Topic I Introduction to Public Administration DR. Hala Elhelaly

UNIT 2 THE DICHOTOMY BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION CONTENTS

 Administrator as implementer: PA may be defined as all processes, organizations and individuals associated with carrying out laws and other rules adopted or issued by legislatures, executives and courts. What is public administration?

 Administrator as regulator/ service provider: Public administration is the use of managerial, public, and legal theories and processes to fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial mandates for the provision of governmental regulatory and service functions. What is public administration?

 Woodrow Wilson Public administration is detailed and systematic execution of the law excludes policy formulation as well as elected officials  Shafritz and Russell—the public interest Whatever governments do for good or ill. It is public administration’s political context that makes it public--that distinguishes it from private or business administration. Other definitions

 Key Approaches: Traditional Managerial Approach: Civil Bureaucracy (“scientific approach”) New Public Management: Competitive, business-like  Political approach: Public administrator as a reflection of the body politic  Legal approach: Public administrator as adjudicator Key Approaches:

The approaches LegalPoliticalNPMTraditional approach Procedural validity Representation, accountability Customer response Efficiency; effectiveness Value AdversaryPluralismCompetitiveTypical bureaucracy Org. structure Particularisti c individual Group memberCustomerImpersonal; rational Individual PrecedenceMuddling throughDecentralizedRationalDecision making JudicialLegislativeExecutive Function Rights basedIncrementalPerformance based Rational (cost benefit) Budget

 The Public/ Electoral relationship Constitutional rights Public Interest Sovereignty  Regulation Policy/ Civil rule enforcement  Services Collective services (defense, welfare)  Jurisdiction Place bound Key components of PA

 Efficiency v. Effectiveness reaching public goals or measuring activities?  Responsiveness v. Accountability responding to public needs or filling out reports?  Difference between outputs and outcomes Tensions faced by public administrators

CONCLUSION  It is aptly worthwhile to conclude that both the public and private administrations are placed in different surroundings.  But this differences are more apparent than real.

CONCLUSION  The two are, in fact, of the same species of the same genus.  But they have special values and techniques of their own which gives each other its distinctive character.

SUMMARY  Traditionally, when public administrators think about what the public administration mean at all, they think about it in institutional terms.

SUMMARY  This in other words, means the management of tax-supported agencies that appear on government organisation charts – the government bureaucratic agencies that constitute the locus/position of public administration that hold sway over the fields focus during the period of paradigms.

SUMMARY  Public administration can be likened to a state made of a glass house, we see what it tries to do, and all its failures, the partial or total, are made the most of.  But private enterprise is sheltered under good opaque, bricks and mortar.