aspects of the work

 He saw money only as a motivator

 He believe that people are rational and motivated only by material gain and

 He failed to recognize the complex nature of human behavior

 The application of scientific principles was not smooth

 Give money for workers and then work, if they do not work, penalize, if not fire them out

2) Administrative management theory

 Contributors-Henry Fayol-father and founder of adm‟ve management theory

Gulick and Uwrick

-Mooney and Reiley

 Henry Fayol (1841-1925) –French industrialist

 He focused on the enterprise as a whole, not as a single segment of it unlike the scientific
management theory which focused on production, technical and operational level of
activities.

 Fayol's Administrative Management theory was often considered as the first complete theory
of management, the focus of which was on the job of the chief executive and on the
principle of unity of command that were most neglected and least understood by „Taylor‟
but most crucial.

 He divided all activities in an organization under six groups;

a) Technical-producing and managing products

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b) Commercial-buying raw materials and selling it

c) Security- protecting employees and property

d) Financial- search for and optimum use of capital

e) Accounting- recording and taking stocks of costs, profits and liabilities, keeping balance
sheets, profits and loss statements

f) Administrative- planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling

 He also propounded/advocated/the following fourteen principles of organization;

1) Division of labor or specialization-breaking down tasks into its components, training

workers to become specialist and putting activities in a sequence so that one person;‟s efforts
build on another‟s

2) Authority and responsibility- the right give order and an obligation to do or not to do some
thing

3) Discipline- members need to respect rules and agreement that govern the organization

4) Unity of command- an employee should receive directives from only one superior. i.e., one
person should have one boss/c be believed that when an employees reported to more than one
superior, conflicts in instructions and confusion of authority would be resulted.

5) Unity of direction- group of activities with the same objectives must be coordinated by one
head. i.e, one head, one plan and one set of objectives

6) Subordination of individual interest to the general interest or common good. i.e., goals
and interest of the organization must precedes over individual or group interest

7) Centralization- he believed that administrator/manager should retain final responsibility but

also need to give/delegate enough authority to their subordinates to do their jobs properly

8) Remuneration of personnel- compensation/wages for work done should be fair and equitable
to both the workers and organization

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 It must reflect the living costs, general economic conditions, values of employees, the demand
for labor and economic state of the organization

9) Scalar chain- the line of authority that extends from the top to the bottom of the organization
must be maintained and define the communication paths. i.e, it must preserve integrity of
hierarchy and ensures the unity of command

10) Order- materials and people should be in the right place at the right time

 People in the job/position must suited for that jobs

 A place for everything/everyone/ and everything/everyone in its place.

11) Equity- in dealing with subordinates, managers should friendly, fair, kind and lawful so
that it is possible to have /produce loyal and devoted workers

12) Stability of tenure for personnel

13) Initiatives- members of the organization should be give an opportunity to demonstrate

their creativity, exercise their judgment etc.

14) Spirit De corps- unity is strength and workers, management should work together.

 LUTHER GULICK AND LYNDALL UWRICK

 They contribute a lot towards formulating principles of administration and organization

based on their experience.

 They also edited papers on „science of administration‟ in 1937.

 They believed that a science of administration can be developed based on some principles
and experiences of administrators

 They were heavily influenced by the work of Hennery Fayol

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 Gulick – took fayol‟s five element of administration such as planning, organizing,
staffing, coordinating, commanding and controlling as a framework and expand duties of
administrators into POSDCoRB.

 He also identified ten principles of administration which is influenced by Fayol;

1) Division of labor/specialization

2) Bases of departmental organizations/departmentation (function, territory, product line,

customer and process/

3) Coordination through hierarchy

4) Deliberate coordination

5) Decentralization

6) Unity of command

7) Coordination through committee

8) Line and staff-in line structure, there is direct control by the superior while line authority
is providing advice, and counseling.

e.g., HR manager has line authority over staff of HR department and staff authority in
supporting, assisting and advising other manager.

9) Delegation

10) span of control

 Uwrick- also identified 8 principles of administration applicable to all organization;

1) The principles of objectives- all organization should be an expression of a purpose

2) The principles of correspondence- authority and responsibility must be co-equal

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3) The principle of responsibility- the responsibility of higher authority for the work of the
subordinate is absolute

4) The scalar principle- all organization must have pyramidical type of structure

5) The principles of specialization- limiting ones work to a single function

6) The principle of coordination

7) The principle of definitions- clear prescription of every duty

8) The principle of span of control-

 Mooney and Uwrick- they argued that all organizational structures should be based on
the system of superior-subordinate relationships arranged in a hierarchical order termed as
„scalar principle‟ and according to this principle, in every organization, there is a grading of
duties in varying degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility

Contributions of classical theory

 It had laid the foundation for the later developments in administrative theory

 They identified key administrative processes, function and skills that are recognized
even today

 They give attention on administration as a valid subject of scientific inquiry. i.e, as a

separate field of study

 It was the first attempt to study public administration from scientific perspective

Limitations of classical theory

 Most of them viewed organizations from mechanical point of view than social point of
view

 Most of them viewed employees as machines/tools than human being( Taylor)

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 Economic motivation was seen as the only means to motivate workers to produce more

 Some of the principles are rigid- e.g unity of command

 The theory is more appropriate for stable and simple organization than for today‟s
complex and dynamic environment

2.3.2. The Neo- Classical School

 There are two related theories;

 Human relation approach-Elton Mayo

 Behavioral approach-Herbert Simon

 Both were emerged as opposing the ideas of classical organization theory because classical
management theory viewed organizations from the mechanistic view point and considered
workers as cogs.

 The neo-classical organization theory deals with man in the organization.

1) Human relation approach

 The term human-relations mostly refer to relations among workers and between workers
and employers/management which are not regulated by legal norms. i.e., these relations are
concerned with moral and psychological rather than legal factors.

 It is based on the social environment of work, individual and group behavior, inter-
personal relationship etc.

 It emphasis on the interactions of people and their motivation in the organization in order
to understand the practice of management unlike classical theorists who emphasized on
structure and principles.

 Focused on motivation, communication, work group formation, leadership and their

productive capacity.

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  The role of information group within formal organization

 He conducted experiments in 1920 and 1930s to understand the importance of human

aspects;

I. The first inquiry/preliminary investigation

 He started his first study on solving the problem of employee turnover in textile mile
near Philadelphia in 1923.

 In the circumstance, there were no as such problem of turnover in all department except
mule-spinning section where the turnover was nearly 250 percent. None was able to find out
the reason for this large turnover.

 All possible incentives were introduced to minimize this large turnover but did not yield any
good result. As a last resort the matter was referred to Harvard University.

 Mayo studied the problem of mule-spinning department intensively from various angles
with the help of management. He introduced rest periods with every team of pieces.

 The results were encouraging. The scheme was extended to all the workers to eliminate
the problems of fatigue. The symptoms of uneasiness disappeared, the labor turnover almost
came to an end, production rose and the moral generally improved.

 He named this research “The First Enquiry”.

II. Hawthorne studies

 Purpose- to study the effect of physical factors (illumination, rest periods, length of working
days and payment schemes) upon productivity.

 B/c classical organization theorist believed/ assumed that given proper ventilation, room
temperature, lighting and other physical conditions and wage incentives, the worker could
produce more.

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 Findings and implications of the study

 There are other factors other than physical factors and monetary incentives, which affect
productivity.

