Public Administration: Key Concepts

• The study notes are for students
• The study notes summarise the key material on public administration
• Do not repeat information and words
• Do not say "the text says" or "The video says"or “the article says”
• Just state the facts directly

Basic Concepts and Principles of Public Administration

• Public administration addresses collective problems requiring more than individual efforts.
• It includes people organizing as a public to achieve common goals.
• It prioritizes collective needs over individual self-interest.
• Public administration involves human action to look after and manage affairs. It necessitates some form of organization.
• Administration is concerned with implementing plans and objectives. It is linked to bureaucratic structure, decision-making, and preserving the status quo.
• Administration is a process common to any group effort.
• Luther Gulick defined administration as “getting things done” to achieve defined objectives.
• James L. McCanny defines it as organizing men and materials to accomplish a purpose. It requires skills of organization and direction.
• Pfiffner and Presthus define administration as organizing and directing human and material resources to achieve desired ends.
• Administration is a group activity involving cooperation and coordination. It aims for desired goals or objectives. It requires rational action.
• Organization and Management are features of administrative activity. Administration is a collective activity.

Views of Administration

• The integral view of administration includes all activities to realize an objective.
• The managerial view focuses on activities that unite and control others.
• Only managerial or supervisory activities constitute administration based on a `managerial view'. Operational activities are excluded.
• An administrator is a functionary who directs and supervises work.
• Public Administration is a systematic application of law and the science of administration. It is "government in action".
• Waldo defines public administration as “the organization and management of men and materials to achieve the purposes of government”. It is also “the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of the state”.
• Rosenbloom and Kravchuk define it as using managerial, political, and legal theories and processes to fulfill government mandates.
• Luther Gulick considers it the part of administration concerning government, primarily the executive branch.
• Percy McQueen relates it to government operations, local or central.
• Leonard D. White states it involves action according to long-range objectives, fulfilling public policies.
• Public administration is inherently fertilized by other disciplines.
• Key argument is administration is a unitary process that can be studied uniformly based on management not law transformable into science. For modern governments, the heart of the problem is how to govern well.
• Scholars disagree if it is a discipline because it lacks methodological rigor and a binding theory of society. Its study may be fragmented or interdisciplinary.

Scope of Public Administration

• Public administration is a cooperative group effort in a public setting.
• Public administration covers all three branches of government and their relationships.
• It plays a role in public policy formulation. It is part of the political process, while being different from private administration.
• It has been influenced by human relations approaches.
• Public administration is closely linked to private groups and individuals providing community services.
• It focuses on governance, including government action and inaction.
• It involves the execution of law, the "law in action," possibly including "law inaction".
• Public administration is about the public interest and manages "externalities”.
• It exercises sovereignty, political agency, and public trust through representative government and is an agent of the electorate.
• It helps with policy making, resources allocation, and status, to regulate society promoting public interests.
• Public administration is dynamic.

Defining Public Administration

• Attempts to define public administration help establish boundaries and concerns.
• Definitions place the field in a broader context and refine understanding through managerial, political, and legal approaches.
• Public administration definitions have evolved.
• Despite thousands studying and millions working in it, public administration has been hard to define.
• Modern study of public administration is an eclectic field accommodating knowledge, methodologies, and techniques from various disciplines like organization theory and psychology.
• Public administration's scope and meaning lack standard definitions.
• Public administration remains a "slippery term" without scholars agreeing on a single definition.
• Any definition would be either too broad or too limiting.

Public Administration in Relation to Other Fields

• Public administration is debated as art, science, or both.
• Art is proficiency in practical knowledge application through study, experience, observation. "Science" is systematic accumulation, analysis, interpretation of facts for conclusions.
• Leonard White views the art of administration as directing, coordinating, and controlling people to achieve objectives using available resources. It brings consistency to dispersed elements.
• Leiserson and Marx view a science of administration would be a formal body of statements describing invariant relationships between units. Administrative research has produced precepts and hypotheses applicable to situations.
• Herbert A. Simon, Donald W. Smithburg and Victor A. Thompson considered administration as a science of human interaction for objective investigation without value judgment.
• Public administration uses scientific techniques in decision-making.
• According to Presthus, public administration is the art and science of designing and carrying out public policy.
• Public administration is more art until its principles are empirically tested for universal application. It attains objectives through human resources, working with people.

