International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Research (IJECR) ISSN 2250-0006 Vol.

2, Issue 4 Dec 2012 29-33 TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS IT EVOLVES

MEETIKA SRIVASTAVA Research scholar,Department of Public Administration,University of Lucknow,Lucknow,India

ABSTRACT
Woodrow Wilson whose seminal work his essay on the Study of Administration published in the year 1887, contributed towards the scientific study of administration as a separate discipline and the paradigm of politics and administration dichotomy which first mooted the idea of studying administration separately. The evolution of Public administration has seen different paradigms and different ideologies have been advocated by different administrative theorists and thinkers. The theory of public administration consists of classical thinkers, human relationists, bureaucratic theorists and Behaviouralists.

KEYWORDS:Public Administration, Administrative Theory, Evolution, Administrative Thinkers INTRODUCTION

Even in Ancient civilizations administration was practiced. It existed from the time society came into being. But as a distinct discipline its history can be traced only since the later parts of the 19th century. With the rise in complexities in the nature of the state the activities and scope of administration has widened with the passage of time. Functions of the government have expanded innumerably. An individual is exposed to some sort of governmental activity at every stage of his life infact from the cradle to the grave or from womb to tomb; the state is always visible and hardly leaves a gap. Towards an independent study of the subject of public administration several scholars, thinkers and practitioners have laid down their views as theories, in-depth analysis which have contributed to its academic literature and its development as a discipline and practice. In the later paragraphs the evolution of public administration is discussed. The discipline of Public Administration owes a lot to Woodrow Wilson whose seminal work his essay on the Study of Administration published in the year 1887, contributed towards the scientific study of administration as a separate discipline and the paradigm of politics and administration dichotomy which first mooted the idea of studying administration separately different from Law or politics and its mother discipline political science. Wilson was of the view to make public organizations more businesslike and bring about more efficiency and effectiveness in its operations and also to bring about strict accountability. Frank J Goodnow, popularly known as the father of American Public administration too was a proponent of politics-administration dichotomy. He said politics has to do with policies while administration has to do with execution of those policies. In the year 1926, LD White released Introduction to the study of Public Administration. This book is believed to be the first textbook on the subject of Public administration. According to him Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy. The evolution of Public administration has seen different paradigms and different ideologies have been advocated by different administrative theorists and thinkers. The theory of public administration consists of classical thinkers, human relationists, bureaucratic theorists and Behaviouralists. The classical thinkers like FW Taylor, Henry Fayol, Gullick, Urwick, Mooney and Reiley , stressed on the formal structures of organization, they propagated universal principles of administrative which can be applied to any organization to bring about administrative efficiency. They believed in

30

Meetika Srivastava

impersonality and hierarchy. For them set of rules and regulations are utmost important and they must be strictly followed. They viewed organization as a closed system which neither influences its external environment nor gets influenced by it. Human beings are merely treated as cogs in the machine and they are supposed to be motivated only through monetary rewards. There was no place for the study of human relations and behavior of individuals amongst themselves and with the organizational as a whole. The classical thinkers had a very mechanistic approach towards administration, which viewed man as a machine and ignored the human and psychological aspects in administration because the administration is ultimately run by individuals who bring in their biases and opinions. It is not possible neither feasible to completely separate fact from values. The behavior and interrelationship between those working in the organization are no less important than the administrative structure where they work. Max Weber, the German sociologist proposed that the foundations of bureaucracy lies on legal-rational authority and in fact his model of bureaucracy is hailed as an ideal type which outlines certain characteristics for effective bureaucracies which promote organizational efficiency and employee welfare. The main elements of Weberian model of bureaucracy are: Impersonal order, rules, and sphere of competence, hierarchy, personal and public ends, written documents, monocratic. The Hawthrone Experiments under the leadership of Elton Mayo highlighted the role of informal organizations which exists within the formal structures of organization and small social groups that influence the formal goals and objectives and thus laid emphasis on socio-psychological aspects for determining organizational efficiency much different from mechanistic classical thinkers and their concept of economic man. They viewed human behavior in an organization as a complex phenomenon different from the classical thinkers. Just like the Human relations thinkers like Mary Parker Follett, Roethlisberger, Robert Merton, Elton Mayo, etc there evolved a more systematized and more sophisticated version of human relations theory i.e the behavioural approach. Chester Barnard, was the full -fledged behaviouralist who viewed organization a s a cooperative system where people are able to communicate with each other and willing to co operate with each other towards accomplishment of common objectives. His seminal work The Functions of the Executive influenced the ideas of Herbert Simon who proposed new concept of administration based on theories and methodology of logical positivism with the focus on decision-making. He was severely critical of the classical approach of universal

