Public Administration (SYBA-PAPER-III):Public Administration-Meaning & Nature

Public Administration: Meaning & Nature 

Public administration is a broad ranging and amorphous combination of theory and practice; its purpose is to promote a superior understanding of government and its relationship with the society it governs, as well as to encourage public policies more responsive to social needs and to institute managerial practices attuned to effectiveness, efficiency and the deeper human requisites of the citizenry.

Public Administration is a specialized academic field. It essentially deals with the machinery and procedures of government activities. Public Administration is an aspect of more generic concept of administration. Administration is as old as civilization itself and public administration dates back to the origin of the state. As an aspect of government activity, public administration is as old as political society that is, it has been co-existing with every political systems, to accomplish the objectives set by the political decision makers.

Administration has been defined as a cooperative human effort towards achieving some common goals. Thus defined, administration can be found in various institutional setting such as a business firm, a hospital, a university, a government department and so on. As an aspect of this more generic concept, Public Administration is that species of administration which operates within a specific political setting.

It is a means by which the policy decisions made by the political decision makers are carried out. Public Administration is decision making, planning the work to be done, formulating objectives and goals, working with the legislature and citizen organizations to gain public support and funds for government programmers, establishing and revising organization, directing and supervising employees, providing leadership, communicating and receiving communication, determining work methods and procedures, appraising performance, exercising controls and other functions performed by government executives and supervisors. It is the action part of the government, the means by which the purposes and goals of the government are realized. Hence the focus of public administration is on public bureaucracy, i.e., bureaucratic organization of the government or the administrative organization.

Public Administration lend itself to two usages; it is an activity; and it also refers to the discipline (or subject) of intellectual inquiry and study. Maintaining law and order is an activity and is part of Public Administration. Public Administration is also a discipline like Economics, Sociology, History etc., and it studies these activities and functions, formulate concepts and builds models and theories.

Public Administration as an academic discipline is barely one hundred and twenty five years old. The publication of Woodrow Wilson’s Essay ‘The Study Of Administration’ in Political Science Quarterly in 1887 is considered as the symbolic beginning of a fairly autonomous inquiry. Whereas public administration as an activity can be traced back to the earliest periods of human history when man started living in organized societies. Governmental administration of earlier times (ancient and medieval) however differed considerably in its structure and goals from state administration in the modern era.  

In every society, public administration began with its main focus on the performance of activities like maintenance of law and order, collection of revenue, defence, etc. The rise of the modern welfare state has expanded the importance scope of public administration. Besides law and order, revenue collection and security functions, it operationalises a vast variety of public laws, provides public services like post and telegraphs and transport facilities in cities and towns, educational and health services and is the main instrument of socio-economic transformation in developing societies. It has widened to the extent that now very few aspects of an individual life remained unaffected by public administration. This stands true for all societies. – Socialist, capitalist and so on.

Public administration as visible public serving activity is before everyone’s gaze. Public administration is a system of organization and action concerned with performance of public serving activities. It can best be looked at as an instrument that is used for the realization of the goals of the government. Just as societies have their political systems and economic systems, they also have their public administrative systems.

Meaning and Definitions:

WHAT IS ADMINISTRATION?

The English word ‘administer’ is derived from a combination of two Latin words ad & ministrare meaning ‘to serve’ or ‘to manage’. Literally, the term ‘administration means management of affairs – public or private.

Administration may be defined as “group activity which involves cooperation and coordination for the purpose of achieving desired goals or objectives”.

F. M. Marx: “Administration is determined action taken in pursuit of a conscious purpose. It is the systematic ordering of affairs and the calculated use of resources aimed at making those things happen which one wants to happen.”

J. M. Pfiffner: “Administration is the organization and direction of human and material resources to achieve desired ends.”

Therefore, the two essentials of administration are:

i)                    Cooperative effort and

ii)                  Pursuit of common objectives.

DEFINING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION:

Public administration is any kind of administration in the public interest which, in other words, has simply come to mean governmental administration. Administration of private enterprises is known as private administration.

L.D. White observes that although public administration varies in form and objects, and although the administration of public and private affairs differs at many points, there is an underlying similarity, if not identity. As an integral aspect of such generic concept, public administration could be related to that type of administration, which operates within a specific ecological setting. It is a means to carry out the policy decisions made by political executive.