 Social factors- ability to talk to each other, the right to choose their rest period, the right to
leave work station without permission, the right to have a say in suggested changes etc

 Psychological factors- social acceptance, recognition and social importance etc

 From this we can understand that human beings are social beings rather than rational and
economic beings.

2) Behavioral approach

 It deals with the ‘inside ‘human being with a focus on the place of his values and rationality
in the working of the organization.

 The human behavior determines the attitudes and working behavior of people and
Understanding of „inside‟ the man is important to understand the organization.

 Herbert Simon analyzed the human behaviors in terms of its value preferences in decision
making process. It is this central concern that is significant to understanding of the
organization and its working.

 In conclusion, the classical and neo-classical approaches vary in the following important
aspects:

 Whereas the human relations school is concerned with the organization evolving effectively
from inter-personal behavior, the classical school predetermines the organization within which
individuals are required to function

 The human relations approach results in a comparatively flat organizational structure, whereas
the classical approach results in a pyramidal structure

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 Authority is regarded by the human relations approach as a social factor, but as organizational
factor by the classical approach

2.3.3. SYSTEM APPROACH

 The systems approach treats organization as an example of a "system", i.e. a set of

interdependent parts forming a whole with the objective of fulfilling some definable goals

 It views organizations and its environment within which they operate as sets of inter-related
parts to be managed as a whole in order to achieve common goals.

 According to the systems approach, an organizational system has four major components.

 Inputs: are the various human, financial, equipment and informational resources required to
produce goods and services.

 Transformation process: are the organization's managerial and technological abilities that
are applied to convert inputs in to outputs.

 Outputs: are the products, services and other outcomes produced by the organization.

 Feedback: is information about results and organizational status relative to the environment.
It is a key to system control.

2.3.4. BUREAUCRATIC THEORY

 The bureaucracy is a combination of two words;

 Bureau- an official or organization established to perform certain activities or it may mean

governmental departments

 Cracy- a form of government rules

 Bureaucracy- is the system of official rules and ways of doing things that a government or an
organization has which are complexes in nature or a system of government in which there are
large number of state officials who are not elected.

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 Bureaucracies are most often associated with governments, but any large organizations such
as corporations can be bureaucrat in nature.

 Notable contributors- Robert Michael, Karl Marx and Max Weber etc.

 KARL MARX(1818-1883) oligarchic

 Prior to the tremendous contribution of Max Weber, Karl Marx attempted to explain
bureaucracy in a scientific manner.

 He tried to conceptualize the role of bureaucracy in his works on state organizations, while
developing a critique of the political economy of capitalism that existed in Europe in the 19 th
century.

 Different from Weber's understanding of bureaucracy as an ideal type that can exist only in
abstraction, Marx examined it as a set of relationships that arise in a specific socioeconomic
context.

 He pointed out that bureaucracy arose with capitalism and the nation state in Western Europe around
the sixteenth century.

 He said that bureaucracy of the state is viewed as an instrument that the dominant class uses to
exercise its power over other social classes.

 It is in fact, one of the primary means of perpetuating class division and consolidating the power of the
dominant class and he believes that it will be withered away at the end of class struggle.

 For him, bureaucracy consists of administrators and managers who do not perform the productive
activity themselves, but only control workers.

 He also mentioned typical features of bureaucracy as secrecy, hierarch/authority as a source of

knowledge and closed corporation.

 He further believed that authority is the principle (source) of knowledge, and the desiccation
(preservation) of authority is its sentiment by maintaining obedience to fixed normal activity,
fixed principles and loyalty.

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 For individual bureaucrats, the state's purpose becomes their private purpose of hunting for higher
position and making a career for themselves.

 According to Marx, the bureaucrat cannot be a rational actor in terms of competence.

 Its hierarchy of structure means a hierarchy of knowledge, thus comprehensive knowledge is

impossible in a situation where knowledge is deliberately split up into practical reality and bureaucratic
reality.

 Generally, Marx as quoted in Rumki Basu (1994:79), described bureaucracy as follows:

The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of
knowledge. The top entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst lower
levels credit the top with understanding of the general and so all are mutually
deceived".

 From his explanations, we can understand that he has overemphasized the evil side of bureaucracy, and
his view is in clear contrast to the conception of his countryman, to the Weberian conception of
bureaucracy as "rationalization of organization".

 Nevertheless, whatever arguments he has made and explanations he provided about bureaucracy, public
administration as a discipline didn't care much for his views since it was not his purpose to develop a
theory of public administration. He simply wrote a critique on bureaucracy alongside his famous
critique of the political economy of capitalism.

 ROBERT MICHAEL(1876-1936)

 Robert Michael, who is equally known in the theory of bureaucracy, concentrated his
analysis on the internal politics of large organizations and to the phenomenon of elite
domination in organizations.

 In other words, Michel‟s major focus was not on the state bureaucracy but on the internal political
structures of large-scale organizations.

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 His observation was based on the internal structure of the German Socialist Party,
which was supposed to be organized along democratic principles yet the reality was quite
different, and he discovered that the system was oligarchic.

 He concluded that all big organizations tended (had a propensity) to develop a bureaucratic structure
that ruled out the possibility of internal democracy.

 Furthermore, he viewed bureaucracy as inevitable in the modern state. Through

bureaucracy, the politically dominant classes secure and preserve their power.

 They use, indeed they expand, positions in the bureaucracy to provide security for
middle-class intellectuals who, in turn, support the state

 Bureaucracy tends to oppress the rest of society.

MAX WEBER (1864-1920)

 Bureaucracy as an organizational model was first developed systematically by him in

19th century.

 He used an “ideal-type” approach to identify the structure, process and behavior of bureaucratic
organization. The “ideal-type” was not intended to be an observed reality. Rather, it is a mental
construct that claims to identify what would emerge if a phenomenon (such as bureaucracy) could
develop into its most complete form.

 He did not agree with Marx that bureaucracy will eventually wither away. Indeed, he predicted that
bureaucratic administration will pervade all forms of organization, whether in the religious,
educational, or economic spheres of life.

 He related bureaucracy to the legitimacy of authority. If people believe that it is a legitimate authority,
then they will obey the order of the superior. Thus, bureaucracy is based on the notion of rational-legal
`authority – that is, an authority which employees recognize as legitimate - being inherent in the
administrators in the hierarchical structure.

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 According to him, every organization can be defined as "a structure of activities
(means) directed towards the achievement of certain objectives (ends)".

 Every organization develops a system of specialization (division of tasks) and a set of

systematic rules and procedures to maximize efficiency.

 Weber stressed that the bureaucratic form of organization is capable of attaining the highest
degree of efficiency since the means used to achieve goals are rationally and objectively
chosen towards the desired ends.

 In this sense, it is the most rational means of carrying out functions effectively in any
organization, superior to every other form in precision, stability, discipline, and reliability.

 Weber tried to identify the various factors and conditions that have contributed to the
growth of bureaucracy in modern times. Namely:

(a) The development of modern large-scale organizations and corporations. Whatever

may be the evils of bureaucracy, it is indispensable for the running of complex administrative
structures.

(b) The role of expanding technical knowledge and the development of modern
technology. i.e. A considerable degree of bureaucratic specialization is required to attain high
level of efficiency regardless of the economic system to be either capitalistic or socialistic.

