SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Public administration has evolved over time, it has played a key role in the organization of the structures of government and its usefulness to other disciplines cannot be overemphasized. This unit attempts to identify the critical areas that are the concern of public administration. These include; organization of countries’ structure of government, promotion of efficiency in the running of the various structures of government, public administration and politics, the interdisciplinary nature, and its environment.

2.0 Objectives

At the successful completion of this unit, you are expected to:

1.  Describe the organization of nations administrative systems 
2. Discuss the concept of efficiency with respect to public
3.  administration State the dichotomy between Politics and Administration 
4. Examine Public Administration as an interdisciplinary field of study 
5. Describe the Environment of Public Administration 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Organization

The study of public administration grew out of awareness that the machinery of government especially the executive branch, its institutions and its procedures has to be organized in the most
efficient way. Thus, in the study of public administration, policy and administration go hand in hand.

Policy is concerned with decisions as to what to do; It lays down the broad objectives of what is to be done. It is concerned with the most efficient way of implementing policy decided by the policy makers At the same time administration is also concerned with serving and assisting the policy – making process. Policy is concerned with ends while administration is concerned with means. But very often means do influence ends.

Self – Assessment Exercise 3.1

Describe the organization of public administration

3.2 Efficiency

It is sometimes assumed that public administration is mere conveyor belt which mechanically executes the instructions passed to it by the policy – makers. This view may have been likely more especially in the early days when the tasks of government were few and the machinery required was simple.

As late as the mid – nineteenth century, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, asserted that the tasks of government were sufficiently simple that any person of intelligence could perform them without preparation or training. Even in modern times when the responsibility of government for social and economic development has assumed great magnitude and demands exacting standards of efficiency, the impression still persists that the functions of public administration are not to be taken too seriously. This erroneous impression is particularly true of countries like Nigeria which, for the most part of their political existence, had been under foreign guidance, the generality of the public regarded work in the public service as hard work in the service of foreign overlords.

Public administration therefore grew out of awareness that the machinery of government was inadequate and sometimes totally unsuitable to perform the functions of modernizing government.

Notable among the policy makers who were quick to notice the deficiencies in the government administration of their day and to urge the need to improve the system was Woodrow Wilson. In 1887, when he was the Professor of Political Science at Yale in the USA, he stressed the importance of studying the administrative institutions of government. Woodrow Wilson stressed that the task of public administration was to:

1. Strengthen the paths of government 
2. Make its business less un – business – like 
3.  Strengthen and purify its organization 
4.  To crown its duties with dutifulness 

Since Wilson’s time, many writers on public administration, first in the USA and in recent times in Britain and Europe, have sought to emphasize the importance of the concept of efficiency in the functions and processes of governmental administration (Adebayo, 2004).

Self - Assessment Exercise 3.2

Discuss the various levels of efficiency in public administration

3.3 Politics and Administration Dichotomy

The relationship between politics and administration is often viewed from two perspectives.

1. As being dichotomous 
2.  Both areas are not clearly distinct but interconnected. 

Perhaps the most notable exponent of the dichotomy thesis was Woodrow Wilson. In an article written in 1887, he argued that; the policy of government … will have no taint of officialdom about it. It will not be the creation of permanent officials but of statesmen whose responsibility to public opinion will be direct and inevitable (Anifowose and Enemuo, 1999).

According to Leonard White, whose book is reputed to be the first devoted entirely to public administration, the general thrust of the field of public administration maintains that:

1. Politics should not intrude on administration; 
2. Management lends itself to scientific study; 
3.  Public administration is capable of becoming a value free science in its own right; 
4.  The mission of administration is economy and efficiency 

However, there are other scholars who hold the opposite viewpoint and have argued that there is no rigid distinction between politics and administration. One of the exponents of this position, Paul

Appleby has remarked that, public administration is policy making – public administration is one of the numbers of basic political processes by which people achieve and control government (Appleby, n d).

Since the beginning of the debate, some scholars have gone on to suggest that public administration is more part of management science than political science. Those scholars present strong theoretical reasons for choosing management with emphasis on organization theory as the paradigm of public administration. Examples of scholars who advanced this viewpoint are K. M. Henderson, J.G Marchand, and Herbert Simon, and J. D. Thomson. The entire trend of thought contained in the debate has been well presented by one author who categorized the viewpoints into four competing paradigms which began about 1900. According to the author, the shifts began from about 1900 with the first phase of school of thought ending at about 1926, during which date the dichotomy between politics and administration was upheld.

The second paradigm 1927 – 1937 was the high noon of orthodoxy and prestige of public administration which was marked by the thoughts of Henri Fayol and Frederick Taylor. This was the high point of the administrative management school. The debate at this time insisted on the existence of certain scientific principle of administration which could be discovered, and administrators would

be experts in their work if they learnt how to apply those principles. It was at this stage that PODCORB was introduced and popularized (Nicholas, 1986). This period was followed closely by a third school of thought which produced scholars like Herbert Simon, Robert Dahl and Dwight Waldo. These scholars argued that it was not feasible to develop a universal principle of administration; there should be a more human process of decision – making (Nicholas, 1986).

