INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public Administration is a newly emerged discipline compare to other Social Science’s discipline. Public Administration has gained immense importance since the emergence of Administrative state. It deals every aspect of the state and its relation to subjects. In simple sense Public Administration is state mechanism. In every Political System administration have significant role.

Meaning 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 organisations 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’.

Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programmes as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their conduct. Generally Public Administration has been used in two senses. In the wider sense it includes all the activities of the government whether falling in the sphere of legislature, executive or judicial branch of the government, in the narrow sense Public Administration is concerned with the activities of the executive branch only.

Definitions of Public administration

·          L D White observes, “Public Administration consist of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy”.

·         Pliffner defines It would seem that “Public Administration consists of getting the work of government done by co-ordinating the efforts of the people so that they can work together to accomplish their set tasks”.

·         Prof: Woodrow Wilson defined Public Administration as detailed and systematic execution of public law; every particular application of general law is an act of administration.

·         Luther Gullick ‘Public Administration is that part of the science of administration which has to do with Government and thus concerns itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of the government is done.

·         Dwight Waldo, defines Public Administration as ‘the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of state’.

NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

There are two divergent views regarding the nature of the Public administration. These views are following

INTEGRAL VIEW:

According to this view, Public administration is a sum total of all the activities undertaken in pursuit of and in fulfillment of public policy. These activities include not only managerial and technical but also manual and clerical. Thus the activities of all persons from top to bottom constitute administration although they are of varying significance to the running of administrative machinery. Prof: L D White adopts this view of Public administration. According to him, Public Administration ‘consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy’. This definition covers a multitude of particular operations, many in fields. Another scholar Marshal E Dimock also shares the same view. He holds that administration is concerned with the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of government. The ‘what’ is the subject matter, the technical knowledge of a field which enables the administrator to perform his tasks. The ‘how’ is the technique of management, the principles according to which cooperative programmes are carried to success.

MANAGERIAL VIEW:

According to this view, the works of only those persons who are engaged in the performance of managerial functions in an organisation constitute administration. In this managerial view the administration has the functions of planning, programming and organise all the activities in an organisation so as to achieve the desired ends. Luther Gullick and Herbert Simon subscribe this view. Gullick says ‘Administration has to do with getting things done; with the accomplishment of defined objectives’.

These two views are deals the nature of public administration. In simply the nature of Public Administration deals the execution.

SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

In the modern time Public administration have a pivotal role. There are many discussions about the scope of Public Administration, some scholars are argued that in the Neo-liberal time the scope of Public administration is very less and Private administration have growing importance. Some argues that the neo-liberal time the term Public administration has significant one because the neo liberal state has faced many problems like environmental and technological issues.

The scope of Public administration deals in many ways

·         Public Administration and People.

·         Public Administration is an organisational effort it needed a close relation to people. In every Administrative system they have good relation between people and administrative agencies. It influenced the day to day life of the common people.

·         Public Administration and Democracy

·         In a Democratic political system scope of public administration is related in many ways. It have close link to people and at the same time they are the watch -dog of the political system. The Modern democratic state gave more important to the welfarism, in a welfare democracy the effective administration is essential.

There are many other reasons also contribute the scope of Public Administration.

·         Development of Communication and Technology

·         The Development of Neo-Liberal State

·         The concept of Participatory Development

·         Good Governance.

·         E-Governance

·         Environmental concerns

·         Human rights approach

·         New Social Movements and State

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION

Private administration is a concept newly emerged one. Private Administration challenged the development of Public Administration. After 1970s the term private administration gained immense importance. There are many differences between these administrations.

·         The most apparent difference between the two sectors is their organizing principles or goal. While private administration has a definite mission, which is the pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues, public administration, on the other hand, has ambiguous purposes. Furthermore, the dilemma in ambiguity of purposes is exacerbated by too many unnecessary and inoperable agencies, with purposes that overlap and bloated bureaucracies.

·         Another factor that makes the public sector different from the private is decision making. In public administration, the decision must be and should be pluralistic. The founding fathers intentionally created a democratic republic where all key decisions are made in politicized environment. This allows for maximum participation: open debate, multiple veto points - a decision making hierarchy where consensus must be achieved at each level, ideally, an informed decision. While private administration's decision-making is much simpler- it's monopolistic or close to monopolistic. This type of decision-making would avoid any conflicts in interest; hence, the goal is clearly defined.

·         Public Administration is not characterized solely by profit motive; In fact in Private administration mainly functioned on the basis of profit motive.

·         Public Administration is strictly in accordance with certain legal safeguards in a manner to sustain the confidence and trust of the general public. In Private Administration no legality, it only considered about the owner.

·         Public Administration is not concerned about the time factor but private administration strictly follow time factor.

·         Private Administration focused to the efficiency, transparency, accountability and credibility but in public administration these functions are only in nominal level.