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.”
