Understanding Public Administration

• Public administration involves implementing power, sharing governmental responsibilities, improving lives, mobilizing resources, and cooperative group efforts
• It plays a crucial role in policy formulation, encompassing the executive, legislative, and judicial branches

Domains of Public Administration

• Include diverse areas such as sports, transportation, tourism, urban planning, agriculture, ethics, energy, information and communications technology, labor, and law enforcement
• Also includes policy analysis, administrative history, education, environment, industries, international relations, local government, poverty alleviation, budgeting and finance, culture, health, housing, infrastructure, and national defense

Public

• Public administration is concerned with people as a collective and addresses collective problems that individual efforts cannot solve

Administration

• Refers to organizing public affairs, pursuing social purposes, collective decision-making, managing public institutions, offices, and property
• It encompasses the behaviors, attitudes, and actions of public officials, implementing pronouncements, ensuring public conformity, and managing relations between public and private officials
• Public administration is for the public and should prioritize the people's interests over individual ones, conforming to the welfare of the entire body politic
• PA emphasizes bureaucratic structure and behavior in its methodologies to attain goals
• It prioritizes public interest over personal agendas

Peculiarities of PA

• PA is unavoidable and public administrators must manage difficult situations
• Public administration is everywhere and everything
• PA expects obedience and compliance with government rules and directives
• PA prioritizes and allocates resources based on public needs
• PA requires exceptional size and has political management
• Measuring PA's performance is difficult, requiring census from the public
• More is expected from PA, like delivering services, and promoting public good

Approaches in Identifying PA

• Entails identifying governmental administration, public organizations, as well as publicly-oriented administrative attitudes
• PA is identified by operating processes and style, emphasizing public service and nature
• PA involves communal activities subject to political direction, operating according to publicness

Categories of PA

• PA entails what the government does, both directly/indirectly as well as implementing public interest
• It involves law in action, regulation, and redistribution for public services
• PA's managerial aspect includes executive functions, management specialty, assessment, planning, and implementation
• PA is an art due to leadership, communication, and analytical skills; it involves essay contests, idealism in action, academics
• PA is interdisciplinary, encompassing social work, criminology, anthropology, economics, management, political science, law, sociology, logistics, psychology, engineering, and medicine

Public vs Private Administration

• Public administration: government-owned, publicly funded, and politically authorized
• Private administration: involves private companies, businesses, etc., with government regulation

Functions of General Management

• Entails strategy
• It entails establishing objectives, priorities, and operational plans
• It requires integrating diverse specialized units for optimal performance and staffing

Managing External Components

• It relates the organization and its products to external constituents

Public vs. Private Management

• Time perspective is shorter in private sector (quarterly, monthly, yearly) compared to public sector (6+ years)
• Measurement of performance needs validators in public management
• Public sector has personnel constraints compared to family businesses in the private sector
• Public has processes differ from private processes
• Public includes scrutiny from the press and media
• Includes legislative and judicial impact

Strategic Factors in Private Sector

• Market environment drives private sector
• Products need to value/fit the public and private
• Organizational capabilities are need, internally and externally

History of Public Administration

Ancient Egypt

• Public administration was well developed
• A system called Ptolemies was used
• Government was centralized and government divided the central and local governments
• Central government included: King/Pharaoh, Vizier/Prime Minister, administrative departments

Ancient Egypt's economy

• The Ptolemies transformed the land with unparalleled efficiency to be be the wealthiest of the Hellenistic kingdoms
• Increased land and introduced new crops like Triticum durum wheat
• Well-established educations system in technology, medicine, mathematics
• Created her alphabet and a decimal yem. d.4
• Prestigious civil service that was most sought after vocation
• Royal schools trained civil servants in the techniques of statecraft
• Graduates enjoyed well-paid positions

Law in Ancient Egypt

• Solemnly taken by lawmakers and citizens, with local police dealing with criminals and pharaohs deciding punishment
• Administered law kept peace and order with men and women (besides slaves) being equal

Chinese Government

• Micius or Mo-Ti: philosopher, founded a branch the Confucian school
• Governing requires planning, amendment, provide a plan aka Constitution
• The Prime Minister shall exercise eight regulations in governing the different departments of government, including organization, functions, and procedures of transparency
• Leanard Hsu: Modern Chinese scholar and held political office in China in the 1920s & 1930s
• Confucius' public administration is to bring about a benevolent rule by knowing the conditions of the country and the people and hold the high standards, choose unselfish and capable public officers

Ancient Greece

• Aristotle identified four types of government: monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy
• Cleisthenes made Athens the first known democracy
• Pericle's Funeral Oration said the government is called democracy
• Water R Agard described Pericles' "the many" as only men over eighteen
• The Democratic Administration includes two forms: Assembly & Council of Five Hundred

Structures of Democratic Administration

• The structures formed a large majority; formulated domestic and foreign policy
• The Council of 500 acted as the chief executive body
• Functions of defense, relations, and administration as well as religious
• No specialized civil service was developed
• General concept of management
• People vote

Ancient Rome

• Emphasized the importance of public administration and management
• It includes: Roman kingdom, Roman republic, Roman empire
• The king was elected by the senate, and there was a principle executive magistrate based on law
• The republican was guided by the consitution and legislation
• The senate mixed with 3 elements with governance
• Senate elected each new emperor
• Emperor shifted the constitutional balance of power

PA in American Revolution

• Context was civil service reform and merit-based government, and US President Jackson introduced a spoils system
• President James Garfield's assassination helped enact the Pendleton Act of 1883, establishing a merit system of public personnel administration
• Criteria: open and competitive examinations, independent commission to act as a watchdog, compliance
• Early voices and the first quarter country emphasized the politics-administration dichotomy, Woodrow Wilson wrote "The Study of Administration”, there is a need to separate policy implementation
• Wilson asked "who shall make law” and how it is administered, PA must concern government methods and Wilson established as Wilson as its founder
• Frank Goodnow examined politics-administration, believing politics related to state expression
• William Willoughby wanted reforms and efficiency
• Leonard White emphasized efficient management, recognizing its importance in modern government
• Then: By the 1930s became an identifiable discipline, with taylorism applied to social organizations and POSDCORB
• Rejecting the politics-administration dichotomy-reform lost viability amid the new deal and ww2 efforts
• Herbert Simon's decision-making is the heart with his theories on decision making

Classical Theories

• A set of homogeneous ideas evolved because of theories on efficiency, the prevalence of factory production that lead to improving productivity
• First studies of management, which emphasized rational/efficient
• Well-structured organization with detailed rules and autocratic leadership

Classical Management Theories

• Frederick Winslow Taylor is considered the father of scientific management as he wrote The Principles of Scientific Management
• Management focused on the best production
• Focus was on productivity exploitation

Bureaucracy

• To establish a rational basis by Max Weber and large-scale
• His analysis stemmed from studies of ancient bureaucracies
• Immature if features not fully present in an organization
• Rules apply to all functions of officials
• Authority can be be exercises
• There are some dysfunctions of bureaucracy with flexibility

Principles of Administrative Management

• Developed by Henn Fayol, management that was neglected
• Fayol was hailed as the founder
• 5 Functions: planning, organizing, commanding coordinating, controlling Advantages: single leader, increased productivity, clear division Disadvantages: employee pressure, minimum focus, stiffness How: provide incentives, standard procedures