(c) The capitalist system itself. i.e., the proper functioning of the capitalist system
necessitates a stable state and a well-organized administration, which is the bureaucracy.

 In addition, Weber specified the following structural and behavioral characteristics or conditions that an
organization must possess before properly being called or distinguished as a bureaucracy:

1) Division of labor

 This is related to the identification and classification of activities necessary to accomplish objectives.

 Accordingly, job placement is based qualifications and/or special training.

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2) Hierarchy of authority- it is the feature of any bureaucratic form of organization.

 The organization of offices follows the principles of hierarchy, with a clear separation between superior
and subordinate offices; i.e. each lower office is under the control and supervision of a higher one.

 A hierarchy is necessary to coordinate and integrate the activities of the specialized offices.

 Being a bureaucratic official constitutes a career, and there is a system of promotion and career
advancement on the basis of seniority or merit, or both.

3) Well define rules and regulations

 Bureaucracy operates in accordance with a consistent system of abstract rules laid down regarding the
performance of official jobs.

 There is also consistence in the application of the rules to specific cases to avoid personal favoritism,
arbitrariness, or nepotism that would otherwise hinder the function of an organization.

4) Rationality

 Weber's ideas on efficiency and rationality are closely related to his ideal (typical) model of
bureaucracy.

 For Weber, bureaucracy is the most rational known means of achieving imperative control
over human beings.

 For example, candidates are selected on the basis of technical qualifications, which will be
tested, in the most rational cases, by examinations, or guaranteed by diplomas certifying
technical competence, etc.

 Personal whims of the leaders are no longer effective in such a system; there is a clear
demarcation between personal and official affairs.

5) Formal and impersonality

 The bureaucratic form has no place for personal whims, fancies, or irrational sentiments.

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 Officials are subject to authority only with respect to their impersonal official obligations,

 This requirement is intended to assure equitable treatment of clients rather than emotionally
dominated administration.

6) Neutrality

 Bureaucracy is supposed to be apolitical and neutral in its orientation.

 It is also value-neutral committed only to the work it is meant to perform.

7) Rule orientation

 the official is subject to strict and systematic discipline and control in the conduct of his/her
office,

 While the first three points are structural characteristics of bureaucracy, the rest four points
are behavioral characteristics.

 He concluded that a fully developed bureaucracy has those advantages of speed, precision,
non-ambiguity, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, and reduction of friction and
of material and personal costs.

 However, despite the advantages of bureaucracy as stated by Weber, it was criticized along
several lines that stems from its supposed mechanistic nature.

 Criticisms of bureaucracy

 Too much emphasis on rules and regulations which are rigid and inflexible. This limits
bureaucrats capacity not to adapt to changing circumstances

 There is limited scope for human aspects and informal groups in increasing efficiency(Chester
Bernard

 Unnecessary delay in decision making due to formalities and rules

 Difficulty of changing with uncertainty and change. i.e., applicable only in stable environment

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 The impersonal treatment of clients envisaged by Webber is not always operable in practice as
many research disprove such principles of impartiality

 Too much emphasis is given to the technical qualifications employees for promotion and
transfer. i.e., dedication and commitment of employees is not considered

 It is considered as „a product of specific historical and political settings(Riggs)

 The general rules, which may make for overall efficiency, could produce inefficiency and
injustice in individual cases. E.g. Bureaucracy has a lot of paper work which results in a lot of
wastage of time, effort and time.

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 Chapter four

4. Major areas of public administration

4.1. Public policy ( policy-plan-program-projects-activities)

 Policy formulation is necessary prior to every action in every form of organization, be it

private or public

 So, it is a prerequisite for all management.

 Meaning of policy and public policy

 The different definitions of public policy reflects its multi-faceted nature, yet all draw
elements of public decisions, choices, positions and statements of intents.

 Policy can be broadly defined as a proposed course of action of an individual, a group, an

institution or a government to realize a specific objective or purpose within a given
environment (Rumki Basu).

 Policy is a set of interrelated decisions taken by a political actor or group of actors concerning
the selection of goals and the means of achieving them within a specified situation.

 It is "a matter of either the desire for change or the desire to protect something from change"
(Barber, 1983:59).

 Barber further added, "Policy making occurs in the determination of major objectives, in the
selection of methods of achieving these objectives, and in the continuous adaptation of
existing policies to the problems that face the government".

 Policy lays down the framework within which organizational goals are set to be
accomplished. i.e., it give the overall guide by setting up boundaries/limits and directions
within which actions will be taken.

 Policy ingredients:
 Goals-the desired end to be achieved

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 Plans or proposals-specific means of achieving the goals
 Programs-authorized means of achieving goals
 Decisions-specific actions taken to set goals, develop plans, implement and evaluate programs
 Effects-the measurable impacts of program

 Public policy

 Public policies are those policies which are developed governmental bodies and officials
though non-governmental actors and agencies such as elders, executives, judge,
administrators, councilors, monarchy etc, may also exert direct or indirect influence/pressure
in policy making process.

 Public policy is an attempt by the government to address a public issue

 Public policy refers to all of the laws, regulations, and other programs developed by
governments to solve problems.

 The government, whether it is city, state, or federal, develops public policy in terms of laws,
regulations, decisions, and actions.

 In general, there are three parts to public policy-making: problems, players, and the policy;

 The problem -is the issue that needs to be addressed.

 The player -is the individual or group that is influential in forming a plan to address the
problem in question

 Policy -is the finalized course of action decided upon by the government.

 The special characteristics of public policies as differentiated from other policies

emanate from the fact that they are by "authorities" in a political system and the concept of
public policy comprises the following general features;

 Purposive or result oriented action rather than random behavior or chance happenings is
the hallmark (characteristic" of public policy. i.e., it is formulated to and implemented in order
to achieve objectives

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 It is the outcome of governments‟ collective actions. i.e., Public policy refers to the
action or decisional pattern taken by public administrators or government officials in a
collective sense on a particular issue over a period rather than their separate discrete decisions
on that matter in an ad hoc fashion.

 It is what governments actually do and what subsequently happens, rather than what they
intend to do or say they are going to do,

 It may be either positive or negative in form. Positively, it may involve some form of
government action regarding any issue or problem; negatively, it may involve a decision by
government officials not to take action on a matter on which governmental opinion, attitude,
or action is asked for,

 At least in its positive form is based on law and is authoritative; it has a legal sanction behind
it, which is potentially coercive in nature and is binding on all citizens,

 It emerged in response to policy demand on some public issues made by other actors

i) Policy and decision

 Most people use the two terms interchangeably.

 Decision- is the act of making a choice

 It is about making a choice from alternatives in order to take action and it can be taken
only when there are more than one alternatives available

 Policy- is abroad guidelines/rules/principles to make a decision. i.e., it is a broad

directions that guide an organization in order to make decisions

 It is set of decisions concerning the selection of goals and methods of attaining them in a
specified situation. i.e., it is the sum total of decisions

Differences- policy is a more comprehensive term as it encompasses a series of decision

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- Policy has comparatively longer time perspectives while decision can be a one-time
action

- Policy making involves decision making, but every decision is not policy

- Administrators take decisions in their day to day work within the framework of policy

Similarities – both are concerned with choice among alternatives

-both can follow similar processes in generating alternatives

ii) Policy and politics- in practice policy formulation overlap with policy decision in policy
making processes.

