Scientific Evaluation of the American Public Administration - Research Paper Example

The “Scientific approach” and its impact on American Public administration Introduction Public administration definition has remained difficult owing to its close interaction, associations and influences from fields like political science, law, human relations and social science. Owing to the numerous fields from which public administration borrows, there are many approaches to public administration. Some of the common approaches to public administration include historical and legal approach, institutional approach, behavioral systems approach, closed and open models and structural functional approach among others. Despite the wide scope of public administration, the central role to the society is ensuring good governance and ensuring effective and efficient achievement of collective goals. However, the United States civil service system had remained solidified in bureaucracy and hierarchical glory where public administrators were placed into position through patronage and not merit (Katsamunska 75). With the implementation of Max Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy and merit system, administrators are positioned through expertise and qualifications. This paper uses several case studies to evaluate the scientific approach and the impacts of this approach on the American public administration. Contemporary case studies 1. Paradigms of US public administration Historical foundations and progression of the study of public administration in America is classified by Henry (1975) as falling under five paradigms which are political/administration dichotomy of 1900-1926; the principles of administration of 1927-1937; public administration as political science of 1950-1970; Public administration as administrative science and public administration as public administration of 1970 (Henry 378). With political administration dichotomy, there was separation of politics and administration where politics had to do with policies or expressions while administration had to do with execution of the expressions or policies (Henry 379). The use of distinctive politics/administration dichotomy is strengthened through association to a corresponding value/fact dichotomy (Henry 379). The principles of public administration’s greatest concern were to retool pubic administration to become a pure science that was technically oriented. The challenge with this model was that it would lose touch with realities of political and social science (Henry 379). In the 1950-1970, public administration began being viewed as political science. However, public administration continually lost focus since the main concern was renewed definition of governmental bureaucracy. For the public administrators, the reaction was displaying of undisguised contempt while political scientists began their search for an alternative which was in administration science 1956-1970. However, despite the inclusion of public administration in administration science, its uniqueness and identity was lost since administrative science was not advocating for universal principles but argued that each organization has its characteristics, patterns and pathologies common to other organizations. The fifth paradigm was a call to have public administration borrow and redefine in its own terms (Henry 382). 2. Classical and Modern approaches to public administration In order to define public administration, Katsamunska classified public administration approaches as classical and modern (74). The classical approach of public administration was derived from Weber (German), Wilson and Taylor (Americans) and Tevelyan Report in United Kingdom and for the largest part dominated the 20th century. According to Weber, bureaucracy in public administration is the most important principle. However, by 1980s the bureaucracy model changed to flexible market based public administration and let to change in the style of management, role of the government and relation of the government to citizenry. Traditional public administration was developed to ensure that the state is run in a stable and predictable way that would not meet new challenges and was resistant to change (Katsamunska 74). Weber’s hierarchical bureaucracy in public administration was commonly accepted in European continent. In the United States, public administration was founded on scientific management as discovered by Taylor. Modern public administration is flexible since it has to adjust and accommodate the rapidly and unpredictably changing environment (Katsamunska 74). Flexibility in public administration plays the role of ensuring that there is good governance in terms of efficiency, ethicality, accountability and transparent administration. The wave of reforms began from the Anglo-American countries who gave great importance to the private sector forms and techniques in the process of modernization (Katsamunska 74). . The European countries’ new model of public administration was distinct and dealt with reforms. Modern public administration was founded in the 1980s and early 1990s when there was a wave to change public administration from its roots. In the United Kingdom, the changes aimed at implementing three ‘e’s of economy, effectiveness and efficiency through massive privatization of public enterprises while cutting other public sector parts (Katsamunska 74). The main reforms on central government carried out involved nations like New Zealand, UK, USA and Australia which pursued strategies of privatization and marketizing (Katsamunska 78). . In these governments, the restructuring or the public sector is the role of the private sector for nations with individualistic culture and pro-business attitude. In Europe, the adoption of marketization and privatization has generally been adopted in the traditional weberian government. The main changes involved creation of a professional culture of quality and service, supplementation of the role of representative democracy, professionalization of public service and resources management (Katsamunska 79). . 