The Discipline of Public

Administration
Definitions and Concepts
Key Objectives
• Definitions and principal concerns
• Differences between public administration and business/private
administration
• Managerial, Political and Legal Approaches
• Six trends governing the field in the 21st century
Public Administration: Definitions
• Difficult to define – includes a diverse range of activities (e.g. security, health,
education, waste management, utilities etc.)
• Public sector jobs – highly specialized to ordinary skilled workers
• Highly specialized to ordinary skilled workers
• Examples of public administrators include doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers,
accountants, budgeters, policy analysts, personnel officers, managers, baggage screeners,
clerks, keyboarders, labourers etc.
• Variety of job descriptions - Policy making to clerical tasks
• How to define an abstract and varied field like PA?
• Draw some general boundaries
• Place the field in a broader political, economic and social context
• Evaluate how it has been defined previously in order to arrive at an all encompassing
working definition
• Emphasis on either one leads to confusion and is a barrier to development and
understanding
Some Definitions
• “Public administration . . . is the action part of government, the means
by which the purposes and goals of government are realized.”
• “Public administration as a field is mainly concerned with the means for
implementing political values. . . .”
• “. . . Public administration can be best identified with the executive
branch of government.”
• “The process of public administration consists of the actions involved in
effecting the intent or desire of a government. It is thus the continuously
active, ‘business’ part of government, concerned with carrying out the
law, as made by legislative bodies (or other authoritative agents) and
interpreted by the courts, through the processes of organization and
management.”
• Public administration: (a) is a cooperative group effort in a public
setting; (b) covers all three branches—executive, legislative, and
judicial—and their interrelationships; (c) has an important role in the
formulation of public policy, and is thus part of the political process;
(d) is different in significant ways from private administration; and (e) is
closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals.
Some conclusions….
• Difficult to define
• No distinct subject called “Public Administration” – Lacks a significant,
common, theoretical or applied meaning
• Multiplicity of definitions
• Overlaps and draws from a number of disciplines e.g. political science,
sociology, economics, psychology, business administration

…….the previous definitions are helpful, but limited to some extent. Public
administration does involve activity, it is concerned with politics and policy
making, it tends to be concentrated in the executive branch of government,
it does differ from private administration, and it is concerned with
implementing the law
 Public administration is the use of managerial,
political, and legal theories, practices, and processes
to fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial mandates
for the conduct of governmental regulatory and
service functions.
“PUBLIC” in Public Administration
Emphasizing the differences
1. Constitutions
2. The Public Interest
3. The Market
4. Sovereignty
1. Constitutions
• Define the environment of public administration and places constraints on it
• Fragment power and control over public administration
• Separation of Powers – Judiciary, Legislature and Executive
• Administrative Law – regulates administrative procedures, including rule making, open meetings, public
participation and gathering and release of information
• Judiciary/Courts – hold power and control over public administration
• Help define legal rights and obligation of agencies (ministries and departments) and individuals and groups on which the
public administrators act
• Define the constitutional rights of employees and the nature of their liabilities if law or constitution is breached
• Measures may be taken for e.g. restructuring, modification in laws and procedure in order to make the
structures/department to comply with constitutional standards
• Judicial review – process under which executive or legislative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with
authority for judicial review may invalidate laws and governmental actions that are incompatible with a higher authority: an
executive decision may be invalidated for being unlawful or a statute may be invalidated for violating the terms of
a constitution. Judicial review is one of the checks and balances in the separation of powers: the power of the judiciary to
supervise the legislative and executive branches when the latter exceed their authority. The doctrine varies between
jurisdictions, so the procedure and scope of judicial review may differ between and within countries.
• The extent of legislative and judicial authority over public administration leaves chief executives with only limited control
over the executive branch and far less authority than is commonly found in the hands of chief executive officers of private
organizations, whether profit-seeking or not.
Constitutions (contd.)
• Federalism
• Federalism is a system of government in which a written constitution divides power
between a central government and regional or sub-divisional governments. Both
types of government act directly upon the people through their officials and laws.

“The separation of powers not only provides each branch with somewhat
different authority over public administration but also may frustrate coordination
among them. Chief executives, legislatures, and courts are responsive
to different constituencies, political pressures, and time constraints. All three
branches have legitimate interests in public administration. However, they
often differ with regard to what they think agencies should do and how they
ought to do it”. (Rosenbloom et al., p.7)
 “The separation of powers and federalism result in a fragmentation
of authority that is generally not seen in the private sector. Legal
restrictions and requirements affect private management, but they do
not fragment authority over it in the same way or to the same extent,
nor do they provide so many parties with a legal right to observe and
participate in private firms’ policy decisions and other affairs”.
(Rosenbloom et al., p.7)
2. The Public Interest
• Governments are obligated to promote public interest
• Public administrators represent and respond to the interests of the
citizenry
• Private businesses serve and pursue their own economic interests
• “Public administration is not a kind of technology but a form of moral
endeavor”
 - Public agencies have not faced competition in the markets in which they provided public services because

3. The Market they typically operate in sectors where there are limited alternatives or where the government has a monopoly
on service provision.