 Policy making is part of politics and political actions

 Policy acts as a specialized branch of theory and practice in politics

iii) Policy formulation and policy decision

 Policy formulation/making is about getting a preferred policy alternative approved and it

selection from among a number of policy alternatives

 Policy decision is action taken by officials to approve, modify or reject preferred policy
alternatives. i.e., actions on a preferred policy alternatives

 Factors determining policy formulation

 Policy-making cannot be adequately understood apart from the environment in which it

takes place.

 Demands for policy actions are generated in the environment and transmitted to the political
system. At the same time, the environment places limits and constraints upon what can be
done by policy makers. Hence, environment is a decisive factor on public policy formulation.

 Environment, in turn, includes geographical characteristics as natural resources, climate and

topography; demographic variables like population size, age and sex ratio distribution and

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 spatial location; political culture; social structure; and the economic system. Of these
environmental aspects, political culture and socioeconomic variables are considered as the
more influential factors in public policy formulation.

A) Political culture

 Culture- the entire pattern of social life, the inherited modes of living and conduct that
the individual acquires from the community or environment. Most social scientists agree that
culture is one of the many factors that shape or influence social action.

 Political culture- Political culture is also part of the general culture, which denotes
widely held values, beliefs, and attitudes concerning governmental policies and actions.

 It is what people believe and feel about government and how they act towards it.

 It the attitudes, values, beliefs and orientations that individuals in a society hold
regarding their political system.

 What is relevant here is therefore to see some of the implications and significance of this
culture for policy formulation.

 Differences in public policy making of various countries can be partly explained in terms of
variations in their political culture.

 For example, the time orientation of people-their view of the relative importance of the past,
the present and the future has implications for policy formulation.

 A political culture oriented more to the past may recognize age-old traditions, customs and
social moves, while future oriented political culture comprehends to change and innovation.

 Rumki Basu (1994:273) further identified three types of political cultures as parochial,
subject, and participant.

1) In a parochial political culture, citizens have little awareness of or orientation towards either
the political system as a whole or the citizen as a political participant. Citizen's participation in

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 the policy formulation in a parochial political culture is essentially non-existent, and
government will be of little concern to most citizens.

2) In a subject political culture as that of in many developing countries, citizens are oriented
towards the political system, yet they have little awareness of themselves as a participant.
They are aware of governmental authority and they may have political views, but they are
essentially passive. In the subject political culture, an individual may believe that he/she can
do little to influence public policy, which may lead to his/her passive acceptance of
governmental action.

3) Participant political culture- citizens have high degree of political awareness, information and
have explicit orientation towards the political system as a whole and people are actively
participate in politics. In addition, government and public policy are viewed as controllable by
citizens. It is also assumed that more demands will be made on government in participatory
political culture than the other two types.

B) Socio-economic Variables

 It is that society's level of economic development will impose limits on what the
government can do in providing public goods and services to the community.

 Economic development shapes both political processes and policy outcomes. In other words,
differences in the policy choices of governments with different political systems turn out to be
largely a product of differing socioeconomic levels rather than a direct product of political
variables.

 Levels of urbanization, industrialization, income and education appear to be more

influential in shaping public policy outcomes than purely political variables like voters'
participation, inter-party rivalry, and political party strength.

 Types of policy

 Policies may be classified in many different ways. The following is a sample of several
different types of policies broken down by their effect on members of the organization.

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A) Distributive policies

 It extends goods and services to members of an organization, as well as distributing the

costs of the goods/services amongst the members of the organization. Examples include
government policies that impact spending for welfare, public education, highways, and public
safety, or a professional organization.

B) Regulatory policies or mandates

 It limits the discretion of individuals and agencies, or otherwise compels certain types of
behavior. These policies are generally thought to be best applied when good behavior can be
easily defined and bad behavior can be easily regulated and punished through fines or
sanctions e.g. speed limit

C) Constituent policies

 It creates executive power entities, or deal with laws. It also deals with Fiscal Policy in
some circumstances.

 Approaches of policy making in the study of public administration

 There are different conceptual approaches to policy making in the study of public
administration.

 As a field of study, public administration examines every aspect of governmental efforts

to get implemented public policies.

 Simon suggested in that while studying public administration, scholars should concentrate less
on public policy and on the behavior of decision makers and the process by which they
defined public policy.

 For him, decision-making is the heart of administration; it pervades the entire administrative
process as much as the art of getting things done.

 He believed that there is a possibility of measuring and evaluating efficient decision-making,

and the need to define, quantify and measure administrative choice.

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 The three decision models, which Simon identified in 1960 include:

 Non-programmed decision-making based on instinct, judgment, intuition, and other extra-

rational factors,

 Pure rationality optimal decision-making, and

 Satisfying decision-making,

 Simon dropped the notion of optimal rational choice altogether and opted for bounded
rationality and a satisfying model of decision-making. In other words, he believed in that
people accept what is good enough or satisfying to them and don't search for all possible
alternatives so as to select the optimal rational alternative.

 Decision-making process could be broken down into intelligence (searching the environment
for conditions necessary for decision); design (inventing, developing, and analyzing possible
courses of action); and choice (selecting a course of action).

 Charles Lindblom (1959) identified

 the rational comprehensive approach-ways policy making has been described in theory

 Incremental steps-ways policy making is actually made

A) Rational comprehensive approach

 This approach to decision-making is rational and comprehensive, because all alternatives and
values are taken into account and logically selected and weighed in their relative importance.

 In this policy approach, an administrator has to follow certain principles such as identifying a
priority objective, rationally ranking all the relevant "values" or "advantages" to pursue the
best policy, formulating several possible alternatives to achieve the stated objective, selecting
the best alternative, and so on.

 But rational decision-making is difficult in practice since there are a variety of factors that
complicate the task of the policy maker.

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 The rational method has been criticized as being impracticable for a number of reasons:

 It is practically impossible to collect all information and make a complete list of policy
options,

 The process involved in this approach is time consuming and expensive,

 The assumptions that values can be ranked and classified is erroneous, since there are always
differences among the legislatures, administrators and the public on the values that a nation
should pursue,

 The assumptions to consider everything before a new policy is decided is impossible since the
consequences of adopting a new policy is in most cases unknown

B) The incremental approach

 Although the rational comprehensive approach is theoretically good, what actually occurs in
administrative decisions is quite different; i.e. "successive limited comparison" technique or
incremental step.

 In this approach, Firstly, administrators operating under limited resources take up on a priority
bases, programs of immediate relevance. Secondly, they do not outline a wide range of
possibilities in selecting appropriate policies, but only a few "incremental" steps that appear to
them feasible on the basis of their experiences.

 Two advantages of instrumentalism are identified, namely:

 Decision-makers could proceed through a succession of small incremental changes, thereby

have the advantage of avoiding serious alterations in case of mistakes in decision making,

 This method is truly reflective of the policy-making process by means of consensus and
gradualism and contemplates possible changes in public policies,

 Though it is widely accepted that incrementalism describes the reality of the policy making
process, it has its own disadvantages or weaknesses, among which:

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 Incrementalism can result in important policy options being overlooked,

 Incrementalism discourages social innovation and is partisan in approach, which in reality

means the interests of the most powerful get maximum attention by policy-makers,

 Incrementalism cannot be applied to fundamental decisions such as declaration of war, hence

cannot be considered as an approach without flaws or mistakes,

 Official Policy Makers

 Official policy-makers are those who are legally empowered to formulate public policy.