applicability of principles of administration which to him were mere proverbs and they occur in pairs. He stressed on value- free approach to the study of administration and laid down the different stages to the decision-making process in an organization. Other prominent Behaviouralists were Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert, Bakke,Warren Bennis, Kurt Lewin, David Easton, Chris Argyris etc . It was more of a multidisciplinary approach which involved study of other disciplines like sociology, psychology, anthropology; economics, management, etc and hence the study of administrative as an interdisciplinary subject. The Behavioural approach is more descriptive and tries to establish a link between administrative theory and its actual implementation for practical problem solving. Maslow gave a need hierarchy theory of human motivation where he showed how an individual substitutes his lower order satisfied needs with unsatisfied needs of the highest order. Herzbergs two factor theory of motivation divided the people working in an organization into two categories hygiene seekers and motivation seekers. McGregor gave two sets of assumptions about human nature and its behavior in an organisation as his theory X and theory Y which can be employed as managerial strategy for organizational efficiency. Likert conceptualized various leadership styles for an organization, the most effective being the Participative System. In the post war era, Public administration saw a new paradigm of Camparative public administration which was cross cultural studies and cross national studies of public administration. Its aim was theory building and to attain more

Public Administration as it Evolves

31

knowledge for the discipline and less stress was on the practical application of knowledge. It examines the relationship of the administration with its external environment and hence brought ecological approach to public administration. FW Riggs, Robert Dahl, J.M Gaus, Dwight Waldo etc were major proponents of this approach. Riggs gave two models viz, Agraria-Industria Model and the Fused-Prismatic-Diffracted Model, to depict the agrarian and industrial societies as well as the underdeveloped, developing and developing societies respectively. In the backdrop of turbulent times in America, the assassinations of American Presidents, the Vietnam War, urban riots and unrest etc, it was seen there existed huge gaps between the theory of administration and its applications on the ground. In fact this discipline lacked theory building. The Honey Report of 1967 on Higher education for Public service, Philadelphia conference on the theory and practice of Public administration, several other publications led to a New Public administration movement under the patronage of Dwight Waldo at the Minnowbrook Conference which brought public administration professionals and young radical thinking scholars together for confronting the traditional administrative theory. It laid emphasis on administration for social change and social equity. It wanted to bring in the role of values into administration action and stressed on relevance of public administration for society and its problems. The focus was on making administration more responsive and participative as well as client oriented and change oriented. In the 1960

Development administration emerged as a sub-field of Public administration. Edward Weidner was the foremost thinker who severely criticized the traditional administrative theory for glorifying the means and forgetting the ends To him development administration is concerned with maximizing innovation for development. With the rise of the state versus market debate and growth of the public choice theory, propounded by Vincent Ostrom, brought the concept of institutional pluralism i.e plurality of public agencies for delivery of public goods and services as per consumers preferences and gave rise to another paradigm called New Public management (NPM) which aims at the three Es economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It advocated the change in the role of the government from the doer to an enabler and facilitator for public activities to meet the various challenges of Liberalisation, privatization and globalization. Ted Gaebler and David Osborne summarized the theme of NPM as We dont need more government; we need better government. The focus of Public administration has been continuously evolving; it is being viewed as a profession as well as a discipline of study. Although it is often stated that the political executives lay down the policies which are implemented by the administrative machinery but there are no clear-cut roles defined for each of them. In fact the civil servants at the higher levels often help the political authorities in the process formulation considering they have specialized knowledge and much more skilled and trained, likewise the political executives take keen interest in implementation of policies wherever required. Hence the Public administration plays its role in public policy making. It helps the political executive in identification of major policy areas, preparation of policy proposals, analysis of societal problems and measures to solve them, suggesting alternative course of action etc, thus this approach of public policy aims at improvement in overall decision making process and better, effective policies aimed at maximizing public welfare and add a scientific temper to administration. Different paradigms and different theories have contributed towards the literature and application of Public administration, in contemporary societies whether agricultural or industrial or the developed , developing and undeveloped economies, everywhere the application of public administration is of utmost importance and numerous challenges are confronting its paths to maximum public welfare and efficient public service delivery. To match up to growing complexities, socio-economic problems, regional disparities and rising consumer preferences and expectations, concept likes good governance and responsive administration has become part of administration. To curb the ubiquitous corruption