Public v Private Administration

• Some believe all administration is one phenomenon, not divided into public and private.
• Popular imagination sharply distinguishes public and private administration.
• Public administration is seen as bureaucratic and political, while private administration is seen as business-like.
• Sir Josia Stamp points out key differences between public and private administration
• Public administration is subject to the principle of uniformity.
• Administrative acts and decisions must be consistent, uniformly applied to all citizens. Discriminating without cause may cause criticism. Private administration is not bound by such rules.
• In public administration, the executive doesn't control finance. Expenditure needs legislative authorization and is controlled by audit.
• Private administration has the board controlling business operations and financial management.

Public Accountability and Profit Motive

• Public administration is subject to public accountability with scrutiny from representatives.
• Private administration, generally, is not accountable to the representatives. Private managers act in the organization's best interest.
• Private administration is largely driven by profit.
• Public administration can't solely focus on profit or economy. Actions must be justified by public welfare.
• Public administration balances various factors beyond profits.

The significance of Public Administration

• Public Administration as an instrument of governance means government maintains peace, public order, and citizen safety, ensuring contracts are honored and disputes settled. Progress requires citizens living in peace.
• It evolves with the complexity of modern civilization, needing to adapt and create new controls.
• As an instrument of development and change public administration reflects a country's genius embodies qualities, desires and ideals.
• Private initiative may not develop basic infrastructure, necessitating the government to organize projects like rail transport and research.
• Public administration supports economic and social development.
• As an Instrument of Welfare State, the modern welfare state provides services like schooling and medical facilities and welfare. The welfare of people depends on the way the public administration functions.

Philippine Public Administration History

• Philippine Public Administration struggles to trace its own identity and lacks a unified foundation.
• Philippine Public Administration is influenced by Western Public Administration. The Institute of Public Administration began in 1952.
• Philippine Public Administration is characterized by fragmented ideas and is trying to develop an indigenous Filipino character.
• Accounting the influences of indigenous Philippine public administration of the pre-colonial period is difficult because works and documents were obscure.
• Before colonial times, settlements called barangays were led by a datu (chief), an administrator of community life.
• A sultanate existed in Sulu by the 15th century.
• This pattern of familial relationships and leadership-centered community activities persists, blending contemporary organizations with Weberian bureaucratic theory.
• Bontoc Igorots organizational model has a bureaucratic structure, providing security and delivering daily services. Essential goal is the elimination of potential conflicts.

Colonial Era

• Philippine public administration emerged largely as colonial product over 300 years.
• Philippines colonies were divided into kingdoms governed by viceroys or governors-general. Superimposed was the religious organization.
• The clergy influenced civilian and military authorities. Spaniards centralized political life and introduced public revenues and expenditures.
• Public offices were merced, a grant from the king, for conquerors and descendants.
• They began a culture of spoils or patronage, lingering despite proclamations of merit and fitness.
• The Spanish civil service system involved selling offices to the highest bidders to augment royal coffers, leading to corruption.

Early Bureaucracy

• Wide gap between law and practice led to little enduring experience in contemporary Philippine bureaucracy. Some of the system was inherited as part of the legacies of the Spanish colonial bureaucracy.
• The First Philippine Republic was proclaimed in 1898 creating a state with three branches of government. It was the first Republican Constitution in Asia. Embedded pronouncements committed Filipino leaders to a government that represents the popular will.
• The new government already had in mind the cause of merit and fitness, and some recognized decentralization and autonomy was also recognized.
• Before the American colonial administration, principles for a merit system were present.
• 19th century shattered nationhood aspirations and introduced a superior colonial administration. It retained centralized features but sought to approximate republican and democratic character.
• The colony was placed under a nonpolitical civil service in 1900. Administrative system changed the previous set up.
• It upheld merit, separated church and state, liberalized positions for Filipinos, and security of tenure and professionalism. Filipinization became a basic administrative policy.
• American administrators helped set the tone by Filipinizing the civil service, establishing a public education system, and having the prestige of public office.
• Civil service employees were respected as they met strict qualifications based on merit. Significant in an era where a diploma was prestigious.
• The Americans copied own civil service system to experiment.

