Tuesday, April 9, y

Public Administration
Synopsis
• Evolution
• Meaning
• Nature
• scope
• importance
• Difference Between Public and private Administration

Evolution
• Public Administration as an independent and separate subject of study began in 1887 and the credit for
this goes to Woodrow Wilson. In order to understand the present status of the discipline as a field of in-
quiry it becomes essential to study its evolution.
• Many scholars and academicians dwelt upon this aspect from different perspective. Some of them have
discussed it from the point of view of traditions such as Absolutist, Liberal - Democratic and Marxian.
• the development of Public Administration as an academic field can be discussed through the following
five successive phases:
phase I 1887 – 1926
phase II 1927 - 1937
phase III 1938 - 1947
phase IV 1948 - 1970
phase V 1971 - continuing

Phase I: The Public Administration Dichotomy (1887-1926)

• The discipline of Public Administration was born in the USA. The credit for initiating as an academic
study of Public Administration goes to Woodrow Wilson. He is regarded as the father of the discipline
of Public Administration.
• In his article entitled “The Study of Administration”, published in 1887, he emphasized the need for
studying Public Administration as a discipline apart from politics. This is known as Principle of politic
administration dichotomy, i.e., a separation of Politics and Administration.
• Wilson argued that, “Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. According to Frank J.-
Goodnow, politics “has to do with the expression of the state will” while administration “has to do with
the execution of these policies.”
• In short, Goodnow posited the politics-administration dichotomy and he developed the Wilsonian
theme further and greater courage and conviction

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Period II (1927 - 1937) Principles of Administration:
• The central belief of this period was that there are certain ‘principles’ of ad-
ministration and which is the task of the scholars to discover and applied to
increase the efficiency and economy of Public Administration.
• Scientific management handled the business of administration becomes a
slogan. Administrative practitioners and business school join hands to
mechanistic aspect of management.
• They claim that Public Administration is a science. The great depression in
the America contributed a lot to the development. These periods were the
golden years of ‘principles’ in the history of Public Administration.
• This was also a period when Public Administration commanded a high de-
gree or respectability and its product were in great demand both in govern-
ment and business.

Period III (1938 – 1947) Era of challenge:

• The main theme during this period was the advocacy of ‘Human Relation-
ship Behavioural Approach’ to the study of Public Administration.
• The idea of administrative dichotomy was rejected. It was argued that Ad-
ministration cannot be separated from politics because its political nature
and role,
• Administration is not only concern with policy decision but it deals with
the policy formulation. Similarly, the principle of Administration was chal-
lenge

Period IV (1947-1970):
• The mid-1940s theorists challenged Wilson and Gulick. The politics-adminis-
tration dichotomy remained the center of criticism.
• In the 1960s and 1970s, government itself came under fire as ineffective, in-
efficient, and largely a wasted effort. There was a call by citizens for effi-
cient administration to replace ineffective, wasteful bureaucracy.
• Public administration would have to distance itself from politics to answer
this call and remain effective. Concurrently, after World War II, the whole
concept of public administration expanded to include policy-making and
analysis, thus the study of ‘administrative policy making and analyses was
introduced and enhanced into the government decision-making bodies.

Period V (1971) Continuing:-

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• After the 1970s the evolution of Public Administration has gained new
ways.
• The emergence of Development Administration, Comparative Public admin-
istration and New Public Administration etc were contributed to the evolu-
tion of Public Administration.
• The emergence of globalization further contributed to this growth.

Meaning of Public Administration

• The word Administration has been derived from the Latin words ‘ad’ and
‘ministiare’ which means to serve.
• In simple language it means the ‘management of affairs’ or ‘looking after
the people’. In general sense Administration can be defined as the activities
of groups co-operating to accomplish common goals.
• It is a process of management which is practiced by all kinds of organisa-
tions from the household to the most complex system of the government.
• According to L. D. White, Administration was a ‘process common to all
group effort, public or private, civil or military, large scale or small scale’.
• Generally Public Administration has been used in two senses. In the wider
sense it includes all the activities of the government whether falling in the
sphere of legislature, executive or judicial branch of the government, in the
narrow sense Public Administration is concerned with the activities of the
executive branch only.