A) Legislature- it tends to have greater independence in policy making in presidential systems

(USA) than in parliamentary systems (Britain).

B) Executive(political executives)-modern governments everywhere depends upon executives

leadership both in policy formulation and implementation

C) Administrative agencies- they make law through delegated legislation. Why?

 Technical complexity of many policy matters

 Legislature‟s lack of time and information etc.

D) Courts- in countries where courts have the power of judicial review(in common law countries
such as UK, USA), they have played an important role in policy formulation

 Unofficial policy makers

 Includes, political parties, interest groups, civil society organization, individual citizens etc.

 Public Policy Evaluation

 Once we make public policy and implement it, it is imperative that the effects of such policies
have to be evaluated and analyzed.

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 Public policy evaluation is concerned with the analysis of the effects of governmental
decisions on the target public.

 In other words, it is an attempt to assess the content and effects of policy on those for whom it
is intended. It means commenting on the merits and demerits of a policy.

 Often policy evaluation occurs throughout the policy process, not necessarily at its
termination stage.

 There are generally three recognized methods of policy evaluation; namely:

(a) Policy impact evaluation: It is an assessment of program (policy) impact and

effectiveness, the extent to which programs are successful in achieving the intended
objectives,

(b) Policy strategy evaluation: This refers to the assessment of the relative effectiveness of
program strategies and variables with emphasis on determining the most effective and
productive strategies, methods and procedures,

(c) Policy project appraisal: It is a process of assessing individual projects through site visits
and other means with emphasis on managerial and operational efficiency.

 In discussing policy evaluation, we need also to understand the differences between policy
output and policy outcome.

 Policy output refers to the quantifiable actions of the government that can be measured in
concrete terms,

 Policy outcomes refer to the qualitative impacts of public policies on the lives of the people.

4.2. Personnel Administration

 Personnel administration is that part of administration concerned with the management

of people at work. In other words the central concern of personnel management is the efficient
utilization of employees of an organization.

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 It is the art and science of planning, organizing, implementing and evaluating the personnel resources
in government organization to ensure their best use for the achievement of the objectives, goals and
targets of an organization.

 In general, public personnel administration is a branch of public administration which is concerned

with effective management of people at work in government organizations, institutions and
departments.

 The success and failure of any organization depends the competence, culture and
interests of workers.

4.2.1. Functions of public personnel administration

The core functions of public personnel administration are those which public agencies must perform in
order to permit public employees to work competently under satisfying working conditions:

1. Recruitment, Selection and promotion (Procurement)

 Recruitment is a process through which suitable candidates are included to compete for appointments
to the public service

 Selection is the process of choosing individuals who have relevant qualifications to fill jobs in an
organization.

 Recruitment and selection of personnel is one of the crucial tasks of modern government and lies at the
heart of the problem of personnel administration.

 Recruitment and selection in the public service should be based on the principles of merit and
nondiscrimination.

 Building a motivated and capable civil service requires merit-based recruitment and selection (although
for high-level appointments merit may well include an element of personal commitment to the political
leadership and its agenda).

 The recruitment and selection process includes a number of different steps, which are as follows:

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 i. Develop/obtain accurate job description:

ii. Defining the ideal candidate:

iii. Announcement of vacancies (invitation of candidates) through newspapers, journals, and any
appropriate media,

iv. Short-listing of the most appropriate applicants:

v. Holding of examinations for testing or determining the abilities of recruits (exams would be in
the form of interviews, written tests, or practical tests)

vi. Selecting the best or eligible candidate/s from among those who have been examined or
tested

vii. Placement or appointment of selected recruits. Appointment could be permanent, temporary,

provisional, or probationary.

viii. Induction or orientation of the employee

2. Human resource planning

 It is the process through which a government strives to ensure that it has the appropriate quantity and
quality of employees to carry out its responsibilities.

 It aims to eliminate the gap between the existing supply of qualified employees and the current and
anticipated demand.

 The objectives of personnel planning are:

 to monitor and control the growth of government employment according to fiscal targets;

 to ensure that existing staff are utilized and effectively deployed in response to government policy and
development priorities;

 To enable the government to achieve its strategies for staff acquisition, retention, development, and
exit.

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3. Job analysis and job evaluation

 Job analysis is a systematic procedure for gathering, analyzing and documenting information about
particular jobs.

 It is the process of defining a job in terms of its components, activities and requirements.

 The immediate products of job analysis are job description and job specification.

 Job description is a written statement that describes the activities and responsibilities of the job

 Job specification summarizes the personal qualities, skills, and background required for getting the job
done.

 Job evaluation is concerned with establishing the relative worth of a job compared to other jobs within
an organization.

 The techniques of job evaluation include market based evaluation, whole-job ranking, point rating and
factor comparison, and position classification.

4. Compensation

 Compensation is concerned with every type of rewards individuals receive in exchange for
performing organizational tasks.

5. Performance evaluation/appraisal

 It is a systematic evaluation of the performance of employees against agreed upon standards.

 Performance appraisal may be understood as the assessment of an individual‟s performance in

a systematic way.

 The aim of performance appraisal;

 To improve current performance

 To assess training and development needs

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 To assess future potential for promotion

 For salary review purpose

 To know factors influencing performance of employees including leadership styles and

behaviors etc.

6. Training and development

 It is designed to improve the administrative machinery by enhancing the knowledge, attitudes

and skills of employees.

 The term training and development are used interchangeably by many people. However, the
former focuses on present jobs while the latter prepares employees for possible future jobs.

 The terms training and education are also often used as if they are synonymous. But they are
not, and an understanding of the differences between them is important to understand the
training process in organizations. Both training and education are processes, which help
people to learn, but they differ in orientation and objectives. Attwood and Dimmock
(1996:96) simply described:

 Training as "...oriented towards the needs of the organization, specific to the employee's work
situation, aimed at making workers more effective in their jobs, relatively short in timescale,
and often fairly narrow in content".

 Education as "...oriented to the needs of the individual, more abstract in nature, geared to the
needs of the individual and to the society generally, generally a long-term process in terms of
timescale, and widely drawn in content".

7. Ensuring employees rights and obligations

 Government employees, whether as employees or as citizens, have five basic rights:

 some protection for the job itself and the right not to be downgraded, disciplined, or dismissed
without due process

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 nondiscrimination on the basis of race, religion, or gender;

 freedom of speech and religion, subject to reasonable restrictions

 respect for individual privacy, also under reasonable restrictions; and

 Right of association, including the right to form unions.

8. Promotion, demotion and transfer

4.2.2. The concept of career civil service

 Herman Finer, quoted in Rumki Basu (1994:295), defines the civil service as a "professional
body of officials, permanent, paid and skilled".

 In this connection, a civil servant may be understood as a "servant of the general public (not
being the holder of a political or judicial office), who is employed in a civil capacity and
whose remuneration is wholly paid from the budget provided by the parliament or any
legitimate body of the government".

 This does not include army forces, the judges, the parliament, and seasonal workers.

 The civil service constitutes the "permanent" executive in the modern state.

 The major requirement of the civil service is that it shall be "impartially selected,
administratively competent, politically neutral, and imbued (instilled) with the spirit of service
to the community".

