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7/30/2019 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS IT EVOLVES
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS IT EVOLVES
MEETIKA SRIVASTAVA
Research scholar,Department of Public Administration,University of Lucknow,Lucknow,India
ABSTRACT
Woodrow Wilson whose seminal work his essay on the Study of Administration published in the year 1887,
contributed towards the scientific study of administration as a separate discipline and the paradigm of politics and
administration dichotomy which first mooted the idea of studying administration separately. The evolution of Public
administration has seen different paradigms and different ideologies have been advocated by different administrative
theorists and thinkers. The theory of public administration consists of classical thinkers, human relationists, bureaucratic
theorists and Behaviouralists.
KEYWORDS:Public Administration, Administrative Theory, Evolution, Administrative Thinkers
INTRODUCTION
Even in Ancient civilizations administration was practiced. It existed from the time society came into being. But
as a distinct discipline its history can be traced only since the later parts of the 19th
century. With the rise in complexities in
the nature of the state the activities and scope of administration has widened with the passage of time. Functions of the
government have expanded innumerably. An individual is exposed to some sort of governmental activity at every stage of
his life infact from the cradle to the grave or from womb to tomb; the state is always visible and hardly leaves a gap.
Towards an independent study of the subject of public administration several scholars, thinkers and practitioners have laid
down their views as theories, in-depth analysis which have contributed to its academic literature and its development as a
discipline and practice. In the later paragraphs the evolution of public administration is discussed.
The discipline of Public Administration owes a lot to Woodrow Wilson whose seminal work his essay on the
Study of Administration published in the year 1887, contributed towards the scientific study of administration as a
separate discipline and the paradigm of politics and administration dichotomy which first mooted the idea of studying
administration separately different from Law or politics and its mother discipline political science. Wilson was of the view
to make public organizations more businesslike and bring about more efficiency and effectiveness in its operations and also
to bring about strict accountability. Frank J Goodnow, popularly known as the father of American Public administration
too was a proponent of politics-administration dichotomy. He saidpolitics has to do with policies while administration has
to do with execution of those policies. In the year 1926, LD White released Introduction to the study of Public
Administration. This book is believed to be the first textbook on the subject of Public administration. According to him
Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public
policy.
The evolution of Public administration has seen different paradigms and different ideologies have been advocated
by different administrative theorists and thinkers. The theory of public administration consists of classical thinkers, human
relationists, bureaucratic theorists and Behaviouralists. The classical thinkers like FW Taylor, Henry Fayol, Gullick,
Urwick, Mooney and Reiley , stressed on the formal structures of organization, they propagated universal principles of
administrative which can be applied to any organization to bring about administrative efficiency. They believed in
International Journal of Economics, Commerce
and Research (IJECR)
ISSN 2250-0006
Vol.2, Issue 4 Dec 2012 29-33
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,
7/30/2019 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS IT EVOLVES
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30 Meetika Srivastava
impersonality and hierarchy. For them set of rules and regulations are utmost important and they must be strictly followed.
They viewed organization as a closed system which neither influences its external environment nor gets influenced by it.
Human beings are merely treated as cogs in the machine and they are supposed to be motivated only through monetary
rewards. There was no place for the study of human relations and behavior of individuals amongst themselves and with the
organizational as a whole. The classical thinkers had a very mechanistic approach towards administration, which viewed
man as a machine and ignored the human and psychological aspects in administration because the administration is
ultimately run by individuals who bring in their biases and opinions. It is not possible neither feasible to completely
separate fact from values. The behavior and interrelationship between those working in the organization are no less
important than the administrative structure where they work.
Max Weber, the German sociologist proposed that the foundations of bureaucracy lies on legal-rational authority
and in fact his model of bureaucracy is hailed as an ideal type which outlines certain characteristics for effective
bureaucracies which promote organizational efficiency and employee welfare. The main elements of Weberian model of
bureaucracy are: Impersonal order, rules, and sphere of competence, hierarchy, personal and public ends, written
documents, monocratic.
