CHAPTER

TWO:
TRADITIONAL MODEL OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 1

LEARNING
OUTCOMES: At the end of the topic,
students should be able
TO:
• Define bureaucracy
• Identify the politics-
administration dichotomy
• Understand the concept of
traditional public administration
Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 2
TABLE OF CONTENT:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 3

INTRODUCTION
Administrative systems existed in ancient Egypt to
administer irrigation from the annual flood of the
Nile and to build the pyramids.

China in the Han dynasty (206 BC to AD 220)

adopted the Confucian precept that government
should be handled by men chosen, not by birth,
but by virtue and ability, and that its main aim was
the happiness of the people.

In Europe the various Empires – Greek, Roman,

Holy Roman, Spanish and so on – were, above all,
administrative empires, controlled from the centre
by rules and procedures.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 4

 WEBER’S
BUREAUCRACY: WHAT?

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 5

CHARACTERISTICS
OF BUREAUCRACY The principle of fixed and official jurisdictional
(Gerth & Mills, 1970) areas, which are generally ordered by rules,
that is by laws or administrative regulations.

The principles of office hierarchy and of levels

of graded authority mean a firmly ordered
system of super- and sub-ordination in which
there is a supervision of the lower offices by
the higher ones.

When the office is fully developed, official

activity demands the full working capacity of
the official ... Formerly, in all cases, the normal
state of affairs was reversed: official business
was discharged as a secondary activity.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 6

CONT… The management of the modern office is based upon
written documents (‘the files’) which are preserved. The
body of officials actively engaged in ‘public’ office,
along with the respective apparatus of material
implements and the files, make up a ‘bureau’ ... In
general, bureaucracy segregates official activity as
something distinct from the sphere of private life ...
Public monies and equipment are divorced from the
private property of the official.

Office management, at least all specialised office

management – and such manage- ment is distinctly
modern – usually presupposes thorough and expert
training.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 7

CONT…

6.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 8

 5 KEY •

PRINCIPLES OF •

BUREAUCRACY
•

•
•
•

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 9

 CONT… •

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 10

 3. Tasks and Authority

associated with various positions in the organization

should be clearly specified for managers and
workers to know what is expected of them.

CONT… Work of the organization is divided on the basis of

specialization to take the advantages of division of
labour.

Each office in the bureaucratic organization has

specific sphere of competence.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 11

 CONT… •
•

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 12

 CONT…
4. Managers Must Create a Well-Defined System of Rules

standard operating procedures, and norms so that they can effectively control
behaviour within an organization.

A basic and most emphasized feature of bureaucratic organization is that

administrative process is continuous and governed by official rules.

Bureaucratic organization is the antithesis of ad hoc, temporary, and temporary and

unstable relations.

A rational approach to organization calls for a system of maintaining rules to ensure

twin requirements of uniformity and coordination of efforts by individual members in
the organization.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 13

 5. Appointment and Promotion Based on Competency
not Based on Sentiment

A notable feature of bureaucracy is that relationships among

individuals are governed through the system of official
authority and rules.

CONT… Official positions are free from personal involvement,

emotions and sentiments.

Thus, decisions are governed by rational factors rather than

personal factors.

This impersonality concept is used in dealing with

organizational relations as well as relations between the
organization and outsiders.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 14

 MERITS OF BUREAUCRACY

2. Managerial Hierarchy: Offices

3. Formal Selection: All employees
or positions are organized in a hierarchy
are selected on the basis of technical
1. Division of Labor: Labour is of authority. Advantage— A clear chain of
qualifications demonstrated by formal
divided so that authority and command will develop from the highest
examination, education, or training. The
responsibility are clearly defined. to the lowest level of an organization
selection process and promotion
Efficiency will increase through (Fayol’s scalar chain principle), defining
procedures are based on merit and
specialization. different levels of authority, and thus
expertise. It assists in putting right
individual discretion, as well as enabling
persons on right jobs. T
better communication.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 15

 CONT…

4. Career Orientation. Although a

measure of flexibility is attained by
5. Formal Rules and Other 6. Impersonality: Rules and other
electing higher-level officials who
Control: All employees are subject to controls are impersonal and uniformly
presumably express the will of an
formal rules and other controls regarding applied in all cases. The enterprise does
electorate (for example, a body of
the performance of their duties. The not suffer when some persons leave it. If
citizens or a board of directors),
rules and procedures are decided for one person leaves then some other
employees are career professionals
every work it leads to, consistency in occupies that place and the work does
rather than “politicians.” They work for
employee behaviour. not suffer.
fixed salaries and pursue “careers” within
their respective fields.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 16

 1. Rules and other controls may take on significance of their own and, as
consequence, become ends in themselves. Employees, for example, may accuse
budget personnel of being more interested in applying rules and regulations than
achieving a firm’s primary goals.

2. Extreme devotion to rules and other controls may lead to situations in

DEMERITS OF which past decisions are blindly repeated without appreciation or concern for
changed conditions. Such “bureaucratic rigidity” results in managers being

BUREACRACY compensated for doing what they are told and not for thinking. The result is “rule
by rules” rather than common sense.

3. Whereas delegation of authority to lower levels may increase operational

effectiveness, it may also encourage an emphasis on subunit rather than overall
goals, thereby prompting subunit conflict and decreasing effectiveness. A typical
example can be found in many universities where conflicts over which department
is going to offer what courses often result in unnecessary duplication of subject
offerings, as well as the unnecessary expenditure of resources.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 17

CONT…

4. Although rules and other controls Example: Within an educational setting,

are intended to counter worker apathy, statements such as “all students must
Such a situation may result in a “vicious
they may actually contribute to it by attend at least 80 percent of the classes
circle of bureaucracy,” because once
defining unacceptable behavior and, thus, during a term to pass” or “the minimum
employees discover the appeasing effect
specifying a minimum level of acceptable requirement for graduation is a C average
of rules, they may push for even more
performance. This is commonly known as on all course work undertaken. HENCE,
controls to further restrict management’s
“working to the rules,” because what is not failure to comply will either lead to being
power.
covered by rules is by definition not an barred from entering exam & to repeat a
employee’s responsibility. subject.

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 18

POLITICS- Dichotomy allowed public administration ‘to emerge as a
ADMINISTRATION self- conscious field of study, intellectually and
institutionally differentiated from politics’ (Stillman, 1991)
DICHOTOMY

The individual minister and the ministry were presumed to

develop who would remain in charge when the
government changed (i.e. depending on the political
system, government may change every 5 years)

The public service and individual department heads only

carried out policy and did not make it.

Political matters would be dealt with by the politicians;

administrative matters by the permanent public servants
(depending on the tenure of office. In Malaysia, the
retirement age really counts)

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 19

 END OF CHAPTER ANY QUESTIONS?
TWO

Thursday, 17 April, 2025 mdmsue's copyrightreserved/fsppp/am228 20