- Price tags for public service delivery are established through budgetary procedures rather than through
transactions between buyers and sellers. This means that funding for public services is determined through
government budgets rather than by market demand and supply dynamics.

• Public agencies have not faced competition in the markets in which they
provided public services
• Price tags for public service delivery are established through budgetary
procedures rather than through transactions between buyer and seller
• Revenues are generated through taxation mainly but in some cases user
fees may also be a significant source
• The “public choice” movement holds that government agencies will be
more responsive and efficient if they can be compelled to react to
marketlike forces.
• Less direct involvement with markets as compared to private business
- Revenues for public agencies are mainly generated through taxation, with taxes being the primary source of funding. In some cases, user fees
firms may also contribute significantly to revenue generation, although they are typically secondary to taxation.
- The "public choice" movement argues that government agencies would be more responsive and efficient if they faced market-like forces. This
suggests that introducing competition or market mechanisms into the public sector could lead to improved performance and responsiveness.

- Public agencies have less direct involvement with markets compared to private business firms. While they may provide goods or services to the
public, their operations are typically governed by different principles and constraints than those of private businesses, such as adherence to
public policy objectives and accountability to taxpayers.
The Market - NPOs
• Provide services that may not be sustained through market
• Clients/citizens may not be able to afford them or the nature of service is
such they can neither be provided by the market (public or quasi-public
goods) or through government (social/religious criterion that shouldn’t be
provided by the government)
• NPOs also derive a substantial amount of revenue both from government
sources and from their own business-type (for-profit) activities. This makes
NPOs a significant partner with governments in addressing certain areas of
social concern and need.
Public, Quasi-Public and Private Goods
• Public Goods
• A commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of the society, either by the
government, or by a private individual or an organization
• Non-excludable and non-rivalrous (Use by one individual does not reduce availability to others) and in most
cases it cannot be offered profitably through private firms
• Examples are national security, lighthouses, street lights, education, infrastructure, knowledge
• ‘Free rider’ problem
• Quasi- Public Goods
• Bear characteristics of both public and private goods e.g. roads and bridges (tolls)
• Not fully non-rival but it is possible to exclude people from consuming the product. Parks, for example, have
limited space which may create rivalry
• Private Goods
• an item that yields positive benefits to people "that is excludable, i.e. its owners can exercise private property
rights, preventing those who have not paid for it from using the good or consuming its benefits; and rivalrous,
i.e. consumption by one necessarily prevents that of another. A private good, as an economic resource is
scarce, which can cause competition for it.[3] The market demand curve for a private good is a horizontal
summation of individual demand curves
Points to ponder….
• Governments have to prioritize and indulge in economic trade offs
• Lack of market forces in the public sector makes it difficult to assess
the worth and efficiency of public administrative operations
• Accurate measures of performance and efficiency are hard to achieve
in the public sector. One way governments try to get around this
problem is to contract out some of their functions to private
organizations
In simpler terms, trade-offs involve giving up one thing in exchange for another, usually because resources are limited or because different
goals conflict with each other. For example, if you decide to spend your money on buying a new phone, you might have to give up the
opportunity to spend that money on other things like clothes or entertainment.
4. Sovereignty
• Sovereignty is the concept that government is the ultimate repository of
supreme political power and authority. It involves a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force in the society.
• Sovereignty lies with the people who exercise it through their elected
representatives
• Public administrators are agents of the sovereign, which means that the
actions of public administrators have the force of law and the coercive
power of the government behind them
• Private firms cannot enforce their policies through legitimate coercive
power
• Public administrators, being agents of the sovereign, are inevitably engaged
in matters of public policy making and implementation.
Regulation and Service

• Deliver public services

• Regulate public and utilities
• Regulate service providers
Managerial, Political and Legal
Approaches to Public
Administration
Managerial – Implementation of the law
Political – Legislative Policymaking
Legal – Adjudication, maintain constitutional rights and rule of law
Managerial Approach
• Tends to minimize the distinction between public and private
administration
• Builds on removing the ills of bureaucracy
• Traditional Managerial Approach & New Public Management (NPM)
1. Traditional Managerial Approach
• Originated in the late 19th century by civil service reformers
• Reformers wanted to discourage political patronage appointments that led to corruption,
inefficiency, and the emergence of a class politicians called “spoilsmen”
• Non-political vision of civil services
• Merit-based appointments as opposed to political partisanship
• No involvement in electoral politics
• Tenure of civil servants should be based on their efficiency and performance
• How?
• No legitimate political or policy making functions
• Politico-administrative dichotomy