The Hawthrone Experiments under the leadership of Elton Mayo highlighted the role of informal organizations
which exists within the formal structures of organization and small social groups that influence the formal goals and
objectives and thus laid emphasis on socio-psychological aspects for determining organizational efficiency much different
from mechanistic classical thinkers and their concept of economic man. They viewed human behavior in an organization
as a complex phenomenon different from the classical thinkers. Just like the Human relations thinkers like Mary Parker
Follett, Roethlisberger, Robert Merton, Elton Mayo, etc there evolved a more systematized and more sophisticated version
of human relations theory i.e the behavioural approach. Chester Barnard, was the full -fledged behaviouralist who viewed
organization a s a cooperative system where people are able to communicate with each other and willing to co operate with
each other towards accomplishment of common objectives. His seminal work The Functions of the Executive influencedthe ideas of Herbert Simon who proposed new concept of administration based on theories and methodology of logical
positivism with the focus on decision-making. He was severely critical of the classical approach of universal
applicability of principles of administration which to him were mere proverbs and they occur in pairs. He stressed on
value- free approach to the study of administration and laid down the different stages to the decision-making process in an
organization. Other prominent Behaviouralists were Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert, Bakke,Warren
Bennis, Kurt Lewin, David Easton, Chris Argyris etc . It was more of a multidisciplinary approach which involved study
of other disciplines like sociology, psychology, anthropology; economics, management, etc and hence the study of
administrative as an interdisciplinary subject. The Behavioural approach is more descriptive and tries to establish a link
between administrative theory and its actual implementation for practical problem solving. Maslow gave a need hierarchy
theory of human motivation where he showed how an individual substitutes his lower order satisfied needs with unsatisfied
needs of the highest order. Herzbergs two factor theory of motivation divided the people working in an organization into
two categories hygiene seekers and motivation seekers. McGregor gave two sets of assumptions about human nature
and its behavior in an organisation as his theory X and theory Y which can be employed as managerial strategy for
organizational efficiency. Likert conceptualized various leadership styles for an organization, the most effective being the
Participative System.
In the post war era, Public administration saw a new paradigm of Camparative public administration which was
cross cultural studies and cross national studies of public administration. Its aim was theory building and to attain more
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Public Administration as it Evolves 31
knowledge for the discipline and less stress was on the practical application of knowledge. It examines the relationship of
the administration with its external environment and hence brought ecological approach to public administration. FW
Riggs, Robert Dahl, J.M Gaus, Dwight Waldo etc were major proponents of this approach. Riggs gave two models viz,
Agraria-Industria Model and the Fused-Prismatic-Diffracted Model, to depict the agrarian and industrial societies as well
as the underdeveloped, developing and developing societies respectively.
In the backdrop of turbulent times in America, the assassinations of American Presidents, the Vietnam War, urban
riots and unrest etc, it was seen there existed huge gaps between the theory of administration and its applications on the
ground. In fact this discipline lacked theory building. The Honey Report of 1967 on Higher education for Public service,
Philadelphia conference on the theory and practice of Public administration, several other publications led to a New Public
administration movement under the patronage of Dwight Waldo at the Minnowbrook Conference which brought public
administration professionals and young radical thinking scholars together for confronting the traditional administrative
theory. It laid emphasis on administration for social change and social equity. It wanted to bring in the role of values into
administration action and stressed on relevance of public administration for society and its problems. The focus was on
making administration more responsive and participative as well as client oriented and change oriented. In the 1960Development administration emerged as a sub-field of Public administration. Edward Weidner was the foremost thinker
who severely criticized the traditional administrative theory for glorifying the means and forgetting the ends To him
development administration is concerned with maximizing innovation for development.
With the rise of the state versus market debate and growth of the public choice theory, propounded by Vincent
Ostrom, brought the concept of institutional pluralism i.e plurality of public agencies for delivery of public goods and
services as per consumers preferences and gave rise to another paradigm called New Public management (NPM) which
aims at the three Es economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It advocated the change in the role of the government from the
doer to an enabler and facilitator for public activities to meet the various challenges of Liberalisation, privatization
and globalization. Ted Gaebler and David Osborne summarized the theme of NPM as We dont need more government;we need better government.
