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UNIT-1 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION - MEANING,
NATURE, SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE
Structure
1.0 Learning Outcome 1.1 Introduction 1.2 What is Administration? 1.3 Administration, Organisation and Management 1.4 Defining Public Administration 1.5 Nature of Public Administration 1.6 Scope of Public Administration 1.6.1 Scope of Public Administration as an Activity 1.6.2 Scope of Public Administration as a Discipline 1.7 Public and Private Administration 1.7.1 Distinction between Public and Private Administration 1.7.2 Similarities between Public and Private Administration 1.8 Importance of Public Administration 1.8.1 Importance of Public Administration as Specialised Subject of Study 1.8.2 Importance of Public Administration as an Activity 1.9 Role of Public Administration under Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) 1.10 Conclusion 1.11 Key Concepts 1.12 References and Further Reading 1.13 Activities
1.0 LEARNING OUTCOMES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:
- define Administration and Public Administration
- describe the nature of Public Administration
- explain the scope of Public Administration
- distinguish between Private and Public Administration
- analyse the Role of Public Administration vis-à-vis Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG)
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Administration as an activity is as old as society itself. But as an area of study it originated, with the publication of Wilson’s essay on study of Administration in 1887. As a process, administration occurs in both public and private organisations. It occurs in such diverse institution as settings as a business firm, labour unions, religious or charitable organisations, educational institutions, etc. Its nature is affected by the
sphere with which it is concerned. Administration is commonly divided into two types, Public and Private Administration. As an aspect of government activity it has existed since the emergence of political system(s). While public administration relates to the activities carried out by government, private administration refers to the management of private business enterprises.
It is important to understand the functioning of administration for on this lies the understanding of the government. In this Unit an effort has been made to bring the concept of administration, public administration in particular, closer to you. This understanding will take you through the entire course of Public Administration. In what follows, we will examine the meaning, nature and scope of public administration.
1.2 WHAT IS ADMINISTRATION?
The word ‘administer’ is derived from the Latin word administere , which means to care for or to look after people, to manage affairs. Administration may be defined as “group activity which involves cooperation and coordination for the purpose of achieving desired goals or objectives”.
Broadly speaking, the term administration appears to bear at least four different meanings or different senses depending upon the context in which it is used:
(1) As a Discipline: The name of a branch of learning or intellectual discipline as taught and studied in colleges and universities.
(2) As a Vocation: Type of work/trade or profession/occupation, especially one that involves knowledge and training in a branch of advance learning.
(3) As a Process: The sum total of activities undertaken to implement Public Policy or policies to produce some services or goods.
(4) As a Synonym for 'word' Executive or Government: Such other body of persons in supreme charge of affairs, for example, Manmohan Singh Administration, Bush Administration, etc.
Noted below are definitions by a few famous writers.
E.N. Gladden
“Administration is a long and slightly pompous word, but it has a humble meaning, for it means to care for or look after people, to
group effort, public or private, civil or military, large scale or small scale. It is process at work in a department store, a bank, a university, a high school, a railroad, a hospital, a hotel or a local government.
1.3 ADMINISTRATION, ORGANISATION AND
MANAGEMENT
Before we discuss about the meaning, definition, nature, scope and importance of public administration we will try to know what is administration, organisation and management. As these terms are often used interchangeably and synonymously, it is pertinent to know the differences and distinctions between these three terms.
According to William Schulze Administration is the force, which lays down the object for which an organisation and its management are to strive and the broad policies under which they are to operate.
An Organisation is a combination of the necessary human beings, materials, tools, equipment and working space, appurtenances brought together in systematic and effective co-relation to accomplish some desired object.
Management is that which leads guides and directs an organisation for the accomplishment of pre-determined object.
To put the above in simple terms, administration sets the goal, management strives to attain it and organisation is the machine of the management for the attainment of the ends determined by the administration.
Some scholars have a different view about the administration and management. According to Peter Drucker management is associated with the business activity, which has to show economic performance, whereas administration is associated with the non business activities like activities of the Government.
The other view is that administration is associated with performing routine things in known settings in accordance with certain procedures, rules, and regulations. The Management is associated with performing functions like risk taking, dynamic, creative and innovative functions.
Some scholars of Public Administration are closely associated with the first view that is, administration is a determinative function. Management, on other hand is an executive function that is primarily concerned with carrying out the broad policies laid down by the administration. Organisation is the machinery through which coordination is established between administration and management.