The third school of thought coincided with the behavioral period in political science, 1950 – 1970, when public administration focused on what became comparative and development administration.

Another name for this approach was cross – cultural public administration. According to Fred Riggs, one of the prominent authors at the time, the aim of comparative administration was to use that field to strengthen public administration theory (Nicholas, 1986).  Close to the same period as comparative public administration, another paradigm evolved, 1956 – 1970, which shifted attention towards management science or administrative science. This

approach of looking at public administration offered techniques, at times highly sophisticated, requiring expertise and specialization. At this time it was argued that instead of being part of political science, public administration should remain in the area of management science.

Self – Assessment Exercise 3.3

State the dichotomy between politics and administration

3.4 Interdisciplinary

From public administration as management, the discipline moved to what may be considered the present state of the discipline – the new public administration – 1970 to the present which emphasized that public administration should be studied along with science and society. The new public administration reflects the new interest in the relationship between knowledge and power, bureaucracy and democracy, technology and management and technology and bureaucracy. Also the period is witnessing interdisciplinary programmes in science, technology and public policy. Emphasis has shifted away from the traditional concern for efficiency, effectiveness, budgeting and administrative techniques to a new public administration much aware of normative theory, philosophy and activism; thus the new questions it raises are on ethics, the development of the individual members in the organization, the relation of the client with the bureaucracy, and the broad problem of urban growth, technology and violence (Nicholas, 1986) In sum therefore, political science and management are the major influences on the present stage of development of public
administration. The present stage pays extra attention to areas of organization theory and information science, emphasizing areas like the state, local government, executive management, administrative

law, and all those questions which seek to explain what the public interest is in democracy and under a highly bureaucratic set up that is confronted by high technology. Accordingly, core areas of the
present state of the study are:
(a) Environment of public administration (ecology) 

(b) Quantitative methods, public budgeting and financial management;
(c) Personnel administration
(d) Public policy environment

Self – Assessment Exercise

Examine the interdisciplinary posture of public administration

3.5 The Environment of Public Administration

Public administration exists in a peculiar socio – economic and political environment that affects its behavior and performance

1. It operates in an intense and pervasive political atmosphere. This is natural since public administration is part and parcel of the political process. Although politicians in government tend to absorb much of the political pressures on government, enough still filters through to the public administration to significantly affect its work. For example, public administrators cannot take account of only the technical and professional factors in their work. They must integrate them with political considerations that are often unpredictable on a day – to – day basis. Political considerations may cause an industrial project to be embarked upon against all technical and professional wisdom. Yet, at the same time the government expects the administrator to use resources judiciously and to apply professional expertise in the solution of national problems.
2. There is a widespread expectation of benefits from public administration at little or no cost to the citizen. This is particularly the case in the ex – colonial countries of Africa and Asia where there is a strong heritage of government involvement in many welfare functions. A consequence of this great expectation is that the populace is not eager to calculate or make allowances for the cost of providing these amenities. Thus, public administrators must walk the tight rope of satisfying these popular demands with little or no resources at their disposal. 
3. The resources needed by public administration are so diffuse and dispersed that there is a serious problem of coordination. The spatial division of labour in the system is designed to help out but it creates its own problems of coordination. 
4. Associated with this diffuseness of resources is the diffuseness of roles necessary for public administration. Unlike a private economic enterprise where there is a single minded focus on one project, the objectives of even the ministries cannot be precisely defined and, therefore, neither can the roles necessary to accomplish them be precisely defined. 
5. Public administration takes place in the full glare of the public eye. It is in a sense everyone’s business, and what is more, some people outside the civil service take this business seriously. They are ever ready to proffer suggestions on how to perform better, to call for more action, to criticize and identify weaknesses and failures, and to make political capital out of such failures. Thus public administrators are under constant public pressure; their attention is divided; and they are distracted. Under such conditions efficiency suffers. But this is a necessary sacrifice for the values of freedom and democracy. It is unthinkable that public administration should be a secret affair of the civil servants (Nnoli, 2003). 

Self Assessment Exercise 3.5

Describe the environment of public administration

4.0 CONCLUSION

Attention has been drawn on the scope of public administration where diverse areas have been identified with the concept. Different views of seasoned administrators and academics in the area have been explored; this provides the major source of information for our discussion on the subject matter.

5.0 SUMMARY

We have discussed in this unit, the organization of public administration, public administration and efficiency, politics and administration dichotomy, the interdisciplinary posture of public administration and the environment of public administration.

6.0 TUTOR – MARKED ASSIGNMENTS

1. How would you explain the relationship between policy and administration in your study of public administration? 
2. Why is public administration considered as an interdisciplinary field of study? 
3. How would you describe the environment of public administration?