What is Public Administration
UNIT 1
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
READING PRACTICE
A Scan Text 1.1 and answer the questions:
a) In what connection are the names of Lorenz von Stein and Woodrow Wilson mentioned?
b) What do the years of 1855, 1887 stand for?
B Read the text and match the questions below (1-6) with the paragraphs in the text.
1. What are the main responsibilities of public administration?
2. What levels is public administration practiced at?
3. What constitutes a growing problem of public administration?
4. In what way did Lorenz von Stein define the science of public administration?
5. Who was the first to consider the science of public administration in the United States?
6. What features are common to all civil services?
What is Public Administration
1. Public Administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of government policy. Today public administration is often regarded as including also some responsibility for determining the policies and programs of governments. Specifically, it is the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations.
2. Public administration is a feature of all nations, whatever their system of government. Within nations public administration is practiced at the central, intermediate, and local levels. Though public administration has historically referred to government management, it increasingly encompasses non-governmental organizations that are not acting out of self-interest.
3. From the 16th century, the national state was the reigning model of the administrative organization in Western Europe. These states needed an organization for the implementation of law and order and for setting up a defensive structure. The need for expert civil servants, with knowledge about taxes, statistics, administration and the military organization, grew.
4. Lorenz von Stein, since 1855 professor in Vienna, is considered the founder of the science of public administration. According to him, the science of public administration was an interaction between theory and practice and combined several disciplines, such as sociology, political sciences, administrative law and public finance.
5. In the United States Woodrow Wilson was the first to consider the science of public administration. In an 1887 article entitled “The Study of Administration” Wilson wrote “it is the object of administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and secondly, how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at least possible cost either of money or of energy”.
6. In most of the world the establishment of highly trained administrative, executive classes has made public administration a distinct profession. The body of public administrators is usually called the civil service. Traditionally the civil service is contrasted with other bodies serving full time, such as the military, the judiciary, and the police. In most countries a distinction is also made between the home civil service and those persons engaged abroad on diplomatic duties. A civil servant, therefore, is one of a body of persons who are directly employed in the administration of the internal affairs of the state and whose role and status are not political, ministerial, military, or constabulary.
7. Certain characteristics are common to all civil services. Senior civil servants are regarded as the professional advisers to those who formulate state policy. Civil servants in every country are expected to advise, warn, and assist those responsible for state policy and, when this has been decided, to provide the organization for implementing it. The responsibility for policy decisions lies with the political members of the executive (those members who have been elected or appointed to give political direction to government). By custom, civil servants are protected from public blame for their advice.
COMPREHENSION