1.4 DEFINING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
L.D. White observes that although public administration varies in form and objects, and although the administration of public and private affairs differs at many points, there is an underlying similarity, if not identity. As an integral aspect of such generic concept, public administration could be related to that type of administration, which operates within a specific ecological setting. It is a means to carry out the policy decisions made by political executive.
To be seen along with it is the ‘Public’ aspect of Public administration, which attributes a special character and focus to it. ‘Public’ can be looked at formally to mean ‘government’. So, public administration is government administration, government in action, or a socio-economic and politico-administrative confluence, the focus being especially on public bureaucracy. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines public administration as ‘the application of a policy of a state through its government.’
Public Administration, therefore, refers to that part of administration, which pertains to the administrative activities of the government.
Now we will try to look into the definitions of Public Administration provided by various scholars.
Woodrow Wilson
Public administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration.
L.D. White
“Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy”. As per White, this definition covers a multitude of particular operations in many fields the delivery of a letter, the sale of public land, the negotiation of a treaty, the award of compensation to an injured workman, the quarantine of a sick child, the removal of litter from a park, manufacturing uranium 235, and licensing the use of atomic energy. It includes military as well as civil affairs, much of the work of courts, and all the special fields of government activity-police, education, health, construction of public works, conservation, social security, and many others. The conduct of public affairs in advanced civilisations requires the employment of almost every profession and skill-engineering, law, medicine, and teaching; the crafts, the technical specialties, the office skills, and many others.
“Public Administration is concerned with ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the government. The ‘what’ is the subject matter, the technical knowledge of a field, which enables the administrator to perform his tasks. The ‘how’ is the technique of management, the principles according to which co-operative programmes are carried through to success. Each is indispensable, together they form the synthesis called administration”.
Nicholas Henry
“Public Administration is a broad-ranging and amorphous combination of theory and practice; its purpose is to promote a superior understanding of government and its relationship with the society, it governs, as well as to encourage public policies more responsive to social needs and to institute managerial practices attuned to effectiveness, efficiency and the deeper human requisites of the citizenry”.
The traditional definitions of Public Administration, which are given above reflect the view that the Public Administration is only involved in carrying out the policies and programmes of the government. It reflect that it has no role in policy making and also locates the administration in the executive branch but today the term public administration is used in a broader sense that it is not only involved in carrying out the programmes of the government, but it also plays an important role in policy formulation and covers the three branches of the government. In this context, we may reflected on the definition offered by F.A. Nigro and L.G. Nigro. According to them Public Administration:
In this context we can reflect the definition offered by F.A. Nigro and L.G. Nigro. According to them Public Administration:
- is co-operative group effort in a public setting;
- covers all three branches-executive, legislative, and judicial, and their inter-relationships;
- has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part of the political process;
- is different in significant ways from private administration; and
- is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community”.
In sum, public administration:
- is the non-political public bureaucracy operating in a political system;
- deals with the ends of the State, the sovereign will, the public interests and laws;
- is the business side of government and as such concerned with policy execution, but it is also concerned with policy-making;
- covers all three branches of government, although it tends to be concentrated in the executive branch;
- provides regulatory and service functions to the people in order to attain good life;
- differs significantly from private administration, especially in its emphasis on the public; and
- is interdisciplinary in nature as it draws upon other social sciences like political science, economics and sociology.
1.5 NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
There are two views regarding the Nature of Public Administration, that is, Integral and Managerial.
According to the integral view, ‘administration’ is the sum total of all the activities – manual, clerical, managerial, etc., which are undertaken to realise the objectives of the organisation. In this view all the acts of officials of the government from the Attendant to the Secretaries to the government and Head of the State constitute Public Administration. Henri Fayol and L.D. White are the supporters of this view.
According to the managerial view of administration, the managerial activities of people who are involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling constitute Public Administration. This view regards administration as getting things done and not doing things. Luther Gullick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg and Thompson are the supporters of this view. The managerial view excludes Public Administration from non-managerial activities such as manual, clerical and technical activities.
The two views differs from each other in many ways. According to Prof. M.P. Sharma the difference between the two views is fundamental. The integral view includes the activities of all the persons engaged in administration whereas the managerial view restricts itself only to the activities of the few persons at the top. The integral view depicts all types of activities from manual to managerial, from non- technical to technical whereas the managerial view takes into account only the managerial activities in an organisation. Furthermore, administration, according to the integral view would differ from one sphere to another depending upon the subject matter, but whereas that will not be the case according to the managerial point of view because the managerial view is identified with the managerial techniques common to all the fields of administration.