Modern Day Administration

• The Philippine civil service was organized under good beginnings. Was a "finished product" with efficiency, economy, and merit. However, later it experienced the severest test, and the product was almost finished.
• 1935 marked a transition phase to prepare for independence that was "republican in form, Filipino in personnel, and enjoying autonomy in domestic affairs".
• The 1935 Constitution emphasized careerism, neutrality and security of tenure.
• During the Commonwealth period, the civil service was empowered through law passed to impose government standards.
• The Second World War caused destruction, dislocation, and demoralization and eroded the foundations of merit.
• After World War II the Commonwealth Government was reconstituted however, the economy was at a standstill and the capital city was devastated. The move towards affairs in the Philippines started as early as 1947. That led to a proposal to establish an Institute of Public Administration.
• The Institute would stimulate interest in study and make the Philippines center of educational.
• Part of establishing an institute was an offshoot of Bell Mission findings in 1950. The mission observed that political supporters with positions remained very prevalent.

Defining Philippine Public Administration

• De Guzman (1986) explained that there is a Philippine Public Administration as there is American Public Administration, French Public Administration and Thai Public Administration.
• To properly address the question, there is a need to ask and answer other questions such as, What is the reference when the phrase “public administration” is used? Is it to government in action and to the public bureaucracy? Or to public administration as a field of study? Or to the profession of managing the affairs of government?
• Brillantes and Fernandez (2008) believed that there is indeed Philippine Public Administration.
• They added that there is a Philippine public administration addressing specific sectoral concerns, considering the role of bureaucracy, in education, politics and government, and processes such as elections, subnational structures, and decentralization. Has administrative structures and processes operating within a unique Philippine context
• There are generally accepted organizational features common in all public bureaucracies. (1) Hierarchical structure of authority; (2) creation of subunits based on differentiation of functions or specialization; (3) recruitment and promotion based on merit and competence; and (4) a system of rules and procedures to guide action in the organization
• There are several generally accepted organizational features common in all public bureaucracies. The government is organized into departments, bureaus, divisions and sections and into regional, field offices and local governments which are hierarchical in structure. The fundamental and other laws of the land have provided for the adoption of the merit principle as the main basis for recruitment of personnel in the bureaucracy. Policies, rules and regulations covering practically all aspects-both substantive and procedural have also been adopted in government agencies to guide managerial decision makers, program/project implementers, the rank-and-file and the general public.
• Family, kinship, religious socioeconomic, political and other groups influence. Administrators search for flexibility, making formally prescribed actions not effectively practiced.
• Carl Friedrich (1940) stressed objectivity, precision, consistency, and discretion. (De Guzman, 1986) On the other negative traits include lack of initiative, unwillingness to delegate, rigidity and inflexibility, red tape and buck-passing.

Addressing Craft and Corruption

• The first which is generally followed in Western countries is the public-office centered definition. This means that an action, a decision or a behavior is judged using the norms or standards of the public office as a basis.
• The second point of view which is dominant in developing countries including the Philippines is the public interest centered definition of graft and corruption.
• O.D. Corpuz (1986), the public administration of a country is shaped by three other major institutions: education, politics and government. These are so pervasive in society that they reflect many of the people's basic values as evolved through the years and centuries
• Filipino traditional values affects its dynamics. wide gap between policy content and intent to policy implementation stems from the strong presence of kinship.
• The indigenous roots of Philippine Public Administration is stems in large part from the need to make the field relevant and responsive to the demands not of foreign powers but of our people.

Concepts of Defining Philippine PA

• One major initiative that can be observed in the continuing attempt to design and develop a more responsive Philippine public administration is the increased effort to continuously decentralize the bureaucracy and continue the ongoing initiatives to come up with more responsive public administration structures and processes are the ongoing efforts to address the ever pervasive problem of corruption.

Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Public Administration

• Max Weber considers bureaucracy an “ideal-type" of organization, not perfect or aspired for, but an analytical construct.
• Bureaucracy is a rational arrangement of positions and functions.
• Weber compares bureaucracy efficiency to organizations structured around traditional or charismatic authority.
• Traditional authority is obeyed due to class tradition. Charismatic authority is obeyed due to belief in special power. Rational-legal authority is obeyed due to legally established position, with obedience to the impersonal authority of an office.
• Max Weber, hierarchy of office and levels of authority (super- and sub-ordination), regulated appeals. The principle is also found in other bureaucratic structures. Rational legal authority has an explicit design to facilitate goals values. This contrasts time honored tradition orientation/ and involves duties tothe organization. Rationality with leader personally legitimating orders and involves changes.
• Jurisdiction limits scope of responsibility. Relates to office authority within division limiting range of activities sub-ordinates do.
• The authority goal is to not allow opportunistic.
• rationally developed authority does what functional is intended.

