Public Administration: Theories and Principles

What the official syllabus says

Main Examination, Paper III (General Studies III), Unit II - Concepts, Issues and Dynamics of Public Administration, under the heading “Public Administration: Theories and Principles”:

• Public Administration: Meaning, Nature, Scope and Significance. Evolution of Public Administration as a discipline. Its Role in developing and developed societies. New Public Administration, New Public Management, Good Governance, New Public Service.
• Theories and Approaches: Scientific Management, Human Relations, Behavioural, Structural-Functional, Ecological.
• Principles of Organisation: Hierarchy, Unity of Command, Span of Control, Delegation, Centralisation and Decentralisation, Coordination, Authority and Responsibility, Accountability.
• Administrative Behaviour: Leadership, Communication, Morale.

Topics in detail

Meaning, nature, scope and significance

• Definitions by Woodrow Wilson, L. D. White, Luther Gulick and others; public and private administration compared
• Nature: the integral view and the managerial view
• Scope: the POSDCORB view (planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, budgeting) and the subject-matter view
• Public administration as an art and as a science
• Significance: instrument of government, of development and of social change; service delivery in a welfare state

Evolution as a discipline

• Woodrow Wilson's “The Study of Administration” (1887) and the politics-administration dichotomy (Frank Goodnow, 1900)
• The principles phase: W. F. Willoughby, and Gulick and Urwick's Papers on the Science of Administration (1937)
• Challenges to the principles: Herbert Simon, Robert Dahl and others in the 1940s
• Identity crisis, then comparative and development administration
• Public policy, public choice and later approaches

Role in developing and developed societies

• Developing societies: development administration, nation building, poverty reduction, capacity gaps
• Developed societies: regulation, service delivery, efficiency and citizen choice
• Changing role of the state: from provider to facilitator and regulator

New paradigms

• New Public Administration: the Minnowbrook Conference (1968); relevance, values, social equity, change, client focus
• New Public Management: market-oriented reforms, performance measurement, contracting out, the citizen as customer; “Reinventing Government” (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992)
• Good Governance: the World Bank's use of the term (from 1989); the characteristics listed by the United Nations (UNESCAP): participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity and inclusiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability
• New Public Service: Janet and Robert Denhardt; serving citizens rather than steering, public interest, democratic citizenship

Theories and approaches

• Scientific Management: F. W. Taylor; time and motion study, standardisation, functional foremanship, differential piece-rate; criticism
• Human Relations: Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne experiments; informal groups, social needs, morale
• Behavioural approach: Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior (1947), decision-making, bounded rationality and “satisficing”; Chester Barnard's acceptance theory of authority
• Structural-Functional approach: structures and the functions they perform; Talcott Parsons' AGIL scheme; Fred Riggs' use of it
• Ecological approach: John Gaus; Fred Riggs' fused, prismatic and diffracted societies, the sala model, formalism, heterogeneity and overlapping

Principles of organisation

• Hierarchy: the scalar chain; merits and demerits
• Unity of command (Henri Fayol); its problems in multi-agency work
• Span of control: factors affecting it; Graicunas' relationships theory
• Delegation: meaning, need, hindrances
• Centralisation and decentralisation: administrative and political, deconcentration and devolution
• Coordination: internal and external, methods and hurdles
• Authority and responsibility: Max Weber's types of authority (traditional, charismatic, legal-rational); authority to match responsibility
• Accountability: to the legislature, the executive, the courts and citizens

Administrative behaviour

• Leadership: trait, behavioural, situational and contingency theories; leadership styles in administration
• Communication: formal and informal channels, upward, downward and lateral flows, barriers
• Morale: meaning, indicators, factors that raise or lower it; motivation theories of Maslow, Herzberg and McGregor

Overlaps

Leadership and communication at work are taken further in Unit III, Part A (Behaviour); organisational behaviour and management functions are in Paper I's Management part (General Studies I).