Organisation means the establishment of the formal structure of authority through which the work is sub-divided, arranged, defined and coordinated.
Staffing means the recruitment and training of the personnel and their conditions of work.
Directing means making decisions and issuing orders and instructions.
Coordinating means inter-relating the work of various divisions, sections and other parts of the organisation.
Reporting means informing the superiors within the agency to whom the executive is responsible about what is going on.
Budgeting means fiscal planning, control and accounting.
According to Gullick the POSDCoRB activities are common to all organisations. They are the common problems of management which are found in different agencies regardless of the nature of the work they do.
POSDCoRB gives unity, certainty, and definiteness and makes the study more systematic. The critics pointed out that the POSDCoRB activities were neither the whole of administration, nor even the most important part of it. The POSDCoRB view over looks the fact that deferent agencies are faced with different administrative problems, which are peculiar to the nature of the services, they render and the functions they performed. The POSDCoRB view takes into consideration only the common techniques of the administration and ignores the study of the ‘subject matter’ with which the agency is concerned. A major defect is that the POSDCoRB view does not contain any reference to the formulation and implementation of the policy. Therefore, the scope of administration is defined very narrowly, being too inward looking and too conscious of the top management.
The Subject Matter View
We all know that public administration deals not only with the processes but also with the substantive matters of administration, such as Defence, Law and Order, Education, Public Health, Agriculture, Public Works, Social Security, Justice, Welfare, etc. These services require not only POSDCoRB techniques but also have important specialised techniques of their own which are not covered by POSDCoRB techniques. For example, if you take Police Administration it has its own techniques in crime detection, maintenance of Law and Order, etc., which are much and more vital to
efficient police work, than the formal principles of organisation, personnel management, coordination or finance and it is the same with other services too. Therefore, the study of public administration should deal with both the processes (that is POSDCoRB techniques and the substantive concerns). We conclude the scope of public administration with the statement of Lewis Meriam: “Public administration is an instrument with two blades like a pair of scissors. One blade may be knowledge of the field covered by POSDCoRB, the other blade is knowledge of the subject matter in which these techniques are applied. Both blades must be good to make an effective tool”.
We may conclude the discussion with the observation of Herbert Simon who says that Public administration has two important aspects, namely deciding and doing things. The first provides the basis for the second. One cannot conceive of any discipline without thinking or deciding. Thus Public administration is a broad-ranging and an amorphous combination of theory and practice.
1.7 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
The major concern of administration is to properly organise men and material for achieving desired ends. As a co-operative group activity, administration is truly universal and operates in all types of public and private organisations. In other words, administration occurs in both public and private institutional settings. Its nature depends upon the nature of the setting and goals with which it is concerned. On the basis of the nature of the institutional setting, public administration can be roughly distinguished from private administration. Public administration is governmental administration concerned with achieving state purposes, determined by the state. Private administration, on the other hand is, concerned with administration of private business organisation and is distinct from public administration. Let us elaborate this
1.7.1 Distinction between public and private administration
John Gaus, Ludivig Von Mises, Paul H. Appleby, Sir Josia Stamp, Herbert A. Simon, Peter Drucker, etc., in their writings, have made distinction between public and private administration.
According to Simon , the distinction between public and private administration relates mainly to three points:
- Public administration is bureaucratic whereas private administration is business like;
Appleby reflects further on the distinction between public and private administration in the context of public accountability “Government administration differs from all other administrative work to a degree not even faintly realised outside, by virtue of its public nature, the way in which it is subject to public scrutiny and outcry. This interest often runs to details of administrative action that in private business would never be of concern other then inside the organisation.
According to Appleby private administration cannot claim the breadth of scope , impact and consideration of the public administration. He observes, “The organised government impinges upon and is affected by practically everything that exists or moves in our society. It involves policies and actions of immense complexity. Its fullest possible understanding requires the wisdom of many specialists as will as the key participants in public and private life.
The more important distinguishing features of Public administration may be described under the following sub-heads:
Political Direction: Public administration is political, while private administration is non-political, public administration takes place in a political context.