Understanding Bureaucracy

• Providing salaried careers promotes value-rational duty through techniques: appointment instead of election (allegiance is for group/boss) and tenure (safe rather than politics) Facilitates impersonality and value orientation with salary.
• Security limits opportunity for personal ties to develop. Based advancement.
• The difficulty isn’t as strong as Weber believes (according to kaplan)
• The chief aim of bureaucracy is to divides projects into parts and specialization, rationally devised with formal technical requirements.
• Weber believes in his view’s ability to prevent corruption that can hide gross error if opportunism results from expensive training.
• He was critical of the problems schools that have some characteristics that he said Weber does himself.
• It fosters an organizational culture centering on expertise, with characteristics which limit authority through duties making people internalize values.
• Weber favors efficiency through a universalistic codifying coherent law sets down from a transition form specific prohibition. To better define a law of abstract rationality there must be guidelines with ground rules that guide and prefigure.
• Overriding is a set of imperative for what everyone benefits.
• Weber’s bureaucracy is a synthesis of organizational characteristics with structural consequences through what considers historical developments and precursors in the world at the time.
• Bureaucracy grew, requiring the groups to accommodate certain principles like the institutions are differentiated in terms to play the role. There must be the provision of daily living requirements within it for good measure too.

Bureaucracy And Governance

• Where the legistlator meets conflict, the bureaucrat resolves group economic tensions. Herring (1936), bureaucrat is left to the execution of the law. Increased discretion allows regulation of specific positions with the state.
• OD Corpus (1957), Philippine, with its; (1.) vulnerabilty to nepotism with smaller kinship for family loyalty. (2.) spoil system, setting up convenient jobs under classified, instrument by patronage (3.) disinterested public affect over any misconduct due to the increase of what is normal for governments (4.) means of correcting bureaucratic weaknesses, from assembly ect. being used to combat bad conduct; (5) and survival historic experience, being centralized under certain law systems (6). non special bureaucrats for civil. or not; (7.)Independence, politically (8). essential.

Understanding Democracy

• Abraham Lincoln defines democracy, "government for, with, and by, people."
• Asian Democacy Index states democracy is demonopolization with three concepts; (1.) popular rules with wealth distribution (2.) relational devolpment (3.) historical formation from unique situations today.
• For assessment, today break Monopoly down through democratization of econoimic political sphere. Aquino administration is relevant to transforming institution towards democracy through constitution and congress after authoritarian.
• Any democratization will have the restoration of democracies (Institutions and preservation /substance leadership.
• Peters explains bureaucracy (ideal type with strict rules) /democracy (liberty) being two sides is only cases. To show response bureaucrat gives need policies.
• The substance should be part of all, including administrator part in policy, says democracy.
• Carino explains the focus on what the other must the one to another as a result should to show more.

Three Paradigms of the Public

• A Global, western (PA), from an angle is not all. Non-western are chinese, Islamic,

• Modern means western, western implies good what many expect. Chinese follow moral basis by Confucian, for ethics; Japan follows (Max Weber).

• China has been a state by his terms China even having a more systems then roman.

• Islam is often overlooked.

• One part islam is that the country in that location often feels that religion, including context is important. It is important that is is still to not forget that absolute of responsible with equity and power over one is as valuable still to those over see. For that.

• America starts grassroots reform and experiments.Europe then is the one starting a top-down administration. The constiuion was written before many admin agencies took form and took about hundread years. Jackson made federal system democratize for white males of affilitation.

  Public Administration Philosophies

• The Civil Serivice commission has been set up by the Pendleton act following reform to be a fuller administrative. This made it more fair, none. More and more see it all in full effect! “There must be a separation of politics from administrative," said Wilson. What I mean it cannot be mixed between both spheres. This also has an executive overview! But the two were not as seperate it was still hard to determine. Frederickson and others wanted better view and saw that they made the admin sector to be value base!