Woodrow Wilson

21 May 2020
PM 02:48

Introduction:
1. The intellectual roots of 'Public Administration as a Discipline' are traced to pioneering contributions made by Woodrow
Wilson in his famous essay 'The study of Administration'. It stimulated interest in and stressed the need for a scientific st udy
of administration.
2. Beginning of public administration as a subject of enquiry

His back-ground
1. Wilson has a Phd in Political sciences, he is an educationist, an administrator and a reformer. He became President of United
States and received Nobel peace prize for his contribution in creation of League of Nations after First world war

Why is he considered Father of Public Administration?

1. Because in his essay the study of administration 1887, Wilson forcefully argued for a separate discipline on the basis of the
concept of Politics-administration dichotomy. He was the first to clearly articulate the need for separate discipline for Public
administration
2. He is the first to propose a separate discipline, he said that this discipline should be developed on scientific basis. Those
theories and principles which were created on scientific basis can be used to train administrators. These administrators
should be selected on the basis of merit

Administration and government

1. The study of administration developed, according to Wilson as a consequence to the increasing complexities of society,
growing functions of state and growth of government on democratic lines.
2. Wilson considered administration as most obvious part of government and felt that it is government in action. But this did
not provoke study in this field why?
a. Because political scientists were busy writing about constitution, nature of state, essence and seat of sovereignty etc.
b. The question always was who should make the laws and what the law should be. The question of how the law should be
administered was put aside as practical detail which clerks could look after
c. Reasons for neglect of study: before 19 century population was low, functions of government and their administration
were simple.. But by 19 century complexities of trade and commerce, development of giant corporations. Big
population, functions of govenrment becoming complex and difficult. So the very idea of state and its duties have
undergone phenominal change. The problem therefore was how these functions should be performed by the state.
His views are influenced by
1. Spoils System in American Administration
a. It began during George Washington's time
b. a spoils system is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives civil service jobs to its supporters
as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. With the change in political
party at power there is massive change in persons holding administrative posts
c. This created inefficiency, corruption and nepotism
d. The Presidents control on the administration was week, even though president was head of winning party, the part
controlled the administration
e. Pendelton commission act : introduced merit only to 10% civil service jobs 1883.
f. Wilson wanted 100% recruitment by merit
g. Wilson was of the opinion that studying administration was the solution for correcting the political abuse of spoils
system. Through a science or systemic study of administration, the spoils system may be rectified. His essay was
focuused on introducing reforms in administration
2. Comparative studies by Wilson
a. During his study he found that administrative systems of European countries are more efficient than in America.
b. He said the reason might be that it is easy to introduce changes in autocracy than in democracy
c. Also monarchs to maintain their supremacy has to create an efficient administration
3. Taylors efficiency
a. Taylor became popular in US even before his publication of "Principles of scientific management" in 1911.
b. Wilson is a contemporary of Taylor and was influenced by his quest for efficiency using scientific means
4. Too much emphasis on policy making and too little emphasis on policy implementation
a. Wilson found that thinkers and scholars has given too much attention to writing constitution, talking about who should
rule, but hardly any discussion about how to run the state

Views of Woodrow Wilson

1. Politics Administration Dichotomy
a. It is the most important concept in Public Administration. According to Dwight Waldo it is the DNA of Public
Administration. Public Administration as a discipline is based on this foundation.
b. Different characteristics of administration and politics
Politics Administration
Based on Democratic Principles Based on Merit Principles

Introduction Page 1
 Based on Democratic Principles Based on Merit Principles
Ex. Liberty, equality, freedom, Ex. Hierarchy, efficiency, control etc.
System of elections and System
of government
Deals with Policy Making Deals with Policy implementation
Concerned with end goals Concerned with means of achieving those ens goals
Led by political representatives Led by appointed officials who are experts and permanent
Laymen, non permanent
c. By dichotomy Wilson means separation of administration from politics. He considered both as two separate activities
the act of policy making should be separated from the act of policy implementation.
d. He considers administration as the most visible part of governance, the action part of the government. The basic aim
behind this separation is to promote efficiency in administration by
i. Making recruitment based on merit in place of spoils system
ii. Keeping administration apolitical and non-partisan
iii. Focusing on implementation challenges
e. The concept of dichotomy was further propagated by thinkers like Frank Goodnow, LD White and other classical
thinkers.
f. This became one of the most defining characteristic of PA for over 4 decades
g. Administration is removed from the hurry and strife of politics. Administration lies outside the sphere of politics,
administrative questions are not political questions
h. Wilson later vacillated about politics and administration separation
i. Wilson said that it is more difficult to run a constitution than to frame one
2. Science of administration
a. Wilson was also concerned about establishing a science of administration, simply because of quest for theories,
principles, methods and techniques.
b. He envisaged that public administration should focus on building best methods and practices, which in turn will give rise
to science of administration
c. Science is organized knowledge. When thinkers of public administration focus on building theories and principles, that
will give rise to systematization of knowledge
3. Comparative Study
a. Although Wilson was concerned about enhancing efficiency of American Public Administration, he had open
perspective, he was receptive to other practices
" one should learn from the best practices of other administrative systems through comparative analysis"
b. But at the same time the learning should be incorporated based on ones own administraitve system. He was ecological
and at the same time ethnocentric in his views
1) Ecological : it means open system. When thinkers take into consideration organizational and environmental
systems
2) Ethnocentric : when thinkers are more concerned about particular culture or administrative system. Here
Wilson concern about improving American administrative system
c. While appreciating Prussian administrative system, wilson has remarked that
"If I see a murderous fellow sharpening the knife cleverly, I can borrow his way of sharpening the knife without
borrowing his probable intention to commit murder with it"
d. He emphasised comparative method and learning from others about the ways of doing things without learning their
motives and end goals
e. Comparative study became important part of PA during 1950s -70s as a separate field of PA