 Willoughby defined career civil service as:

"A system that offers equal opportunities to all citizens to enter the government service,
equal pay to all employees doing work requiring the same degree of intelligence and
capacity, equal opportunities for advancement, equal favorable conditions and equal
participation in retirement allowances and makes equal demands upon the employees".

 Professionalisation of the civil service became absolutely necessary to attract the best
available talent to government jobs and enable them to make a rewarding career of it. For

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 example a Commission established in 1933 in the US defined the concept of career civil
service and identified its main characteristics as:

 High prestige and status attached to government service,

 Appropriate recruitment procedures,

 Broad avenues for promotion and transfer of personnel,

 Clear pay scales, and

 Adequate retirement and pension system

 In addition/similar to the above outlined ones, the main characteristics of a career civil service
that have got common acceptance are:

(1) Permanence of tenure and stability of service,

(2) Equal opportunity of competing for government services,

(3) Merit to be the sole criteria of recruitment with due recognition to ability and personal
efficiency in a sound promotion system,

(4) Fairly large extent of territorial jurisdiction of public employees to enlarge their scope of
activity and improve their avenues for promotions, and

(5) Adequate steps taken to provide in-service training to civil servants to keep them in
touch with the latest trends and developments in administrative theory and practice.

 Ideally, a career civil service is a system of service, with recruitment on merit, security of
tenure, and due recognition of service and merit through timely promotions. Every
organization has its own service systems comprising permanent civil service groups, whose
size and function depend on the nature of the organization. Modern civil service constitutes
people with both general and technical qualifications.

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 Therefore, Career civil service has been understood as a system aimed at recruiting young
people having the talent and ambition, with capacity for learning and growth, training them in
order to develop their potentialities for the service of the state.

 The basic task of the civil servants is to transform politics into action. Besides, the higher
echelons of the civil service assist their political superiors in policy-formulation through
expertise advice, assistance, and information. With the diversification of the nature of the civil
service personnel, civil servants of the technical category engaged in various productive and
public sector organizations are rendering useful social and economic services to the people.

4.2.3. Some issues in personnel administration

A) Civil Service Neutrality

 The theory of the neutrality of the civil services was developed in England to maintain the
continuity of the civil service within the unstable political system due to periodic elections
and the resultant change of government.

 Career administrators perform mainly the following functions:

i) Execution of laws and government decisions,

(ii) Providing expert guidance, information and managerial assistance to the political
executive,

(iii) Maintaining the continuity of administration

(iv) Helping the political executive to understand the probable consequences of alternative
courses of action,

 Unlike the political appointee, such as a minister, a career official is professional in

administrative affairs and enjoys a permanent tenure, and is expected to be non-partisan and
politically neutral.

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 Political neutrality means not only the absence of political activity or bias on the part of civil
servants, but also that they will serve every government that comes to power irrespective of its
party affiliations.

 The main reason for the advocacy of civil service neutrality is that the civil servant can serve
the changing governments drawn from different parties with the same vigor and honesty

 Apart from the rights of civil servant in voting, if they engage in partisan politics their role as
an impartial advisor would be seriously impaired in the eyes of the public.

 The issue of civil service neutrality doesn't mean differences in goals or objectives with that of
the political appointee. Rather, if the administration is to work efficiently and smoothly and
the government objectives to be achieved successfully, the political executive (for example,
the minister) and the civil servant must work in close cooperation and harmony.

 The basic assumptions behind the concept of bureaucratic neutrality are that it seeks to reflect
the merit system in those systems where the concept is recognized in the behavior of the
bureaucrat, and that the advantages of permanency, continuity, reliability, and professionalism
far outweigh the disadvantages, conservatism, reluctance, to depart from to accommodate
change

 These assumptions are, however, refused in modern times in all political systems- including
Western democracies where such ideas originated. Therefore, the only acceptable connotation
of the doctrine of civil service neutrality seems to be an idea of non-partisanship and
impartiality in the sense that they shouldn't carry on their operations in any political
considerations.

 The relevance of the classical theory of neutrality has often been come to be questioned for
the following reasons;

 The process of policy decision-making is no longer confined to the political executive; it

trickles down or percolates through the entire structure or makeup of the government resulting
in the inescapable items of delegation that let administrators to make bylaws or sub-policy
decisions.

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 In the context of large-scale welfare governments, neutrality is neither possible nor desirable.
A certain commitment to the goals and objectives of the state is inescapable in the face of the
civil servant-neutrality cannot be allowed to degenerate into disinterestedness.

 In the sphere of policy advice and execution, modern bureaucracy takes an active part.

 As a human being, civil servant cannot be psychologically neutral on issues and problems,
which confront them.

B) The Generalist-Specialist Controversy

 A generalist is a public servant who has no specialized background and who can be moved to
any department or branch of administration.

 The generalist is well versed in the procedures of administration and generally performs
POSDCORB functions. In some instances, a generalist officer is understood as one with a
liberal college education and, after some training, appointed to a middle level supervisory
post, which doesn't call for any compulsory technical qualification.

 They occupy the superior position, which comprises policy making level.

 The specialist is one who has special knowledge or skill in a particular field such as a doctor,
an engineer, a technician, etc

 This may include not only services discharging a technical function based on a pre-entry
vocational training, but also those which after entry specialize in particular areas of
administration requiring no pre-entry vocational training. The specialized services are also
called "functional services".

 The specialist or technical officer is also the incumbent of a supervisory position, which calls
for specialized skills and for which a technical or professional qualification is laid down. The
field positions manned by specialist group are headed by members of the specialist group.

 The generalist-specialist classification of civil servants is mainly implemented mainly in those

countries, which follow the British model of civil service administration. It means the

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 dichotomy of the civil service into a "higher administrative class and subordinate technical
services", making subordination of the specialist to the generalist.

C) Integrity in public administration

 The problem of administrative corruption is perhaps as old as administration itself, but the
problem of public accountability is as old as the theory and practice of democratic
administration. The enormous expansion of the government bureaucracy, touching all aspects
of the citizens' live, has brought the problem of effective public checks and control on public
administration to the forefront.

 Public authorities must behave appropriately in their dealing with private citizens, businesses
and other public authorities.

 Office holders and public servants must behave professionally and ethically. they must not
commit fraud, accept bribes or leak confidential information.

 However, the expansion of governmental tasks results in the multiplications of the volume of
work where administrative power and discretion are vested at different levels of the
governmental hierarchy which expose them to abuse their power and affect the life of the
people.

 Executive discretion, delegated legislation, and administrative adjudication are vitally

connected with problem of public accountability of administration.

 Recent trends in the world administrative system, including in developing countries, have
showed encouraging responses through the establishment of institutional devices to fight
against such administrative excesses. The most common institutional devices are the
following:

 Administrative Courts or Tribunals- set up to deal with or to solve disputes between civil
servants and the organization, among workers themselves and other.

 This method has been practiced in Ethiopia since 1962 with the establishment of the "Central
Personnel Agency-CPA", in its former name

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 The court also currently exists in the Federal Civil Service Commission-FCSC", which was
formerly known as CPA with in fact reduced jurisdictional power as compared to what it had
previously.

 The procurator- It is an important institutional mechanism for redressing citizens' grievances

and ensuring observance of legality at all levels of the administration. The procurator is in
charge of many functions including prosecution of crimes, supervision over legality in the
activity of the investigating agencies, judicial sentences and judgments, and legality of the
execution of sentences. However, its most significant function is that of "general supervision".