“…public administration is to be geared toward maximizing effectiveness, efficiency, and

economy”
(Contd…)
• Business like public administration where managers not politicians are in
control
• Efficiency was the ultimate concern of public administrators
• Politics caused inefficiency and law was deemphasized
• L.D. White (1926)
• “the study of administration should start from the base of management rather than
the foundation of law.”
• Scientific Management Movement (1910 – 1940) – F. W. Taylor
• Efficient and effective management could be reduced to a set of scientific principles
• Mathematical relationship between inputs to outputs can result in ‘moral’ good and
wastefulness through inefficiency was considered immoral
Traditional Managerial Approach –
Organisational Structure
• Bureaucratic organizational structure
• Maximise the amount of output per unit to input
• Division of labour
• Specialisation
• Hierachy
• Chain of authority
• Formal structures with clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities
• Merit and skill based selection as opposed to other factors like affiliation,
race etc.
Traditional Managerial Approach – View of
the Individual
• Impersonal view of the individual (employees, clients, service users)
• Dehumanization of the bureaucracy
• Bureaucrat is viewed as a cog in an organizational machine over which he or she has
virtually no control (Scientific Management)
• Irrational emotions should not interfere with the job performance
• 1920s – Principle of Position classification (description of duties and rank) - “The
individual characteristics of an employee occupying a position should have no
bearing on the classification of the position.”
• The strong “position orientation” of the traditional managerial approach to public
administration diminishes the importance of the individual employee to the
organization. Again, this was in order to maximize efficiency and to reduce the
possibility of favoritism. (Rosenbloom et a. p.18)
Traditional Managerial Approach – Cognitive
Approach
• Cognitive Approach
• Emphasizes the scientific method in developing knowledge – generalisations
about administrative behavior
• Resource Allocation
• Commitment to the values of efficiency, economy, effectiveness – Cost
effectiveness and rational budgeting
• Decision Making
• Rational Decision Making
• Evaluate all possible alternatives and chose the one that is most
cost-effective
• No broad-based public participation
New Public Management
• Reform-oriented and seeks to improve public sector performance
• Built on the premise that traditional bureaucracies have wasted resources in the
past, hence the financial crunch (recession) and consequently, the public has lost
faith in the government
• Based on New Zealand, Australia and UK’s administrative reforms undertaken in
the late 1970s and 1980s
• Reforms undertaken under NPM are based on the following premises:
• Focus on results
• Marketisation
• Customer-Driven
• Steering not Rowing
• Deregulation
• Employee Empowerment
• Flexibility
Contd….
• Shift in some traditional values resulting in
• Customer first
• Competition among service organizations
• Creating market dynamics
• Using markets to solve problems
• Employee empowerment for results-based management
• Decentralized decision making
• Streamlining budgetary decisions
• Decentralizing personnel policy
• Streamlining procurement
NPM
• Organisational Structure
• Structures similar to business firms
• Responsive and cost-effective
• Decentralisation
• Flatter structures
• More autonomy to sub-units
• Coordination is achieved through competition not hierarchy
• Employee empowerment simplifies the hierarchy
• Use of e-government and other information system to monitor performance
• View of the individual
• Individuals as customers
• Agencies, government and private organisations may serve as customers
• Customers in market differ from a citizen in the community and customer seek to maximise their
individual welfare (adds to the complexity in policy formulation and implementation)
• Policies based on customer demand may differ from those made on political agreement and
administrative expertise
NPM (Contd…)
• Cognitive Approach
• Based on public choice theory that theorises
• consumer choice and administrative efficiency will be enhanced if governments can be made to compete for individuals’ purchases of
goods and services as firms in a market do
• government should not supply a service or apply a regulation unless it cannot be done as well by the private sector
• Resource Allocation
• NPM budgeting focuses on the production of services and regulatory enforcement (outputs) and results (outcomes) rather
than on inputs such as money, personnel, and equipment
• Agencies or administrative units generate their own revenues, or some share of them, by charging user fees
• Legislative appropriations should be based on performance and the creation of value for customers, the public, and the
national interest
• Centralized controls should be reduced, and budgetary decision making decentralized \
• Decision Making
• Based on responsiveness to customers, performance levels and cost-effectiveness
• Decentralised decision making
• Cost-conscious decision making
•
Political Approach
• Paul Appleby – considered PA to be a political process and their role in
public policy making
• Incorporates the complex process of dealings between the executive and the
legislature
• The approach has developed from observing how PA actually operates
• Shift in values if PA is considered to be a political endeavor as compared to the
managerial approach
• Values: Representativeness, Political Responsiveness and Accountability
