Meaning, Nature, Scope and Significance of Public

Administration

Prof. Josefina B. Bitonio, DPA FDM 201 Principles and Processes of

Development Management

Public Administration is a field with a rich heritage. Objective: To promote superior understanding of government and its relationship with the society it governs as well as to encourage public policies more responsive to social needs and institute managerial practice attuned to effectiveness, efficiency, and the deeper human requisites of the citizenry

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PRAXIS. From its beginning, the discipline has also enjoyed extensive interaction between those who practice it allowing more intensive experimentation than has been possible in some social sciences.

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Interdisciplinary Interface of Public Administration Law

LAW

POLITICS

BUSINESS

ECONOMICS

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW • Discretionary powers

MANAGEMENT

PUBLIC POLICY Rationale Responsive to citizens need and preferences

PUBLIC CHOICE Economic Man Man: The Decision Maker

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Occupation /Profession

Academic Field

Research Teaching

Public Administration

• Interaction between those who study the subject and those who practice it allowing for more intensive experimentation than has been possible in some social sciences

Social Sciences: political science, physiology, sociology, anthropology, geography, history, information science and economics

• F.K. Medikus advocated “cameralism” and claimed that it should be treated as an autonomous field of study of great importance to the state. Cameral science is designed to prepare potential public officials for government service.

Frank Goodnow (1900), the “Father of American Public Administration,” presented a more meticulous examination of politics-administration dichotomy in his book, “Politics and Administration” that “supplanted the traditional concern with the separation of powers among the various branches of the government.” (Shafritz and Hyde 1997: 2)

Wilson set a demarcation line between politics and administration

“politics-administration” dichotomy.

a government that separated political officials from civil administrators. profound element: the distinction between politics and policies, principles and operations While John Rohr expressed his appreciation of the realistic ground for this new sense of government as needing a partnership of the elected and the appointed

politics administration

We have an executive branch with the bureaucracy at its core.

We have a Philippine legislature.

We have a Philippine judiciary

CONGRESS PRES

VICE-PRES

SUPREME

COURT

CONST.BODIES OTHERS

DOF

DBM NEDA

DFA OPS

DAR DA DENR DOT

DTI

DOE DPWH

DOTC

DECS SUC’S

DOLE

DOH

DSWS DND DOST

DOJ DILG

ARMM CAR LGU’S

THE PAS

PUBLIC ENTERPRISES

CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

Constitution

Executive /Government

Legislature Judiciary

Public Administration

Leonard D. White. His book, Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, is one of the most influential texts in public administration to date. One of his assumptions was that administration is still an art. He, however, recognized the ideal of transforming it into a science. emphasizing the managerial phase of administration.

1800s to 1950s. The roots of Public Administration as a distinct field of study can be traced from a classic essay, entitled “The Study of Public Administration,” which was written by Woodrow Wilson at the height of Progressive Movement in the US. It was in that essay with a serious claim that public administration should be a self-conscious, professional field.

Wilson suggested the distinction between politics and administration i.e. administration should be politics-free and that “the field of administration is the field of business

Woodrow Wilson’s 1887

“The Study of Administration”

Woodrow Wilson Political Science Quarterly

July 1887

Wilson realizes that such a view of

administration is a hard sell to Americans,

who prefer democracy to “officialism.” Wilson

admonishes, need to rid themselves of “the

error of trying to do too much by vote. Self-

government does not consist in having a

hand in everything, any more than

housekeeping consists necessarily in

cooking dinner with one’s own hands”.

Wilson would replace amateur cooks

with professionals. Eventually the

entire household will be run by

professionals. The practice of self-

government through elected officials

will be lost as “considerate, paternal

government” fulfills all needs. The

master of the house will become

utterly dependent on his professional

followers.

The trained servants will tutor the people by

improving public opinion and thereby even

ultimately ruling them. The bureaucracy would

educate the electorate. Wilson modestly claims

that his ideal is “a civil service cultured and self-

sufficient enough to act with sense and vigor,

and yet so intimately connected with the

popular thought, by means of elections and

constant public counsel, as to find arbitrariness

of class spirit quite out of the question”.

Alex Brillantes, Jr. and Maricel Fernandez Is there a Philippine Public Administration or Better Still, for whom is Public Administration? UP NCPAG June, 2008

Reference

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