Future Of Public Administration Essay Research Paper

Future Of Public Administration Essay, Research Paper

Public Administration – what is it.

Public administration is often regarded as including also some responsibility for determining the policies and programs of governments. Specifically, it is the following:

. Planning

. Organizing

. Directing

. Coordinating

. Controlling of government operations.

Public administration is a feature of all nations, whatever their system of government. Within nations public administration is practiced at the

. Central

. Intermediate

. Local levels

Civil Service

The body of public administrators is usually called the CIVIL SERVICE.

Certain characteristics are common to all civil services.

Senior civil servants are regarded as the professional advisers to those who formulate state policy.

Senior civil servants are professional in the sense that their experience of public affairs is thought to provide them with the knowledge of the limits within which state policy can be made effective and of the probable administrative results of different courses of action.

Civil servants in every country are expected to:

. Advise

. Warn

. 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 and, customarily, career civil servants).

By custom, civil servants are protected from public blame or censure for their advice.

The acts of their administration may, however, be subject to special judicial controls from which no member of the executive can defend them.

Structure of civil service

Civil services are organized upon standard hierarchical lines, in which a command structure rises pyramid-fashion from the lowest offices to the highest.

This command implies obedience to the lawful orders of a superior, with well-defined duties, specific powers, and salaries and privileges objectively assessed. A recognized system of internal promotion emphasizes the nature of the hierarchical pyramid.

Early systems – historical background

Public administration has ancient origins.

The principal office holders were regarded as being principally responsible for administering:

. Justice

. Maintaining law and order

. Providing plenty

Romans developed a more sophisticated system under their empire, creating distinct administrative hierarchies for:

. Justice

. Military affairs

. Finance and taxation

. Foreign affairs

. Internal affairs

An elaborate administrative structure, later imitated by the Roman Catholic Church, covered the entire empire, with a hierarchy of officers reporting back through their superiors to the emperor.

Apart from justice and treasury departments, which originated in old court offices, modern ministerial structures in Europe developed out of the royal councils, which were powerful bodies of nobles appointed by the monarch. From the division of labor within these bodies the monarchs’ secretaries, initially given low status within a council, emerged as perhaps the first professional civil servants in Europe in the modern sense.

Modern developments

The foundations of modern public administration in Europe were laid in Prussia in the late 17th and 18th centuries.

The electors of Brandenburg (who from 1701 were the kings of Prussia) considered a rigidly centralized government a means of ensuring stability and furthering dynastic objectives.

Their principal effort was devoted in the first instance to the:

. Suppression of the autonomy of the cities

. The elimination of the feudal privileges of the aristocracy.

Civil servants were therefore appointed by the central government to administer the provinces.

The management of crown lands and the organization of the military system were combined in a “Office of War and Crown Lands”.

Subordinates to these offices were the TAX COUNCILLORS, who controlled the administration of the municipalities and communes. These officials were all appointed by the central government and were responsible to it.

Developing nations

Less-developed countries have had to face the opposite problem with their civil services.

Few of the colonial powers had trained indigenous administrators sufficiently.

The British left a viable administrative structure in India and a partly Indianized civil service, but the newly independent Pakistan had few experienced civil servants.

The lack of qualified personnel sometimes led to:

. Reduction in efficiency in the civil service

. Decline in administrative morality

. Nepotism

. Tribalism

. Corruption

The incapacity of the civil service was a factor leading to military rule, as were the political failings of the elected leaders.

Military regimes have frequently been the last resort of a country where the civil power has fail

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