Absence of profit motive: The absence of profit motive from the Public administration is another feature, which distinguishes it from the private administration. The primary purpose of governmental organisation is to provide services to the people and promote social good.
Prestige: Public administrators who serve in the Government enjoy high status and prestige in comparison to their counterparts in private enterprises especially developing countries.
Public Gaze: All the actions of public administration are exposed to wide public gaze because the public closely watches it. This does not happen in private administration.
Service and Cost: Most governments spend more money than their income or revenues. That is the reason for finding generally a deficit budget that is, expenditure exceeding income. Conversely, private administration income often exceeds expenditure without which they cannot survive.
Legal framework: Public administration operates within a legal framework. It is rule oriented. The responsibilities of public administrators are fixed by a set of constitutional practices, laws and
regulations. Government officials are obliged to act within their legal powers and not outside the law.
Consistency of treatment: A government official is required by law to maintain a high degree of consistency in his dealings with the public. He has to observe the principle of equality of treatment in serving the people. It is a legal obligation to not to discriminate against any person.
Public accountability: Public accountability is the hallmark of Public administration in a democracy. Public administration is responsible to the public, though not directly but indirectly through political executive, legislature, judiciary, etc.
Large-scale administration: Public administration is large-scale administration. It is said that almost anything under the sun is directly or indirectly under the domain of public administration. It is by all means larger than any big private concern in terms of size., complexity and diversity of activities.
Monopolistic and Essential Services: In the field of public administration, there is generally a monopoly of the government and it does not generally allow private parties to compete with it. For example, no person or bodies of persons are allowed to establish or perform functions related to public services like national security, foreign relations, law and order, mint and currency, as these are the exclusive fields of the government and thoroughly important for the community and polity to prosper.
Officials remain Anonymous: In public administration, even the most senior officials remain anonymous and their identity is not disclosed. This is so because whatever they do, they do in the name of the government and not in their own name.
Financial meticulousness: Public administration has to be very careful in financial matters because it is working as custodian of people’s money.
Lower level of Efficiency: Efficiency is said to be the cornerstone of any organisation. However, due to varied responsibilities, lack of effective control, less accountability, involvement of a large number of levels and job security of employees, efficiency has not been there in public organisations to the effect desired. When compared to private administration, one finds that the degree of efficiency in public organisations is at a lower level. With profit as the major motive coupled with excessive control and flexibility in personnel administration the level of efficiency in private organisations is much higher.
- Public and private administration serves the people, whether being called clients or customers. Both have to maintain close contact with people to inform about their services and also to get feedback about services and product. In both the cases, public relations help them to inform and improve their services to the people.
The preceding discussion shows that the distinction between public and private administration is not absolute. In fact, they are becoming more and more alike in many respects. However, it does not mean that there are no significant differences between these two types of administration. Waldo observes that Public administration is distinct because it reflects the peculiar characteristics of government activity and the public setting in which it functions.
Given the wide acceptance of the ideas of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, both public and private administrations have to compete in the same area to provide services to people. Here both are dealing with customers, who pay for their services, in such a situation it narrows down the differences between the public and private administration. New Public Management, which has come into prominence, recently, puts emphasis on managerial techniques, which are to be adopted by public administration for the efficient delivery of public services. But in providing pubic services in the field of social and welfare areas their exists a difference between public and private administration
With this brief characterisation, it could be stated that both public and private administration are placed in different environments. But this difference is more apparent than real. According to Waldo, The generalisation which distinguish public administration from private administration by special care for equality of treatment, legal authorisation of, and responsibility of action, public justification of decisions, financial probity and meticulousness, etc. are of very limited applicability,” In fact public and private administrations are the “two species of the same genus, but they have special values and techniques of their own which give to each its distinctive character.
1.8 IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
We will be discussing the importance of public administration as a specialised subject of study and later the role and importance of public administration in the modern society.
1.8.1 Importance of Public Administration as Specialised Subject of Study
The study of administration assumed significance, according to Woodrow Wilson, as a consequence to the increasing complexities of society, growing functions of state and growth of governments on democratic lines. This exhaustive list of functions made to think as to ‘how’ and in what ‘directions’ these functions should be effectively performed. To this Wilson suggested that there was a need to reform the government in the administrative field. As per Wilson, the object of administrative study is to discover what government can properly and successfully does and how it can do these things with utmost efficiency and the least possible cost either of money or of energy.
