Defining Public Administration

Lecture 1a – INST 275 - Administrative Processes in

Government

Political Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is what government does.As a profession, public administration has developed values and ethical standards, but as an activity it merely reflects the cultural norms, beliefs, and power realities of its society.

Public administration is the totality of the working day activities of all the world’s bureaucrats – whether they are legal or illegal, competent or incompetent, decent or despicable.

Political Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is both direct and indirect.

Direct – provision of services like mortgage insurance, mail delivery, and electricity.

Indirect – when the government pays private contractors to provide goods and services to citizens (space shuttle, dams).

Political Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is a phase in the policy-making cycle.

Decisions and nondecisions are public policy.

Administration does not end with implementation because someone will always think it can be done better.

Political Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is implementing the public interest.

The public interest is the universal label in which political actors wrap the policies and programs that they advocate.

The public interest is a commonly accepted good.

The rise of administrative discretion in the face of legislative vagueness means that the job of the anonymous administrator is to define the public interest.

Political Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is doing collectively that which cannot be done so well individually.

The legitimate object of government [is] to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities – Abraham Lincoln.

Twentieth century communications has given rise to “a revolution of rising expectations.”

Legal Definitions of Public Administration

Because public administration is what a state does, it is both created and bound by an instrument of the law.Public administration is the law in action.

Public administration is inherently the execution of a public law.Every application of a general law is necessarily an act of administration.In the United States, the Constitution of 1787 is the law of the land. All legislation must conform.

Legal Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is regulation.It is government telling citizens and businesses what they may or may not do.Regulation is one of the oldest functions of government. Code of Hammurabi – “The mason who builds a house which falls down and kills the inmate shall be put to death.” Driving to McDonald’s – regulation.

Legal Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is the king’s largesse.

It is whatever goods, services, or honors the ruling authority decides to bestow (monarchy). Plaques and political machines.

Legal Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is theft.The primary culprit is redistribution.

Ayn Rand – the only proper function of the government of a free country is to act as an agency which protects the individual’s rights.

John Kenneth Galbraith – It is a simple matter of arithmetic that change may be costly to the man who has something; it cannot be so to the man who has nothing.

Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is so much a branch of management that many graduate schools of management (or business or administration) are divided into public and private – and now increasingly nonprofit – programs.

Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is the executive function of government.

Government agencies put into practice legislative acts that represent the will of the people.

Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is a management specialty.

Top managers make the big decisions and are responsible for the overall success of the organization.

Public administrators are found in middle management, the group responsible for the execution and interpretation of top management policies and the day-to-day operation of an organizational unit.

Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is Mickey Mouse.Anything that requires considerable effort with few results.

Often used to mean “red tape”, excessive formality and attention to routine. Red ribbon that official used to use to tie up public documents.

• Use because they promote efficiency and equity overall, although not always in individual cases.

Managerial Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is art, not science – or vice versa.

Public administration is actually both.• It requires judgment, panache, and common sense.

• It also requires technical skills that allow for the digestion and transference of information.

Just because you have the academic credentials does not mean that you can function as a high level administrator.

Occupational Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is an occupational category.

It is whatever public employees in the world do.

• Most of the 18,000,000 public employees in the U.S. would not describe themselves as administrators, but they are.

Occupational Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is an essay contest.

People in bureaucratic careers tend to rise and fall on how well they can write. In a game of shuffling paper, the person whose memorandum ends up on top wins.

Oral presentations are also useful, but writing is more decisive.

Occupational Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is idealism in action.

Many people enter public service careers because they are idealists; they believe in and seek to advance noble principles.Idealism draws people into public administration because it provides them with worthwhile and exciting things to do with their lives.

Occupational Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is an academic field.The study of the art and science of management and incorporates as its subject matter all of the political, social, cultural, and legal environments that affect the running of public institutions.

Cross-disciplinary – political science, sociology, business administration, psychology, law, anthropology, medicine, forestry, and so on.

Occupational Definitions of Public Administration

Public administration is a profession.A body of academic and practical knowledge that is applied to the service of society.A standard of success theoretically measured by serving the needs of society rather than seeking purely personal gain.A system of control over the professional practice that regulates the education of new members and maintains both a code of ethics and appropriate sanctions.

The Evolution of Public Administration

The core contentOrganization theory.Bureaucratic behavior.Personnel management.Public finance and budgeting.Policy analysis.Program evaluation.Administrative ethics.

Case Study: Government Response to the

Destruction of the World Trade Center

Lecture 1b – INST 275 - Administrative Processes in

Government

September 11, 2001American Airlines Flight 11(8:46 a.m., One World Trade Center) and United Airlines Flight 175 (9:03 a.m., Two World Trade Center).Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.Richard Sheirer, Director, New York City Office of Emergency Services.

Activated Emergency Operations Center, 7 World Trade Center.Closed all roads below Canal Street and all tunnels and bridges.

September 11, 2001Destruction of Emergency Operations Center by second crash.Sheirer closes New York Harbor and ask Pentagon to close New York air space.Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik spearheaded movement of personnel to “hot zone”.

Sporadic communication, but established Condition Omega.

Command post at 75 Barclay Street.

September 11, 2001NYPD Emergency Service Units and FDNY arrived four minutes after first plane crash.

Began task of evacuating 25,000 people.500 firefighters and 200 Port Authority Police.FDNY Commissioner Thomas Von Essen.

Collapse of South Tower damaged 75 Barclay Street.

Response team moved to library of Police Academy.Operated there for 48 hours.

September 11, 2001Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall.

Isolated in Washington Heights, but set up a system of ferries and express and franchise buses.Watercraft of all types escorted 500,000 people out of Manhattan.

PATH deputy director Victoria Cross Kelly (on the concourse of World Trade Center station).

September 11, 2001

City Council member and mayoral candidate Peter Vallone.

Food and water, 59th Street Bridge.

By noon, securing New York City was a local, state, and federal job.

Significant help from Governor George Pataki.

Mayor Giuliani served as primary spokesperson.

Government Response after 9/11

FEMA.National Guard.NYPD.Pier 92 command center.

FEMA – Door-to-door alerts on aid.Ground Zero task force. Congressman Jerrold Nadler. 25,000 residents of lower Manhattan.

Hilary Clinton and Chuck Schumer $20 billion aid package.

Analysis

Skill and intensity of government’s response to the emergency.

Planning for emergencies was clearly present and helped mitigate the tasks.Daily, high-level coordination meeting proved beneficial.

Emergency workers should possess most modern communications equipment.

Analysis

Firefighter should reexamine their own standard operating procedures.Decentralization of administration worked in the city’s favor.City demonstrated depth of leadership.Wartime mobilization temporarily eliminated political differences.

Lessons Learned

Emergency response planning is essential.

Emergency response institutions, procedures, and resources must be retained, even when threats seem distant.

Lessons Learned

Communications systems must be made more redundant.

Emergency response procedures must assume communications breakdowns and allow for decentralized decision-making.

There is no substitute for inspiring leadership during a crisis.