 The ombudsman- it is an officer appointed by the legislature to handle complaints against

administrative and judicial action. The Ombudsman is established as an instrument of the
parliament for the supervision and control of the administration. In investigating of
complaints, the Ombudsman has free access to all the files of the administration and can
demand explanations from the officials or authorities concerned. Ombudsman can investigate
all cases of administrative malpractices and improper use of authority, complaints against
administrative decisions or actions as well as complaints of inefficiency and negligence.

 Informal agencies such as political parties, interest groups, press and mass media, public
opinion etc also play a decisive role in controlling power administration.

4.3. Financial administration

4.3.1 Meaning of Financial administration

 Financial administration is the management of the finance of a state or of a public authority

endowed with taxing and spending powers. Sound Financial administration is vital to the
success of any organization. Efficiency and economy are the two watchwords (mottos) of
public finance. Financial administration seeks to arise, spend and account for the funds need
for public expenditure.

 Financial administration involves the activities of four agencies: the Executive, which needs
and spends the funds; the Legislature, which grants the funds and appropriates them to

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 particular agencies; the Finance Ministry, which controls the expenditure; and the Audit,
which sits in judgment over the way in which the funds have been spent. All these agencies
have their own role in financial administration.

4.3.2 Sources of Public Finance

 The main sources of finance in most governments are taxes, print money, and borrowing,
sales of assets, user charges and fees

 Taxes are the main sources of public revenues. Taxes are defined as involuntary or
compulsory payments associated with certain activities of physical or legal persons without
explicit relationship. Taxes could also be further divided as direct and indirect. The
difference between direct and indirect taxes is that the later is paid in connection to
production, consumption, imports or exports whereas, direct taxes are levied on employed,
self-employed and owners of partnerships.

4.3.3 Budget

 It is a balanced estimate of expenditures and receipts (revenues) for a given period of time.

 For the administrator, the budget is a record of past performance, a method of current control,
and a projection of future requirements or plans.

 A budget is a financial report of statement and proposals are periodically placed before the
legislature for its approval and/or sanction

 So, it is an instrument of financial administration, and for the analysis of a government policy
in financial administration.

4.4. Development administration/development economics

 Development administration is primarily a post Second World War phenomenon.

 It was coined in 1955 or 1956

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 Is the term used to denote the complex of agencies, management systems and processes a
government establish to achieve its development goals.

 It is the public mechanism set up to relate the several components of development in order to
articulate and accomplish the national economic and social objectives.

 It is the adjustment of bureaucracy to the vastly increased number, variety, and complexity of
government functions required to respond to public demands for development.

 It is xed by its purposes, its loyalties and its attitudes.

 Elements of development administration

 Change Orientation: Development administration believes in countering inertia and

redundancy by self-regulating/adaptive mechanisms. The external environment is constantly
in a state of flux and administration has to adjust to maintain its relevance. Change within and
in relation to without is the guiding philosophy of development administration.

 Goal Orientation: Development is goal -directed activity in that goals are systematically
planned and set and all activity geared towards their realization. Progress towards goals is
progressively monitored/evaluated and on-course correctives applied to maintain goal
orientedness. Procedure is compromised upon if need be, for goal attainment

 Client Orientation: The clientele to be serviced are at the focus of concern. A strong welfare
orientation informs development administration ethic, which makes it basically/essentially
people centered. It is responsive to people‟s needs and entails moral responsibility in official
functioning, so services are duly rendered. It is not administration for administration‟s sake,
but administration for services‟ sake. Administration in the final analysis exists for people and
the ultimate test of its efficiency/effectiveness is the extent/degree to which service delivery is
made effective. Another aspect of client orientation is giving voice to people‟s opinions, needs
and desires. This is secured by means of peoples‟ participation in development programmes.
This is done by means of grass roots planning and councils/committees with representations
from peoples‟ groups.

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 Effective Integration: Development administration launches an ambitious scheme of
programmes and projects. Agencies are set up for the purpose that performs specialized tasks.
These agencies need to be brought into a meaningful pattern of integrations so administration
works in a coordinated pattern.

 Ecological Perspective: Development administration does not function as an

insulated/isolated system but as one fully cognizant of the environment around and in a
healthy state of interaction with variables occurring in the environment likely to affect
organizational functioning. Ecology is a term borrowed from physical sciences and implies
the milieu (socio-cultural as also politico-economic) within which administration functions.
Culture provides an operative framework for development administration and to that extent is
an important determinant of administrative performance.

4.5. Administrative law

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 Chapter five
5. Comparative public administration
5.1. Meaning of comparative public administration

 It refers to a comparative study of government administrative systems functioning in different

countries around the world.

 Robert J. Jackson gave a broader, more acceptable definition of comparative public

administration when he defined it as “that fact of the study of public administration, which is
concerned with making rigorous cross cultural comparisons of the structures and processes
involved in the activity of administering public affairs.”

5.2. Significance of comparative public administration

 There are two factors that make comparative studies significant.

 The first factor relates to the academic study of public administration

 It is believed that generalizations relating to administrative structure and behavior emerging

out of comparative studies in different nations and cultures can help in formulating theoretical
constructs which can provide a scientific basis to the study of public administration

 The study of comparative public administration also contributes to a greater understanding of

the individual characteristics of administrative systems functioning in different nations and
cultures.

 Besides, comparative studies also help in explaining factors responsive for cross-national and
cross-cultural similarities as well as difference in the administrative systems.

 The second important function of comparative public administration relates to its relevance to
the empirical world.

 Through a study of comparative public administration, administrators, policy makers, and

academicians can examine causes for the success or failure of particular administrative
structure and patterns in different environment settings.

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 Through comparative analysis as to which important environmental factors help in the
promotion of the administrative effectiveness and successfully in what type of environmental
settings.

 Through comparative public administration, we learn about the administrative practices

followed in various nations and then we can endeavor to adopt those practices which can fit in
our own nations and systems.

 The importance of comparative public administration lies in its academic critics in terms of
scientific and systematic study of public administration and in improving the knowledge about
other administrative systems so that appropriate administrative reforms and changes can be
brought about in different nations.

5.3. Evolution of comparative public administration

 Comparative public administration is a relatively new field of study which emerged only after
the Second World War.

 Henderson argued that the intellectual roots of comparative public administration lie in the
American behavioral sciences.

 During this period, scholars of public administration felt a great deal of dissatisfaction with
the parochial nature of traditional approaches to the discipline. Ethnocentric bias was only too
evident as American experiences were taken as the only bases of generalizations.
Administrative science which was sought to be erected thereby could not be authentic/
satisfactory.

 Robert Dahl was only too emphatic and critical about/of the parochial nature of public
administration research. He was very explicit in expressing the need for comparison as a
prerequisite for the development of a science of administration.

 Frederick Riggs identified three major trends which were noticeable in the comparative
study of public administration. These were:

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 Normative to Empirical

 Traditional studies of public administration were to a large extent influenced by the classical
approach. The emphasis was on proffering certain ideal principles for good administration.
Efficiency and economy were considered to be the primary goals of all administrative systems
and there were certain principles of formal organization, which were held to help in the
achievement of these goals. Therefore a few models of administration, primarily of the
western democratic world were considered to be useful for all other administrative systems.