Nature of Public Administration

• There are two divergent views regarding the nature of the Public adminis-
tration. These views are following·
• Integral View. According to this view, Public administration is a sum total
of all the activities undertaken in pursuit of and in fulfillment of public pol-
icy. These activities include not only managerial and technical but also
manual and clerical.
• Thus the activities of all persons from top to bottom constitute administra-
tion although they are of varying significance to the running of administra-
tive machinery. Prof: L D White adopts this view of Public administration.
According to him, Public Administration ‘consists of all those operations
having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy’. This
definition covers a multitude of particular operations, many in fields.
• Managerial view. According to this view, the works of only those persons
who are engaged in the performance of managerial functions in an organi-
sation constitute administration.

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• In this managerial view the administration has the functions of planning,
programming and organise all the activities in an organisation so as to
achieve the desired ends.
• These two views are deals the nature of public administration. In simply the
nature of Public Administration deals the execution.

Scope of Public Administration

• In the modern time Public administration have a pivotal role. There are
many discussions about the scope of Public Administration, some scholars
are argued that in the Neo-liberal time the scope of Public administration is
very less and Private administration have growing importance.
• Some argues that the neo-liberal time the term Public administration has
significant one because the neo liberal state has faced many problems like
environmental and technological issues.
• The scope of Public administration deals in many ways Public Administra-
tion and People. Public Administration is an organisational effort it needed
a close relation to people. In every Administrative system they have good
relation between people and administrative agency.

Importance Of Public Administration

• In a modern democratic welfare State, the Government has to provide many
services for the welfare of its citizens.
• It includes the provision of schooling, medical facilities and social security
measures. With the breakdown of joint families, the problem of looking after
the old and infants, orphans and widows comes up.
• With the slowing of economic activity, the problem of unemployed youth
crops up. The development process brings up many new problems like
those of urban slums and juvenile delinquents.
• The welfare State has to identify these problems and devise solutions for
them. The formulation of these schemes and their implementation is an-
other significant function of public administration.
• The public administration is thus not only a protector of citizens from exter-
nal dangers or internal disorders, but has become the greatest provider of
various services. The welfare of the people depends very much on the way
the public administration functions.

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Difference between Public and private ad-
ministration
The management of affairs by private individuals or body of individuals is pri-
vate administration while management of affairs by central, state or local
government is public administration. There are some points of similarity be-
tween public and private administration. However, there are some basic dif-
ferences between the public and private administration. The following are
the important differences between the two types of administration.

(a). Political Direction

In public administration there is political direction. The administers under

public administration has to carry out the orders which he gets from the po-
litical executive with no option of his own.

Politics is at the core of Public Administration. It has to implement the deci-

sions taken by the political executive. Private administration is not subject
to political direction but functions largely on the basis of direction and regu-
lation of market forces.

(b). Profit Motive

Public administration is conducted with the motive of service while the mo-
tive of private administration is profit making. If private administration is
useful to the public, its service to it is a by-product of profit making. Private
administration will never undertake a work if it does not bring profit.

(c). Service and cost

In public administration there is an intimate relationship between service

rendered and the cost of the service charged from the public. Only such
amount of money is raised by taxation, which is necessary for the rendering
of service. In private administration income of funds exceeds expenditure be-
cause there is usually an attempt to extract as such money as possible from
the public.

(d). Nature of Functions

Public administration is more comprehensive. It deals with the various types

of the needs of the people. In a socialist State the scope of State is still
larger. Private administration does not cover so many aspects of human life.
It mostly concerned with the economics needs of life.

(e). Efficiency

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It is considered by many that in public administration efficiency is less. Be-
cause of extravagance, redtapism, and corruption, which may dominate in
public administration it, may not be in a position to function in an efficient
manner. But in private administration the level of efficiency is superior to
public administration. The incentive of more profits impels the individuals to
devote him more to work.

(f). Public Responsibility

Public administration has responsibility to the public. It has to face the criti-
cism of the public, press, and political parties. The private administration
does not have any great responsibility towards the public. It is only responsi-
ble to the people indirectly and that too for securing its own ends and not for
the welfare of the people.

(g). Public Relations

The public and private administration also differs on the principles of public
relations. Public relations have a narrower content in public administration
than in private administration.