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Governments have used private contractors since ancient times.

The current trend toward greater privatization of government functions, which began most notably in the 1980s during the Reagan administratin in the USA and the Thatcher administration in the UK, is now worlwide. This trend has been reinforced by the growth of the nonprofit sector which receives much of its funding from government contract, especially for social services and research. By 1995, 40 percent of the budget of private nonprofit organizations providing human services was derived from government. According to former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo, government funds account for two out of every three dollars spent by catholic charities USA, a national network of some 1400 social service organizations. By comparison, Lutheran social ministries obtains 54 percent of its funding from govenrment sources, and the salvation army obtains 15 percent from such sources. Thus we may conclude that privatization has not necessarily reduced the total amount of public administration in the world, it has simply forced it to take different forms. Public administration is a phase in the public policymaking cycle Public policymaking never ends. Government perpetuallt suffers from a problem similar to that faced by shakespeares hamlet, the indesicive prince of denmark who struggled with whether to be or not to be. Government are in a constant flurry over whether to do or not to do. Adn whatever they do or not do is public policy. All such decisions (including decisions not to make a decision) are made by those who control political power adn implemented by the administrative officers of the bureaucracy. Thus public policy and public administration are two sides of the same coin. One decides, the other does. They cannot be separate because one side cannot exist without the other. But, because policymaking is a continuous process, it cannot end with implementation. Whenever government does something, critics will suggest ways to do it better. This feedback can be informal, from citizens complaints to journalistic investigations or it can take te form of an agency or legislative program evaluation. In any case, new decision must be made even if the decision is to avoid making decision. Public administration is implementing the public interest The public interest is the universal label in which political actor wrap the policies and program that they advocate. Would any lobby, public manager, legislator, or chief executive ever propose a program that was not in the public interest? Hardly! Because the public interest is generally taken to mean a commonly accepted good, the phrase is used both to further policies that are indeed for the common good and to obsecure policies that may be so commonly accepted as good. A considerable body of literature has developed about thi phrase, because it represents an important philosophic point that, if successfully denied, could provide considerable guidance for politicians and public administrators alike. Walter Lipmann wrote that the public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently. Clear eyes and rational minds are common enough. Findong leaders that are disinterested and benevolent is the hard part.

In the early twentieth century, E. Pendleton Herring examined the problems posed by the dramatic increase in the scope of the administrative discretion of government. He accepted that laws passed by legislatures are necessarily the products of legislative compromise, thus they are often so vague that they need further definition. The bureaucrat, by default, then has the task of giving definitional detail to the general principles embodied in a statue by issuing supplemental rules and regulations. Upon the shoulders of the bureaucrat has been placed in large part the burden of reconciling group differences and making effective and workable the economic and social compromises arrived at through the legislative process. In effect, it becomes the job of the anonymous administrator to define the public interest. Herrings discussion of the public interest and the critical roles played by bureaucrat and interest groups in public policy formulation correctly anticipated many of the critical issues still being grappled with in schools of public policy and administration today. Herring is a significant voice in what political science calls group theory, a school of thought that views government as representing various group interests and negotiating policy outcomes among them. According to Herring, the most basic task of a bureaucrat has been to establish working relationships with the various special interests so that their concerns can be more efficiently brokered. The role that Herring would have public administrators paly is that of Edmund Burkes trustee, a representative who exercises personal judgement and doesnt follow the exact order or a legislature or the perceived opinion of a constituency. In his classic 1774 speech to the electors of bristol Burke told the voters: your representatives owe you, not his industry only, but his judgement, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. Few would argue with the desirability of using good judgement in the furtherance of the public interest. However, some would argue that the interest group broker role that Herring espouses for high level public administrators is inheretly undemocratic. Public administration is doing collectively that which cannot be so well done individually This is Abraham Lincolns understanding of the legitimate object of the government,..... to do for a comunity of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves-in their separate, and individual capacities. Thus public administration is the mature manifestation of the community spirit. What started as voluntay service (such as fire protection or care for the poor) became institutionalized as people indicated a preference (via elections) to pay taxes so that once voluntary activities could become government functions. Twentieth century communications have brought about a revolution of rising expectations wereby the people of traditionally poor countries realize just how poor they are relative to industrialized states. Similarly, the citizens of these rich states benefit from programs that they increasingly resent paying for. Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina often tells this story of a veteran returning from korea who went to college on the GI Bill,