The importance of public administration as a specialised subject can be attributed to the following reasons:
- One of the important reasons is the practical concern that the government today has to work towards the public interest. The first and foremost objective of public administration is to efficiently deliver public services. In this context, Wilsonian definition of the subject as efficiency promoting and pragmatic field was the first explicitly articulated statement on the importance of a separate discipline of public administration. During the first half of the preceding century, a numbers of countries have appointed committees to look into the problems of administration and recommended suitable administrative machinery to respond to diverse public needs. The Haldane Committee Report (1919) in Britain; the President’s Committee on Administrative Management (1937) in the United States; A.D. Gorwala Committee’s and Paul H. Appleby’s Reports in India are some of the examples of the efforts by various countries to make changes in public administration. During the last four decades also, a number of reports, produced by committees/commissions appointed by governments in various countries or multilateral agencies, and books published by scholars have enriched the discipline and provided new perspectives to public administration to tune it to the changing needs of the times. They include: Report of the Committee on the Civil Services (Fulton Committee Report, U.K., 1968); various reports of the Administrative Reforms Commission (India, 1967-72); Reinventing Government (U.S.A., look by David Orborne and Ted Gabler, 1992), Governance and sustainable Development (UNDP, 1997) and World Development Report: Building Institutions for Markets (The World Bank, 2002).
- Administration is looked at, in the social science perspective, as a cooperative and social activity. Hence the concern of academic inquiry would be to understand the impact of
health, education, recreation, sanitation, social security or others. It is, therefore, a creative factor, with its motto being ‘human welfare’. These functions are over and above its regulatory functions. The view points of eminent scholars, as referred to below, amply reflect the significance of public administration.
Woodrow Wilson: “Administration is the most obvious part of government; it is government in action, it is the executive, the operative and the most visible side of the government.
Brooke Adams: “Administration is an important human faculty because its chief function is to facilitate social change and to cushion the stock of social revolution”.
W.B. Donham , ‘If our civilization fails, it will be mainly because of breakdown of administration’.
Paul H. Appleby: ‘Administration is the basis of government. No government can exist without administration. Without administration government would be a discussion club, if indeed, it could exist at all’.
The role of public administration in various facets is noted below:
- Basis of the Government: A Government can exist without a legislature or an independent judiciary. But no Government can exist without administration.
- An instrument for providing services: Public administration is mainly concerned with the performance of various activities performed by government in the public interest. Felix A. Nigro aptly remarks, “The real core of administration is the basic service which is performed for the public”.
- An instrument for implementing policies: Modern governments go a long way in formulating and adopting sound policies laws and regulations. It should not be forgotten that such policies, laws, etc. are not merely printed papers. Such paper declarations of intent are translated into reality by public administration thus converting words into action and form into substance.
- A stabilising force in society: Public administration is a major force for bringing stability in society. It has been observed that though government often changes, but violent change is seldom experienced by administration. An element of continuity between the old and the new orders is provided by public administration. It does not hold true only of constitutional
changes of government in democratic countries, but is also reflected when there are revolutionary changes in the form and character of government.
- An instrument of social change and economic development: Public administration’s role as a change agent is particularly crucial in developing nations. It is expected of the state at present to work for accelerating socio-economic change and not to be a passive agency to maintain the status quo.
- Technical Character: The present day government is expected to provide various services to its population. The increase in the number of functions undertaken by the government require highly specialised, professional and technical, services. Modern public administration usually represents a galaxy of all of a nation’s occupations.
According Gerald Caiden p ublic administration has assumed the following crucial roles in contemporary modern society:
- Preservation of polity;
- Maintenance of stability and order;
- Institutionalisation of Socio-Economic changes;
- Management of large scale commercial services;
- Ensuring growth and economic development;
- Protection of the weaker sections of society;
- Formation of public opinion; and
- Influencing Public policies.
The points mentioned below summarise the reasons for the growing importance of public administration:
- Emergence of Welfare and Democratic state Emergence of welfare and democratic state has led to an increase in the activities of public administration compared to that of the laissez-faire state. The state has to now serve all sections of people in the society. This amount to enhanced responsibilities of public administration. Public administration is also to regulate and control private economic enterprises to meet the objectives of the state.
- Industrial Revolution The industrial revolution gave rise to socio-economic problems making the government to assume new roles and responsibilities such as protection and promotion of the rights of workers in industrial establishments, etc. Consequently, the state has