The focus of Public administration has been continuously evolving; it is being viewed as a profession as well as a
discipline of study. Although it is often stated that the political executives lay down the policies which are implemented by
the administrative machinery but there are no clear-cut roles defined for each of them. In fact the civil servants at the
higher levels often help the political authorities in the process formulation considering they have specialized knowledge
and much more skilled and trained, likewise the political executives take keen interest in implementation of policies
wherever required. Hence the Public administration plays its role in public policy making. It helps the political executive in
identification of major policy areas, preparation of policy proposals, analysis of societal problems and measures to solve
them, suggesting alternative course of action etc, thus this approach of public policy aims at improvement in overalldecision making process and better, effective policies aimed at maximizing public welfare and add a scientific temper to
administration.
Different paradigms and different theories have contributed towards the literature and application of Public
administration, in contemporary societies whether agricultural or industrial or the developed , developing and undeveloped
economies, everywhere the application of public administration is of utmost importance and numerous challenges are
confronting its paths to maximum public welfare and efficient public service delivery. To match up to growing
complexities, socio-economic problems, regional disparities and rising consumer preferences and expectations, concept
likes good governance and responsive administration has become part of administration. To curb the ubiquitous corruption
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32 Meetika Srivastava
menace has made ethics and morals part of administrative culture with greater emphasis on integrity in administration.
With the advent of science and technology more and more governments are integrating communications and information
technology with governance giving rise to E-Governance, which is the application of ICT in the affairs of public
administration in order to make provision and delivery of public utilities simpler and make the government more
accountable, transparent and responsible.
CONCLUSIONS
Thus the discipline of Public administration is continuously evolving since its first independent study in the year
1887. The concept of state has evolved from the police state to welfare state and so does its work has undergone a sea
change and therefore the instrument of administration (through which the government operates) i.e. the visible part of the
government is in a continuous dynamic state of nature. As a discipline it is harder to find any consensus on a general
theory of administration because of its varied scope and nature. At various phases of administrative history some of the
other paradigms/themes have dominated the administrative discourse and hence we have politics and administrative
dichotomy phase when the political acts were differentiated from the administrative acts. Politics was concerned with
policy making whereas the public executives were involved with the implementation of those policies. The importance of
structures of organization was emphasized by the classical thinkers who aimed at arriving at general principles of
administration which can make its working efficient and are universally applicable. Facts were separated from values. It
was assumed that monetary rewards motivate people at work and there was no place for their values and biases in the
implementation of policies assigned to them. But with growth the growth of human relations movement and the
behaviouralists the focus was shifted to the human and psychological aspects of administration. New public administration
tried to break free from the traditional status-quo oriented administration to change- oriented, client oriented and
participatory and responsive administration promoting social justice. New public management transformed government
into entrepreneurial government and reinvented government in the sense it gave a new role to the government of being
a facilitator and enabler and regulator of public utilities. The field of public administration has become multidisciplinary
and it has developed linkages with other social sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics etc. With the
advancement of science and technology the tools of information and communication technology are being used for better,
improved and smooth governance. The necessity of ethics in administration has received momentum with the promotion
and adoption of good governance practices in the state administrative machinery.
REFERENCES
1. Wilson, Woodrow. June, 1887. The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 22. An Introduction to the study of Public Administration-L.D White.3. Public Administration: Administrative theories and concepts- Dr. B.L.Fadia, Dr. Kuldeep Fadia4. O.P. Minocha, Good Governance: New Public Management Perspective, The Indian Journal of Public
Administration.
5. Public Administration Robert B. Denhardt6. Adminstrative thinkers- Prasad and Prasad.7. New Horizons of Public Administration by Mohit Bhattacharya8. Public Administration by Herbert Alexander Simon, Donald W. Smithburg, Victor Alexander Thompson
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Public Administration as it Evolves 33
9. Public Administration Theory and concepts - Rumki Basu10. Public Administration and Public Affairs - Nicholas Henry.11. Modern Public Administration - Nigro and Nigro.12. Public Administration (Manual) (TATA MC Graw Hill) - Laxmikanth.13. Public Administration - Avasti & Maheswari.14. Handbook of Public Administration: edited by Jon Pierre, B Guy Peters15. An Introduction to Public Administration by Haroon A. Khan16. Value and Virtue in Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective edited by Professor Michiel S. S. De De
Vries, Professor Pan Suk Kim