bought this house with a Federal Housing Administration loan, started a business with a Small Business Administration loan, got electricity from Tennesse Valley Authority. and, later, clean water from an Enviromental Protection Agency project. His parents, on Social Security, retired to a farm, got electricity from Ryral Electrification Administration and had their soil tested by the U.S. department of agriculture. When his father became ill, the family was saved from financial ruin by Medicare and a life was saved with a drug developed through the National Institutes of Health. His kids participated in the school lunch program, learned physics from teachers trained in a National Science Foundation program, and went to college with a guaranteed student loans. He drove to work on the Interstate and moore his boat in a channel dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers. When floods hit, he took Armtrack to Washington to apply for disaster relief, and spent some time in the Smithsonian Institution Museums. Then one day he got mad, he sent his congressman an angry letter. Get the government off my back, he wrote .Im tired of paying taxes for all those programs created for ungrateful people. But we all want-indeed expect-the government employees to literally pull our backs out of the rubble when disaster strikes, as it did in Oklahoma City. Volunteers could do the easy tasks, such as driving the walking wounded to local hospitals, but only the highly trained public service professionals could the real rescue work. Their organizations-the police and fire departments- were created, in Lincolns words, to be available to do what the citizens cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves. Legal Definitions of Public Administration Because public administration is what a state does, it is both cerated and bound by an instrument of the law. Indeeed, in many communities, such as those of continental Europe, it is an academic subject that has never escaped from faculties of law. While public administration in the US is not a legal subject, its foundations are always legal. Public administration is law in action Public administration is inherently the execution of a public law. Every application of a general law is necessarily an act of administration. Administration cannot exist without this legal foundation. In the US, the constitution of 1787 as amended is the law of the land. All legislation must conform to it-or at the very least not violate it in a manner obvious to the U.S. supreme court. The law that creates an agency or program is known as its enabling legislation-the law that legally enables a program to exist. In theory, no government administrator can do anything if it is not provided for in the legislation or in the rules and regulations that the legislation allows the agency to promulgate. And how much government money can the president of US spend on his own without the approval of the congress? Not a penny. Everything the president does, if it involves spending public money, must have a basis in legislation. This is often difficult for people in less democratic regimes to understand. Tip Oneill, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives, wrote in a memoir: I must have met Deng Xiaoping in China a half dozen times, and every time he would ask, the president has to go to you for his money? Oneill always answer this question the same

way:yes, and the president better not forget it. And the same is true of governors and mayors who must go to their respective legislative bodies for appropriations. While many books have been written about the implementation of this or that government program, there is ultimately only one thing that government is in essence capable of implementing-that is the law. Of course the law is often in turmoil. The legislative basis of programs, or specific agency rules and regulations, are constantly being challenged in court by those who oppose as well as those who support the program involved. The oppositions wants the enabling legislation declared unconstitutional and the program destroyed while supporters often want the program administered even more generously. Even since the New Deal, a pattern has emerged with controversial legislation. After it passage, opponents challenge its legality in court, hoping that the juducial branch will overturn it. In effect, there is a new final phase to the legislative process, a judicial review to see if the new law is constitutional. Public administration is regulation It is government telling citizens and businesses what they may and may not do. Regulation is one of the oldest functions of government. The Code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylonia provided that the mason who builds a house which falls down and kills the inmate shall be put to death. While not exactly a modern building code, this nevertheless proved an effective means of regulating the soundness of housing. Modern day regulation is so pervasive and so commonplace that we see it everyday and accept it without thinking. Consider the simple act of going to McDonalds to buy a hamburger or a salad. You leave your house or apartment, which has been built according to local building codes-regulation. You get into your car, which has many safety features required by the federal government-regulation. You drive to an intersection and stop at a red light-regulation. Once at McDonalds, you noticed a sticker on the door from a local public health agebcy indicating that the establishment has been inspected and found free of insect and rodent infestation-regulation. On the wall is a framed certificate from the local municipality indicating that the property is licensed to operate as a business-regulation. Then you give your order to a person whose minimum wages and maximum working hours are set by legislation-regulation-whose supervisor is required by guidelines issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to maintain a workplace free of sexual harassmentregulation-and whose wages are reduced by mandatory deductions for income tax and social security-regulation. It after your meal you feel the need to visit one of the rest rooms, you will find one oversized toilet stall designed for physically handicapped-regulation. Our lives are constantly governed, or interfered with, by regulation. We are not officially born util we have a birth certificate-regulation. We must attend school up to a certain age-regulation. We cannot engage in many occupations without a license from the state-regulation. Finally, we cannot be declared legally dead without a death certificateregulation. And it doesnt end here. We can be burried only in government approved cemeteries and our estates taxes mus be paid-regulation.

As rule of thumb, the more crowded and economically developed a place is, the more regulations. Society need rules so that people dont inadvertently bump into each others car, live in houses that fall down because they are structurally unsound, or get food poisoning from meat that was not wholesome. Why? Because things such as these were common problems before government regulation-at least in the developed world-made them relatively rare. Public administration is the kings largesse It it whatever goods, services, or honors the ruling authority decides to bestow. This was the earliest meaning of public administration. Since everything was owned by the crowned, whatever was granted to the nobles and peasants was a gift. In the modern world, this version of public administration can be seen in traditional monarchies and dictatorships where hospitals, schools, parks, and such are touted as something given by the autocrat to a grateful people. The last vestige of this kingly largesse in representative government can be seen on the plaques often attached to public buildings and bridges indicating that the edifice was built during the tenure of Mayor Smith or Governor Jones. Of course, whenever representative governments grow corrupt, largesse as an operating mode of public administration reasserts itself. Then citizens may only get public services such as police protection and welfare benefits if they are deserving in the eyes of the rulers. The traditional big city political machine lasted only as long as there was largesse to distribute. For example, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the Great Depression, Democratic Party ward heelers were authorized to distribute up to 50 snow buttons each time there was a major snow storm. Each button entitled the holder to a days work shoveling snow for the city. This was a highly prized benefit sought by unemployed men in each ward. While certainly at the low end of patronage food chain, this largesse bought the ward heller loyalty that translated into votes for the party. Snow buttons are a relic of the past. So are political machines because welfare benefits as a matter of right, as an entitlement, have made them superfluous. Thus the comprehensive public services of the welfare state have driven out the informal welfare system of the mcahines. Without largesse the political machine cannot hold the loyalty of their audience.

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