Public Administration

The Nature and Meaning of Public Administration DPA 101 Dr. Perla E. Legaspi

The Nature of Public Administration  Concerned

with the conduct of public

affairs  Management of the public’s business  Includes anything that can be construed as the community’s response to social problems which require collective not individual resolution through some form of public intervention

Nature of Public Administration  Its

practice is an art; its study is a science  Distinguishes between theory and practice, between study and application  Borrows from and lends to other disciplines, some of which overlap in subject matter

Meaning of Public Administration How people organize themselves as a public, as a collectivity in which they recognize mutual obligations and duties, to handle their common problems and achieve common goals constitutes the subject matter of public administration  Public administration should not be considered administration of the public but administration for the public 

The Peculiarities of Public Administration It is unavoidable  It expects obedience  It has priority  It has exceptional size  Its top management is political  Its performance is extraordinarily difficult to measure  More is expected of public administration 

Approaches to Identify the Discipline 

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Identification of governmental administration Identification of public organizations grounded in public law, financed by public money, and staffed by career public servants Study of publicly oriented administrative attitudes Unique features of the processes employed in activating public policy Publicness – it seeks a meaning separate from the advocacy of the public interest, absence of profit motive, and acceptance of public accountability and political control

The Identity Crisis 

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Martin Landau – would center public administration on decision-making following Herbert Simon and Dwight Waldo (one type of rational human cooperation calculated to realize given goals or public goals) Vincent Ostrom – suggests that the theory of bureaucracy should be replaced as the central concept with the theory of public goods George Frederickson – public administration is an interdisciplinary field, drawing on any relevant discipline needed to prepare students for public service or to understand public problems or to improve governmental administration and public sector performance

Continuation  Both

sides agree that they focus on the public domain, the public arena, communal goals, collective purposes and social objectives and both agree that such things deserve independent study and thought