• Contradicts the managerial approach in certain respects
• The NPM seeks to promote effectiveness by focusing attention on results and
eliminating many of the accountability mechanisms traditionally used to regulate
administrative operations.
Political Approach (Contd…)
• Organisational Structure
• Political Pluralism
• The basic concept behind pluralism within public administration is that because the administrative branch is, in fact, a
policymaking center of government, it must enable competing groups to interact with and to check each other by providing
political representation to a comprehensive variety of the organized political, economic, and social groups. To the extent
that this is achieved, the structure of public administration becomes politicized, with different groups continually seeking
representation. (Rosenbloom et al, p.28)
• View of the individual
• Aggregates individuals - An individual’s interests are similar to those of others in the group
• Cognitive Approach
• Representativeness and Responsiveness being the key values therefore the political approach looks for
consensus or development of broad coalitions for problems solving rather than relying on scientific
management principles
• Decisions are based on opinions of public, interest groups and media e.g. elections, opinion suveys and news
coverage
• Informed public administration reflects public preferences, which may or may not coincide with generalizations
that are scientifically derived
Political Approach (Contd…)
• Resource Allocation
• Budgets are viewed as political, rather than business documents
• Budgeting is a contest among a plethora of groups competing for the public’s
money. The outcome of the competition is likely to shift over time, roughly in
conjunction with changes in the relative strength of different groups, political
actors, and points of view held by the public
• Incrementalistic budgets
• Decision Making
• Incremental style of decision making – Muddling through
• the desirability of a decision tends to be measured in terms of political support or
opposition rather than cost-effectiveness or scientific analysis
Legal Approach
• Main Sources
• Administrative Law: the body of law and regulations that control administrative
processes in general. It consists of statutes; executive orders; the binding directives
of central personnel, budget, service, and related agencies; and constitutional law
decisions. Administrative procedure statutes address the handling of information,
rule making, adjudication, enforcement, and open government.
• Judicialization: the tendency for administrative processes increasingly to resemble
courtroom procedures designed to safeguard individual rights. Decisions are made
in an adjudicatory format by hearing examiners or administrative law judges.
• Constitutional Law: provisions regarding procedural, equal protection, privacy, and
substantive rights and liberties of the citizenry in relation to public administrators.
Legal Approach (contd…)
• Increasing relevance of the law
• Expansion in constitutional rights of individuals has led to stricter
environment and context of public administrators – no absolute immunity
• Public administrators should have a reasonable knowledge of the
constitutional laws in order to demonstrate administrative competence
• In some cases of remedial law (enforcing of constitutional rights), judges
themselves have taken responsibilities for improving the state of public
services
• The constitutional law affecting public administration is continually
changing as the judiciary applies the Constitution to new situations and
revises its interpretations of older ones
Legal Approach (contd…)
• Rule of Law
• Procedural Due Process: stands for the value of fundamental fairness, requiring procedures
designed to protect individuals from malicious, arbitrary, erroneous, or capricious
deprivation of life, liberty, or property at the hands of government.
• Substantive Rights: state is responsible for providing and ensuring the constitutional rights
to individuals
• Equity: Fairness and impartiality towards all concerned, based on the principles of
evenhanded dealing. Equity implies giving as much advantage, consideration, or latitude to
one party as it is given to another. Empowerment of judges to remedy the violation of
rights
“ The Legal Approach downplays the cost-effectiveness reasoning associated with
the managerial approach. The judiciary is not oblivious to the costs of its
decisions, but its central focus tends to be on the protection of the individual’s
rights and adherence to legal–constitutional procedures”.
Legal Approach (Contd…)
• Organizational Structure
• Adversary Procedure: full-fledged trial
• Impartiality
• Alternative Dispute Resolution: negotiation, mediation and/or arbitration
• View of the individual
• Procedural due process
• Equity
• Provision of substantive rights
• Cognitive Approach
• Adjudication (facts are developed through adversary procedure and rules of
evidence) as the method of developing knowledge
• Resource Allocation
• Based on constitutional integrity and protection of constitutional rights
• Decision Making
• Incremental decision making
• Based on precedent: the facts of each new case are evaluated in light of the
applicable principles of law derived from past decisions
• Results in judicial stability
Six Trends Transforming Government
• Changing the rules of the game (citizen orientation, flexibility/autonomy)
• Using Performance Measurement
• Providing competition, choice and incentives
• “Government on demand”
• Responsiveness
• Focus
• Variability
• Resilience
• Engaging Citizens
• Using networks and partnerships