3. E-Government With the discovery of information ICT Zouridis and Thaens argue that public administration towards e-government that is beyond the emphasis of the technocrats (159). Public administrators and public managers viewed ICT as the gateway to renew and change public administration process and improve the organization, efficiency and effectiveness of public administration. E-government was seen to have led to the development of processes of administrative reform and new public management throughout the world (Zouridis and Thaens 159). The survival of e-government was guaranteed by the fact that e-learning and e-commerce and e-business had survived. The change from government to e-government is characterized by four stages which are presence stage where the government is on the internet; the interaction stage where government uses the internet to interact with citizens; transaction stage where the communication between government and the people are is connected with delivery of public service and then the transformation of organizations and institutions in the government (Molakovich and Gordon 27). Examples of e-governments include e-Europe which is an initiative launched by the European Commission with the aim of benefiting the Europeans with information society and ensuring that public services are offered to all through the internet. With e-government, citizens are customers and techniques of customer relationship management or CRM are introduced to service delivery (Zouridis and Thaens 163). The development of e-government saw USA, Canada and Singapore as being among the top innovative leaders while e-government index indicate that North America, South America, Europe and Middle East were above average in the provision of quality information technology services (Zouridis and Thaens 162). Components of public administration and relationship to scientific approach to American public administration The key components of public administration are state administration and self administration and are considered the most dynamic parts of the modern state (Holzer and Gabrielian 1). Public administration is said to be public affairs administration with certain functions. The main functions or vehicles of public administration are planning, management, underlying public administration, the nature of public administration field and imaginative creativity in administration. State administration is exercised by the state and is extrapolated from the status and goals of the state while self government is exercised by public law subjects other than the state like public law corporations (Holzer and Gabrielian 1). Among other things, planning is implicated in policy analysis and policy studies and budgeting, management includes directing, coordinating, and controlling and citizen participation. Underlying public administration considers factors like ideology, symbols and language that impact and shape administrative planning and management. Ideology refers to a structure of interrelated values, ideas, and beliefs on the nature of the society and people. According to Holzer and Gabrielian (10), the field of public administration in America is intended to observe honest, efficient, partisan-free government administration. The underlying assumptions for this idea are that there are divine laws of well-being and social order and the ultimate function of the government in expression and execution of will (Holzer and Gabrielian 10). Through the progressive movement, administration is separated from politics and evaluating best practices as practiced in the private sector. The separation of politics from administration led to the idea of machine like efficiency characterized by minimum waste of energy which borrowed intensely from scientific management school for sophisticated analysis of administrative decision –making (Holzer and Gabrielian 10). Despite the need to have politics separated from administration, policy making makes it evident that the dichotomy was no longer realistic. At this point, the establishment of clear, fixed laws of democratic structure was needed such that each institution was assigned specific and exclusive roles since the democratic political system had no set role for public administration (Bryer 1). In the United States, the separation of administration from politics is has been possible through the ability to maintain control over reasonably effective system of administration such that there is not political collapse or seizure of power by public officials led by military officers (Riggs). After the implementation of Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy and merit system, there was a separation of the public administrators from the people given their expertise and qualification. This separation led to the dimensions of active citizenship and bureaucratization where citizens only served as a source of public opinion in terms of good and bad administration while the public administrators were to be experts and remain discrete. Through public opinion, the public would be directly involved in administrative affairs and the process of governance. The involvement of public remained of relevance importance and sound management of public administration of government required implementation of scientific knowledge using Taylor’s four principles of scientific management (Bryer 5). First, collecting of workplace knowledge and making rules, setting conduct and establishing processes. Second was selecting workers that were best it for the job. Third step was putting the selected workers to work under scientifically established processes. Finally, work was to be divided equally among all workers and management (Bryer 7). Today bureaucratization is bled with active citizenship that warrants direct citizen participation. Ethical implications of scientific approach to American public administration According to Dahl (1), the science of public administration was faced with challenges of normative values, distortions caused by persistent personal psyche and presumably immaterial effects of cultural settings. Universally, science is accepted as not demonstrating moral values which makes writers on public administration to assume that they are insulated from observing values and instead crash them (Dahl 2). Through the observation of values in science of administration, the ultimate test of value in administration is conditioned and not changed. Normative values in public administration result to the erosion of the question of responsibility and decline in conflicts arising from objectives (Dahl 3). Science of public administration is limited by human behavior which lessens the possibility of using procedures that are experimental, reduces uniformity of data; results to incredibly vast and complex mass of human behavior data and weakening of the laws of public administration given that there is less predictability about the conduct of man (Bryer 6). Incorporation of human behavior in public administration experiences complexity owing to uncertainty and changing environment. The incorporation challenge is as a result of the existing institutionalized behavior patterns in different nations owing to association with