 But as a number of developing countries emerged on the scene along with the success of the
communist system in various parts of the world it became clear that a limited, culture bound
normative approach to the study of public administration would not be adequate. Since the
behavioral movement highlighted the value of studying facts or „reality‟ in a significant
manner, the comparative studies of public administration after the Second World War started
assigning greater importance to the study of administrative „reality‟ existing in different
countries and cultures. These studies were more interested in finding out facts about structural
patterns and behaviors of administrative systems rather than in prescribing what was good for
each system.

 In this context it may be mentioned that two important trends have influenced the study of
comparative studies during the past two decades. The first is the concept of development
administration which focuses on the goal orientation of an administrative system and is
basically a normative concept. Though it considers reality as the basis of such goal
orientation, the emergence of development administration as a focus of inquiry since early
sixties comparative public administration has evolved a synthesis between the normative and
the empirical elements of analysis. The second is the New Public Administration Movement,
which sought to bridge the gap between „is‟ and „should‟ aspects of public administration. In
the late sixties, the new public administration marked the post- behavioral trend and its impact
upon most administrative analyses has since been profound.

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 Ideographic to Nomothetic

 The words ideographic and nomothetic have been employed by Riggs to explain specific
contexts of administrative studies. An ideographic approach concentrates on unique cases, e.g.
a historical event, study of a single agency, country or even a single cultural area. Earlier
studies of comparative public administration which were ideographic in character were
comparative only in name and did not help the process of theory building or develop
generalizations concerning the functioning of administrative systems in different systems.

 Nomothetic approach on the other hand seeks to develop generalizations and theories based
on the analysis of regularities of behavior exhibited by administrative systems/cultures
existing in different nations and cultures and attempts to draw certain generalizations.

 Presently, a large number of comparative administrative studies are ideographic in character.

 Non- Ecological to Ecological

 The traditional studies of comparative public administration were mainly non- ecological in
nature.

 Studies undertaken after the Second World War have specifically looked at similarities and
differences among environmental settings prevailing in different nations and cultures and have
attempted to examine the impact of the environment on the administrative system on the one
hand and the influence of the administrative system on the environment on the other.

5.4. What to Compare?

In comparative administration studies the unit of analysis is the administrative system. The focus
therefore, is either on the whole of an administrative system or on its various parts. The
subject matter of comparison would be one or all of the following phenomena:

 Environment of the administrative system.

 The whole administrative system.

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 The formal structure i.e. hierarchy, division of work, specialization, authority/ responsibility,
network, decentralization, delegation, control mechanisms, procedures etc.

 The informal patterns existing in an administrative set up including the nature of human
groups, relationships among individuals, motivational system and state of morale, patterns of
informal communication and the nature of leadership.

 Roles of individuals making up the system.

 Interaction between personalities and the organizational system.

 The policy and decisional systems of the organization that link its various parts.

 The communication system, which also involves the feedback mechanism.

 Performance of administrative systems.

Levels of analytical analysis in Comparative Public Administration

Comparative administrative studies can be conducted at three analytical levels:

Macro studies

 Focuses on the comparisons of whole administrative systems in their proper ecological

contexts, For instance:

o Comparison of the administrative systems of India and USA

o In this comparison, a detailed analysis of all importance aspects and parts of the
administrative systems of the two-nations

 The relationship between an administrative systems and external environment are high
lighting in the macro level studies.

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Middle- range studies

 Are in certain important parts of an administrative system that are sufficiently large in
size and scope of functioning. For instance: A comparison of the structure of higher
bureaucracy of two or more nations or a comparison of local government in different
countries will form part of middle range studies

Micro studies

 Relate to comparisons of an individual organization with its counterpart in other countries

 It might relate to an analysis of a small part of an administrative system such as the

recruitment or training systems in two or more administrative organizations

 Are more feasible to be undertaken and a large number of such studies have been
conducted by scholars of public administration

In the contemporary comparative public administration, all the three types of studies co-exist.

Range of Comparative Studies

Inter-institutional analysis: It involves a comparison of two or more administrative systems.

For example, a comparison of the structure and working of the Home Ministry of the
Government of India with the Defense Ministry will be a case of inter-institutional analysis.
Such comparisons could involve either the whole of an administrative organization or its
various parts.

Intra-national analysis: When an analysis in the comparative perspective is taken up among

various administrative systems functioning within a country, it would be an intra-national
analysis. Comparison of district administration in Bihar and Punjab would be an example of
such analysis.

Cross-national analysis: When two or more administrative systems (or their parts) are
compared inter-nation, it forms a case of cross-national analysis. For example, comparing the

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 recruitment of higher civil services of China, Thailand and Tanzania would be cross national
in nature.

Cross-cultural analysis: A cross- national analysis of administrative system involving countries

from different “cultures” is called, a cross-cultural analysis. For instance, comparing the
administrative system of the U.S.S.R (a socialist state) with the U.S (a capitalistic system) or
comparison between developed and a developing country would be cross-cultural in nature.

Cross-temporal analysis: Such a comparison involves different time frames for analyses. For
instance, a comparison between the administrative system prevailing during Asoka‟s reign
and Akbar‟s, would be a cross-temporal analysis. A cross-temporal analysis may be inter-
institutional, intra-national, cross -national or cross –cultural.

5.5. Approaches to Comparative Public Administration

There are a number of approaches, models and theories presently characterizing the subject-area
of comparative public administration. Particularly after Second World War, a number of
approaches have been based on an adaptation of the developments in comparative
anthropology; comparative sociology and comparative politics.

o The most influential of the approaches is Max Weber‟s ideal type of bureaucratic
model. This has structural characteristics of hierarchy, specialization, role-specificity, and
recruitment by merit, promotion by seniority-cum-merit, career development, training,
discipline, separation between personal and official means, etc.

o Behavioral approach emphasizes „facts‟, rigorous scientific analysis etc. It focuses on

the analysis of human behavior in administrative settings

o Systems approach views the public administration as a sub system of society. It looks at
various parts of an administrative system (formal organization, informal organization, roles,
and individuals) and examines the inter-linkages among various parts. Besides, the approach
analyses the dynamic interactions between the administrative system and its external
environment.

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o Ecological approach has been stressed by Fred Riggs. This approach examines the
interactions between an administrative system, economic system and its external environment.
Thus the impact of the political system, economic system, social system and the cultural
system on the structure and behavior of the administrative system on these environmental
structures is highlighted in the ecological approach.

o Structural -functional approach is mainly drawn from anthropology and sociology. A

structure according to this approach is a pattern of behavior that has become a standard feature
of a social system. Further a function denotes the impact of a structure on another structure
and the inert relationships among the various structures. Fred Riggs applied the ecological and
structural-functional approaches in his analysis of societies and their administrative systems.
His typology of “agrarian-transitia-industria” system developed in 1957, was superseded by
the typology of “functional prismatic –diffracted” societies that was constructed in 159. for
the past thirty years or so, Riggs model

o Information-energy model of John Dorsey and decision-making model of Martin

Landau. Never the less, other models have not been able to match the comprehensiveness and
acceptability of Weber‟s bureaucratic model, Riggs‟s prismatic model and of course the
construct of development administration.

o Development Approach: There is a lot in common between comparative public

administration and development administration. There is an apprehension however that
comparative public administration may ultimately be overwhelmed by the tide of development
administration. It should therefore concentrate also on questions other than those connected
with development administration. Development administration is only a facet of comparative
administration and should be seen as such. Its role should neither be exaggerated nor
underplayed.

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