To be seen along with it is the ‘Public’ aspect of Public administration, which attributes a special character and focus to it. ‘Public’ can be looked at formally to mean ‘government’. So, public administration is government administration, government in action, or a socio-economic and politico-administrative confluence, the focus being especially on public bureaucracy.

Encyclopedia Britannica defines public administration as ‘the application of a policy of a state through its government.’

Public Administration, therefore, refers to that part of administration, which pertains to the administrative activities of the government.

Now we will try to look into the definitions of Public Administration provided by various scholars.

Woodrow Wilson:

Public administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. Every particular application of law is an act of administration.

L.D. White:

“Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy”.

Luther Gulick:

Public administration is that part of the science of administration, which has to do with the government; it concerns itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of the government is done; though there are obviously problems also in connection with the legislative and judicial branches.

J.M. Pfiffner:

“Administration consists of getting the work of government done by coordinating the efforts of people so that they can work together to accomplish their set tasks”.

H.A. Simon, D.W. Smithburg and V.A. Thompson:

“By Public Administration is meant, in common usage, the activities of the executive branches of national, state and local governments, government corporations and certain other agencies of a specialised character. Specifically excluded are judicial and legislative agencies within the government and non-governmental administration.”

Dimock:

“Public Administration is the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy as declared by the competent authorities…Public administration is law in action. It is the executive side of government.”

D. Waldo:

Public Administration is “the art and science of management applied to the affairs of the State.”

Percy Mc Queen:

Public administration is related to the operations of government whether local or central.

F.A. Nigro and L.G. Nigro:

Public Administration:

• is co-operative group effort in a public setting;

• covers all three branches-executive, legislative, and judicial, and their inter-relationships;

• has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part of the political process;

• is different in significant ways from private administration; and

• is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community”.

Thus, Public Administration is the management of affairs of the government. It operates within a political context. It is a means by which the policy decisions made by the political decision makers are carried out.

An analysis of the above definitions indicates that the term public administration has been used in two sense i.e., wider sense and narrow sense. In the wider sense (broader sense), public administration includes the activities of all the three branches of the government, that is, legislature, executive and judiciary. This view has been taken by Woodrow Wilson, Marshall Dimock, F.A. Nigro and Pfiffner. By contrast, public administration in the narrower sense includes the activities of only the executive branch of the government. This view has been taken by Simon, Gulick, Ordway Tead, Fayol and Willoghby.

NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

There are two views regarding the Nature of Public Administration, that is, Integral and Managerial.

According to the integral view, ‘administration’ is the sum total of all the activities – manual, clerical, managerial, etc., which are undertaken to realise the objectives of the organisation. In this view all the acts of officials of the government from the Attendant to the Secretaries to the government and Head of the State constitute Public Administration. Henri Fayol and L.D. White are the supporters of this view.

Thus, administration, according to this view, depends upon the subject matter of the concerned agency, that is, it differs from one sphere to another sphere.

According to the managerial view of administration, the managerial activities of people who are involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling constitute Public Administration. This view regards administration as getting things done and not doing things. Luther Gullick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg and Thompson are the supporters of this view. The managerial view excludes Public Administration from non-managerial activities such as manual, clerical and technical activities.

Thus, administration according to this view constitutes the activities of only the top persons. Administration, according to this view, is same in all the spheres as the managerial techniques are same in all the fields of activities.

The two views differs from each other in many ways. According to Prof. M.P. Sharma the difference between the two views is fundamental. The integral view includes the activities of all the persons engaged in administration whereas the managerial view restricts itself only to the activities of the few persons at the top. The integral view depicts all types of activities from manual to managerial, from non-technical to technical whereas the managerial view takes into account only the managerial activities in an organisation. Furthermore, administration, according to the integral view would differ from one sphere to another depending upon the subject matter, but whereas that will not be the case according to the managerial point of view because the managerial view is identified with the managerial techniques common to all the fields of administration.

The difference between the two views relates to the difference between management and operation or we may say between getting things done and doing things. The correct meaning of the term administration would however, depend upon the context in which it is used.

Dimock, Dimock and Koening sum up in the following words:

“As a study public administration examines every aspect of government’s efforts to discharge the laws and to give effect to public policy; as a process, it is all the steps taken between the time an enforcement agency assumes jurisdiction and the last brick is placed (but includes also that agency’s participation, if any, in the formulation of the programme in the first place); and as a vocation, it is organising and directing the activities of others in a public agency.”