Unit 6. Bureaucracy, Public Administration and Public Policies PDF

Unit 6. Bureaucracy, Public Administration and public policies. Introduction to Political Science. 2024/2025. Irene Lanzas Index  1. Public Administration and bureaucracy.  2. Public policies. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (I)  For most citizens, their ordinary and most frequent re...

Unit 6. Bureaucracy, Public Administration and public policies. Introduction to Political Science. 2024/2025. Irene Lanzas Index  1. Public Administration and bureaucracy.  2. Public policies. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (I)  For most citizens, their ordinary and most frequent relationship with the state does not go through ministers or members of parliament: it is usually through the administrations.  To obtain a driving licence or unemployment benefit, to pay their taxes, to receive free education or to get a civil marriage, citizens will visit public buildings, meet staff in the service of the state and receive resources, benefits or authorisations from the state.  The public administration is an organisation made up of professionalised personnel, endowed with material and economic means of public ownership to carry out the decisions of the executive.  Public administrations are part of and an instrument of the political executive, which needs them so that the policies adopted do not remain mere declarations of intent but are translated into direct interventions on the reality on which they are intended to have an impact. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (II) The ideal bureaucratic model.  The modern form of administration is bureaucratic (Max Weber). It is based on instrumental rationality: it always tries to adjust the ends it pursues to the means it employs. Its characteristics are: 1. Recruitment of personnel based on merit and ability, through transparent and pre- established procedures. These personnel enjoy job stability for life to avoid partisan pressures. 2. Clear definition of the tasks entrusted to each member of the organisation, who has a specialised sphere of action which he or she cannot expand on his or her own initiative. 3. Public ownership of the material and economic means used. 4. Acting in accordance with written and published rules and previously known, applied with criteria of equality, impartiality and neutrality, which avoid situations of discretion, favouritism or corruption. 5. Hierarchical or pyramidal organisation, in which each member receives instructions from a clearly determined superior and is accountable to him/her for his/her actions.  Do today's administrations correspond to this ideal model?  There is a negative view of bureaucracy today because of the mismatch between this model and the new functions of the administration. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (III) Current functions of public administration.  The expansion of public administrations is expressed in the wide range of functions that these administrations perform within the political system. Administrations are geared towards preparing, implementing and controlling the outcome of public policies that manage community conflicts.  Among these functions we can highlight the most important ones: 1. Application of general rules to singular situations. The different administrations and their agents are responsible, for example, for ensuring that traffic rules are respected on the roads, occupational safety regulations in companies or urban development plans in cities. To this end, they must carry out inspection, advisory, reporting, sanctioning and enforcement functions. 2. Provision of goods and services. Administrations apply the redistribution of resources that is part of political activity to specific cases: they organise educational, health or cultural activities, offer transport and communication services, provide for the needs of disadvantaged groups to whom they grant subsidies, grants and pensions. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (IV) 3. Resource mobilisation and management. To carry out these activities, administrations are responsible for raising the necessary resources. To this end, they pay and collect the taxes stipulated by law, levy charges for certain services, etc. At the same time, they must manage these resources in an effective, efficient and accountable manner by applying appropriate management and control techniques. 4. Accumulation of information and expert advice. As a prerequisite for these activities, administrations are centres for the accumulation of quantitative and qualitative data on the social reality in which they must operate. Likewise, the administration accumulates specialised knowledge in different areas, as an indispensable element for advising political decision-makers and drawing up intervention proposals. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (V) Can we control the performance of public administrations?  In certain circumstances, a strong and competent administration appears as a guarantee of the cohesion of the political community, in contrast to the disintegrating effect that party disputes, unstable governments and inefficient assemblies can produce.  In times of crisis, the administration can ensure the continuity of the essential functions of the state and even promote its modernisation and development.  But from a democratic perspective, this situation is not satisfactory, because it is not clear how citizens can hold this administration accountable for its performance or how they can redirect its actions if they want it to change its objectives.  This forces a rethink of the relationship between the political leadership of the executive and the administrations that are to be supported: how can the staff of the administrations be prevented from ceasing to be an instrument at the service of the political leadership and becoming an autonomous producer of major decisions? 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (VI) 1. Some propose reducing the size of interventions and their scope of action by privatising functions and services. Some of these proposals in fact seek to reduce the political sphere, with consequences for the social and economic cohesion of the community. 2. A second type of response stresses the need to reform them and adapt them to the needs of a new environment. There is talk of the need to move towards a ‘post-bureaucratic’ administration. To characterise this new model, reference is made to the ‘new public management’:  Selection of more multi-skilled staff, in contrast to the use of specialised staff.  Renewal and mobility, in contrast to the stability and lifelong nature of employees and positions.  The organisation of administrative units in a network, in contrast to the pyramidal hierarchy.  Encouragement of innovation and initiative, as opposed to automatic compliance with pre-existing rules.  Control over the results obtained and their quality, as opposed to prior control over the procedures used. 1. Public Administration and bureaucracy. (VII)  In some developed countries, reform processes have been launched that combine the abandonment of some of the tasks of administrations and the introduction of the principles of new public management to be more responsive to citizens' demands.  But in any effort to improve the performance of public administrations, it remains a politically difficult task to maintain the balance between two demands: meeting the specific demands of particular groups and individuals and serving the overall goal of keeping the whole community cohesive. 2. Public policies. (I) Definition of public policy  What is public policy? A simple definition might be: the outcome of political activity.  More precisely, we call public policy an interrelated set of decisions and non-decisions, which focus on a particular area of social conflict or tension.  These are decisions formally adopted within the framework of public institutions (which gives them the capacity to bind), but which have been preceded by a process of elaboration in which a plurality of public and private actors have participated.  Other definitions (Lasswell) emphasise the intentional aspect of public policy, describing an ordered set of decisions that respond to a series of objectives previously selected by public bodies.  But it is not always true that a public policy responds to a clear priority of objectives, nor that these stated objectives are the ones being pursued. 2. Public policies. (II)  What distinguishes this set of decisions that we qualify as public policy is that they incorporate a certain dose of coercion or compulsion. They are not voluntary: they are determinations that are imposed on the community, because they derive from authority and have some political legitimacy.  Therefore, a public policy is:  A plan of action adopted by an authority.  It implies the formal adoption of a decision (‘my policy is to have no policy’).  It gives official sanction to a certain course of action.  From a political scientist's point of view, it implies the link between:  Intentions (what governments say they will do).  Actions (the actual conduct of governments).  And outcomes (the consequences of that action and the impact on citizens). 2. Public policies. (III) The policy-making process.  The policy cycle as an analytical model that adapts Easton's political system schema: 1. Initiation (agenda-setting). 2. Formulation of alternatives and decision making. 3. Implementation. 4. Evaluation. (like politisation)