Paradigms or Models of Public Administration

Paradigms or Models 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 organizations 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’.

The growth of public administration has many facets. As a discipline, the term Public Administration has emerged in the late 19th century and beginning of 20th century. American President Woodrow Wilson also known as the father of Public Administration

(PA) contributed very much to the subject of PA. As a discipline, PA has passed through several phases of development.

Paradigm 1: Politics/Administration Dichotomy, 1900-1926

Paradigm 2: The Principles of Administration, 1926-1937

Paradigm 3: Public Administration as a Political Science, 1950-1970

Paradigm 4: Public Administration as Management, 1956 -1970

Paradigm 5: Public Administration as Public Administration, 1970

Paradigm 6: From Government to Governance, 1990

Period of Orthodoxy

Scientific management

Bureaucracy

POSDECORB

The Most Serious Challenge

Administrative Behavior

Public Management

New Public Administration

Reinventing Government

New Public Management

New Public Service

Post Modernism

The Future Digital (e) Governance

Evolution of Paradigm

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PA as a

Developing

Discipline

Politics/Administration Dichotomy 1900-1926


• (Traditional/Classical) tradition (Woodrow Wilson, Frank Goodnow), provided the rationale for PA to be an academic discipline and professional specialty

• Wilson was credited for positing the existence of major distinction between Politics/Administration or what became known as P/A dichotomy

• The role of politics has something to do with policies or the expressions of the will of state while administration, with execution


• The Locus of PA should be the center of government’s bureaucracy.

• Wilson, in his pioneering book in 1926, “Introduction to PA” made critical assumptions that formed the basis on the study of PA:

a. Administration is unitary process that can be studied uniformly, at the federal, state and local levels;

b. The basis for study is management, not law;

c. Administration is still an art but the ideal of transformance to a science is both feasible and worthwhile;

d. Administration has become the heart of the problem of modern government.


: The Principles of Administration 1926-1937


• PA as an activity booming in 1920

• A high demand for public administrationists for their managerial knowledge courted by industry and government alike.

• Focus of PA was on managerial expertise in the appearance of administrative reforms

• Principles was important to Gulick and Urwick but these principles were not applied, focus were favored over locus.


• The development of PA between world wars was the period of high noon of orthodoxy.

• The tenets of orthodoxy held that: a. True democracy and true efficiency are

synonymous or at least reconcilable; b. The work of government could be neatly

divided into decision making and execution; and

c. PA is a science with discoverable principles


• Taylor considered the father of scientific management and pioneered the time and motion studies. He wrote in 1911 the principles of scientific management.

• Classical organization theory evolved from this notion.

• Bureaucracy, literary means rule by officials, the administrative machinery of the state, more broadly, a rationale and rule governed mode of organization

Office of the Secretary

Directorate/Bureau

Division

Section

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• Characteristics of bureaucracy: impersonal; formalistics, rule bound, highly disciplined


Manager

Supervisor

A Supervisor

B

Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker Worker

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• Internal issues: management practices and problems, organizational behavior, and structures, budgeting and personnel thru professionalism, professional standard and codes, and checks and balance were necessary because of the increasing complexities of modern policies (Friedrich, 1901-1984; Finer, 1898-1969) and balances


• External – the issue of ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY - to be responsive to interest groups, executive and legal forces and constituencies

• Administrative responsibility can be maintained externally by legislative or popular control and another option was external checks and balances


• The job of the bureaucrat is to define the public interest and the role of interest group in public policy formulation.

• Perhaps the most significant landmark was from Simon (1940). He urged the use of logical positivism in dealing with policy making and decision making is in the true heart of administration. He introduced the concept of bounded rationality in decision making and that people are rationale decision makers within limits (use of scientific method – the single best choice that is satisficing).


• For Simon, there are two kind of public administrationist (1) scholars concerned with developing pure science of administration based on grounding social psychology and (2) a larger group concerned with prescribing public policy.

• Robert A. Dahl analyzed the art of discipline of PA and he noted that (1) recognized the complexities of human behavior; (2) deals with the problems and normative values in administrative situations; and (3) takes into account the relationship between PA and its social setting

• Dahl also sought to define PA in terms of CULTURE giving strong impetus to comparative administration

• Culturalism and internalization


Public Administration as a Political Science, 1950-1970

• In 1947, Simon demonstrated that for every principle advocated in literature, there was a counter-principles, thus rendering the very idea of principles moot.

• Another important school of thought which studies the role and problems of administration in developing countries calls its field 'comparative public administration’. The battle over meanings and labels is symptomatic of substantive differences in approach and outlook.


• To some degree, all of the different approaches share a comparative point of view. Almost every writer who discusses a developing bureaucracy is at least implicitly holding up against it the Weberian image of the efficient, rational, functionally specialized, impersonal, non-political bureaucratic hierarchy, an image associated chiefly with the western industrialized nations


• By mid 20th century, the two defining pillars of PA : politics/administration dichotomy and principles of administration was toppled and abandoned by creative intellects in the field. The abandonment left PA bereft of a distinct epistemological and intellectual identity.

• The logical conceptual connection between PA and political science – public policy making process



• Political scientist have begun to resist the growing independence of PA rather than advocating a public service and an executive preparatory program, the began calling for “intellectualized understanding” of the executive branch rather than “knowledgeable action” on the part of public administrators.