32

Meetika Srivastava

menace has made ethics and morals part of administrative culture with greater emphasis on integrity in administration. With the advent of science and technology more and more governments are integrating communications and information technology with governance giving rise to E-Governance, which is the application of ICT in the affairs of public administration in order to make provision and delivery of public utilities simpler and make the government more accountable, transparent and responsible.

CONCLUSIONS
Thus the discipline of Public administration is continuously evolving since its first independent study in the year 1887. The concept of state has evolved from the police state to welfare state and so does its work has undergone a sea change and therefore the instrument of administration (through which the government operates) i.e. the visible part of the government is in a continuous dynamic state of nature. As a discipline it is harder to find any consensus on a general theory of administration because of its varied scope and nature. At various phases of administrative history some of the other paradigms/themes have dominated the administrative discourse and hence we have politics and administrative dichotomy phase when the political acts were differentiated from the administrative acts. Politics was concerned with policy making whereas the public executives were involved with the implementation of those policies. The importance of structures of organization was emphasized by the classical thinkers who aimed at arriving at general principles of administration which can make its working efficient and are universally applicable. Facts were separated from values. It was assumed that monetary rewards motivate people at work and there was no place for their values and biases in the implementation of policies assigned to them. But with growth the growth of human relations movement and the behaviouralists the focus was shifted to the human and psychological aspects of administration. New public administration tried to break free from the traditional status-quo oriented administration to change- oriented, client oriented and participatory and responsive administration promoting social justice. New public management transformed government into entrepreneurial government and reinvented government in the sense it gave a new role to the government of being a facilitator and enabler and regulator of public utilities. The field of public administration has become multidisciplinary and it has developed linkages with other social sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics etc. With the advancement of science and technology the tools of information and communication technology are being used for better, improved and smooth governance. The necessity of ethics in administration has received momentum with the promotion and adoption of good governance practices in the state administrative machinery.

REFERENCES
1. 2. 3. 4. Wilson, Woodrow. June, 1887. The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2 An Introduction to the study of Public Administration-L.D White. Public Administration: Administrative theories and concepts- Dr. B.L.Fadia, Dr. Kuldeep Fadia O.P. Minocha, Good Governance: New Public Management Perspective, The Indian Journal of Public Administration. 5. 6. 7. 8. Public Administration Robert B. Denhardt Adminstrative thinkers- Prasad and Prasad. New Horizons of Public Administration by Mohit Bhattacharya Public Administration by Herbert Alexander Simon, Donald W. Smithburg, Victor Alexander Thompson

Public Administration as it Evolves

33

9.

Public Administration Theory and concepts - Rumki Basu

10. Public Administration and Public Affairs - Nicholas Henry. 11. Modern Public Administration - Nigro and Nigro. 12. Public Administration (Manual) (TATA MC Graw Hill) - Laxmikanth. 13. Public Administration - Avasti & Maheswari. 14. Handbook of Public Administration: edited by Jon Pierre, B Guy Peters 15. An Introduction to Public Administration by Haroon A. Khan 16. Value and Virtue in Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective edited by Professor Michiel S. S. De De Vries, Professor Pan Suk Kim