4. Public administration to be more business like and less un-business like

a. Wilson states that the field of administration is the field of business. By this he mean administration is
1) Result oriented
2) Efficient
3) Professionally committed
b. Wilson was influenced by Business administration. He says that "administration is business and like business it does not
involve itself in question of politics". "the field of administration is a field of business"
c. To him the affairs of public administration were synonymous with those of Private administration. The central concerns
of business administration viz. Economy, efficiency and effectiveness should also be concerns of public administration
d. Business administration also means profit oriented. Although he equates business with administration he was not
treating them interchangeably. He only want operational efficiency of administration to be like business management.
PA should work within broad democratic control i.e. public opinion, democratic rights of citizen etc.

5. Public opinion as control on administration

a. Although Wilson was trying to establish business like administration, he was aware about democratic principles. The
merit based bureaucracy should not become threat to citizens liberty, rights and property, rather it should be for
strengthening such rights
b. This concern of Wilson was based on negative perception on bureaucracy at the time that once bureaucracy got
institutionalised it become threat in itself.
c. So wilson is advocating a representative, democratic control on bureaucracy, which was also advocated by max weber
in his legal rational type of bureaucracy.
d. To wilson, public opinion takes the place of authoritative critic. But the problem is to make public opinion efficient

Introduction Page 2
 d. To wilson, public opinion takes the place of authoritative critic. But the problem is to make public opinion efficient
without suffering it to be meddlesom

Wilson has talked about what the discipline should do. He dosent talk about what the subject matter should be in public
administration

Criticism
1. Politics Administration dichotomy
a. This concept was rejected by 1940s due to
i. emergence of Policy perspective
ii. Rejection of value free approach i.e. neutrality in administration
iii. Development in PA which indicate seperation as naïve concept
b. Thinkers like Simon, Waldo, Paul Appleby rejected dichotomy concept simply because policymaking cannot be
seperated from policy implimentation.
c. The relationship between [olitics and administration is not as simple as viewd by Wilson. Their complex relationship was
made clear by thinkers like Nicholas Henry and David Roosenbloom. They said that largely there is separate relationship
but in some areas their relations overlap, which nicholas henry says is a twilight zone

d. Although in some areas the relationship between politics and administration overlap, but in some other areas there is
separation. Rejection of dichotomy dosent mean merger of administration and politics, rather the rejection is
explanation of more complex relationship between politics and administration. This speaks about complimentarity
between administrationa nd polotics
2. Wilson advocated for science of administration without clearly dilineating the subject matter or focus of the discipline
a. He says that theory should be built, but did not gave any details about what it should study whether pollitics or state
3. He equated PA with business administration. Which focuses on ends rather than means of achieving those ends. He dosent
emphasis
4. He raised some questions about lack of focus on implementation side of government but he failed to provide any susstance
on how to overcome thopse challenges. He himself did not provide any theory or principles to solve those challenges

Relevance of Woodrow Wilson

1. Even if he is criticised for not clearly delineating sub matter, providing any theory or principle etc. nut he is recognised as the
beginner of the discipline by providing philosophical foundation for public administration
a. Efficiency and merit
b. Apolitical, non-partison administration
c. Businesslike
d. Democratic control
2. He gave idea of running governmetn efficiently through administrative reforms of which solutuions will be provided by the
discipline. His ideas were relevant at that time. Infact they inspired subsequent thinkers to build theory and principle for
enrichment of the discipline

Thinkers Before Wilson

1. US : Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton
a. Thomas Jefferson concept of best government is the least government
b. Alexander Hamilton coined the term public administration, he has given the concept of strong executive
2. Europian Countries
a. George Zincke
b. Lorenz vou stein
i. Said for the first time that administration is science
c. Bluntshlli
i. First to talk about separation of administration and politics. He influenced wilson
3. Machiavelli : The Prince : Founder of modern state
4. Kautilya : Arthasashtra : Indian Machiavelli
5. Thomas Hobbs : the Leviathon state
6. Confucius's Philosophy

Introduction Page 3
6. Confucius's Philosophy

1. Wilson became foundinf fathe rbecause he says why there should be a separate discipline, even though earlier thinkers
spoke abour PA it did not result in separate s\discipline
2. Even though they are rich in content their impact on development of separate discipline is minimal
3. Wilsons article was able to initiate a sustained interest among scholars of administration

Introduction Page 4