• The political science discipline was in constant throes of being shaken conceptually by the behavioral revolution that has occurred in other social sciences.

• As a result of these concerns, PA remained a subset of political science departments, a renewed definition of locus – the government bureaucracy but also the loss of focus.

• Organization theory, management science has scanty support in political science

• PA as an identifiable field of study begun a long downhill spiral movement.


Public Administration as Management,

1956 -1970

• Due to the undisguised contempt of political science department, some public administrationists began searching for alternatives.

• The management option sometimes called administrative science or generic management

• A number of developments stemming from business school fostered the alternative paradigm of administrative science.

• If the school of business administration would absorb the field of PA or whether profit conscious could adequately appreciate the vital value of public interest as an administrative was a question of genuine importance to public administrationists and the probable answers were less comforting.


• The dividing line between private and public administration had been a painful dilemma for a number of years.

• All have conspired to make PA an elusive entity in terms of determining its proper paradigm.

• The principal dilemma in defining the public in public administration appears to have been one in dimension, hence, we are witnessing the rise of public interest and public affairs


• As a paradigm, administrative science can not comprehend the supra value of public interest. Without a sense of public interest, administrative science can be used for any purpose no matter how antithetical to democratic values that purpose maybe.

• The concept of determining and implementing the public interest constitutes a defining pillar of PA and a locus of the field.

• With little attention from the context of administrative science, it would seem, therefore, that PA should and must find a new paradigm that encourages both focus and locus in the field.


• Scientific management and principles gave way to administrative management science

• Foremost among these voices was that of Hudson (1955) and gave weight to the problems of public management of utilizing human resources and materials for goal attainment.

• Other works gave solid theoretical reasons for choosing management with emphasis on organizational theory as the paradigm of PA

• In the early 1960s, ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT began its rapid rise as the focus and specialty of management


• In 1967, Golembiewski suggested decision making and problem solving responsibilities be located as close as possible to information sources and to make competition contributes to meeting work goals as opposed to win-lose competition.

• Managers would work in increasing self control and self direction for people within organization and to create a condition for which conflict is surfaced and managed appropriately and positively and to increase awareness of group process and its consequences for performance


• Golembiewski urged and open problem solving climate so that members can confront problems rather than fight or flee from them, encourage trust among individuals and groups and supplement or replace authority or role or status with authority of knowledge and competence.

• Democratic values could be considered, normative concerns could be broached, intellectual rigors and scientific methodologies could be employed.


Public Administration as Public Administration, 1970

• PA scholars reconsidered their linkages with political science.

• The emergence of TECHNOBUREUACRATIC dimensions (science, technology and public policy, relationship between knowledge and power, bureaucracy and democracy, technology and management).

• The return of PA as an independent field of study has been strengthened by the development of new thinking in the field, giving new meaning, direction and purpose of PA application


• PA application, such as: New Public Administration (NPA ), reinventing government, New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Service (NPS)


Nicholas Henry (1995) uses the notion of locus and focus in reviewing the intellectual development of public administration

He observed that PA has developed as an academic field through a succession of five overlapping paradigms

Henry’s Evolution of Paradigms

From Government to Governance, 1990

• Etymologically, can be traced back to the Greek verb “kubernan” (to pilot or steer) and was used by Plato to design a system or rule.

• World bank (2000) defines Governance is the institutional capacity of public organizations to provide the public and other goods demanded by a country’s citizens or their representatives in an effective, impartial, and accountable manner subject to resource constraints


• Why GOVERNANCE and not merely GOVERNMENT? GOVERNANCE is broader and more fundamental concept than that of government alone

• The problem of modern governance is not much on the insufficiency of instruments relative to the changing objectives but rather the degree of incompatibility between objectives



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• The future is digital: walking the walk on digital government.

• A vibrant government digital service.

• Government discussing their perspectives on the path ahead.

• Digital government, building a 21st century Platform to better the people serve.


Philippine Digital Strategy 2011-2016


• A significant activity this June is the launch of the Philippine Digital Strategy on the theme “Transformation 2.0: A Digitally Empowered Nation.”

• The Philippine Digital Strategy 2011-2016 aims to contribute to the Aquino administration’s “Social Contract with the Filipino People”, mainly by leveraging the use of ICT for national development.

• The PDS identifies four strategic thrusts, namely: 1) transparent government and efficient services delivery, 2) Internet opportunities for all, 3) investing in people: digital literacy for all, and 4) ICT industry and business innovation for national development.


• The strategy presents a renewed vision for ICT and its importance in transforming Philippine society into a competitive force in the global digital economy by the year 2016.

• The PDS is also aligned with the principles and thrusts of the ASEAN Information and Communications Technology Master plan (AIM) 2015, which was adopted in January 2011. AIM 2015 was developed to serve as a guiding document to advance ASEAN regional ICT cooperation.


Nicolas Henry. Paradigms of Public Administration. University of Georgia (1975)

Prof Dr. lr. Ginandjar Kartasasmita. Public Administration as a Developing Discipline. Graduate School of Asia and Pacific Studies, University of Waseda, Tokyo, Japan, 2008

Philippine Digital Strategy 2011-2016

Reference

Education

Paradigms or Models of Public Administration