factors such as historical episodes, failures, traumas and successes. As a result, any principle of public administration cannot have equal validity in every nation state given differences in social, political and economic environment to support it (Bryer 1). In the United States, human behavior is well accounted for in public administration thereby resulting to successful administrative system. However, this public administrative system cannot be replicated elsewhere given the historical events in the US are not the same for all other countries (Riggs). The social setting in America contributes to the formation of its administrative system and it is not worth it to assume that other cultures different from US will adapt such a system without any changes. Public administration as a science often assumes that a principle of political organization borrowed from one country would be used in another country with equal or greater success there by ignoring the peculiarities of the environment it is put (Bryer 10). Public administration evolution and scientific approach In 1900-1926, public administration was based on the dichotomy of politics/administration. Both politics and administration were separate as politics dealt with expressions and policies of the will of the state while administration dealt with their execution. At any given time, there was a distinction between legislative branch and the executive which was impartial and apolitical (Dahl 2)l. The development of public administration was triggered by American universities through public service movement. In 1914, the American universities were concerned with training for citizenship, professionals such as law training government positions experts and specialists. During this period, public administration was a clear subfield of political science and public administrators would be trained in university political science departments. With the dichotomy of politics/administration, the trained public administrators were ready to work in the field provided they were well equipped to apply the specific scientific principles of administration. The knowledge of the scientific principles of public administration by public administrators was important but there was no clear scope or locus where public administration principles were to be applied (Dahl 2). However, by 1950, the dichotomy of politics/administration and principles of public administration was overthrown leaving public administration very without identity. In response to the challenge of lost identity, it was prescribed that administration be a pure science and prescribing for public policy which would make the two components mutually reinforcing. After mid 19th century, public administration was viewed as political science with renewed definition of locus through governmental bureaucracy. As an administrative science, public administration did not advocate for universal principles but did contend on the presence of certain patterns and pathologies in all methodologies of management and organizations. This meant that public administrationists would not gain genuinely important knowledge as the distinction between public and private administration was nonexistent and the dividing line between the two remained a dilemma. In the 1970s public administration defined public by delineating a locus for the field and strengthening the zeroing fundamental social factors (Dahl 6). According to Holzer and Gabrielian (5), public administration classification takes two forms which are management of public organizations and the role of democracy in constitutional democracy framework. The management of public organizations takes the forms of classic administrative model with contributions from Weber, Wilson, and Taylor to Simon and March the human relations model was contributed by Mayo and Follett among others. Conversely, bureaucracy is instrumental, crucial actor in political process and dominant in the process of policies. However, defining public administration as public administration was not enough to given the discovery of potential of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) which enforces the science perspective of e-government (Zouridis and Thaens 163). In order to shape e-government, there should be laws and regulations, streamlined data, secured confidential transactions, ICT awareness and development of ICT skills and establishment of initiatives to support e-government (Zouridis and Thaens 164). Proposed solutions to the issue Despite great effort to establish scientific approach to American public administration, there has not been an optimum level of confidence in the government by people. In fact, public confidence is at its lowest. Instead of being angry at the government, American citizens were frustrated with the government as revealed by Kettl (3). From the elected officials, the public expects better leadership while from the government agencies, the public expects better performance. According to Molakovich and Gordon (27), the adoption of new technology like internet, World Wide Web and satellite would be responsible for revolutionizing knowledge and promoting government sponsored scientific research. The restoration of public confidence, as stated by Kettl (5) would involve turning away to from solutions provided by private sector on public administration problems and using government organizations for advice. In addition, state and local universities should reinforce their curriculum in order to ensure that students taking public administration receive the right counsel and training such that they can tackle any public problems. For public administration in America, embracing of the privatization idea should be sparingly done after there is a clear understating of the organization’s mission and aligning it to the needs of the citizens (Dahl 2). This way, the received results will be satisfactory owing to full-hearted reforms. Reflections In theory, I have realized that public administration is expected to have the government running effectively through optimal utilization of resources with minimum wastage. However, in practice, the theory has gaps in implementation given that the public sector is not well understood owing to the large scope and the failure of public administrators to identify what works and what does not work. In addition, politics and administration seems to be running out of dichotomy with politics tending to influence administration and resulting to poor administration. There is also a failure to for public administrators to engage in cutting edge issues that would allow the American public administration seek for long term solutions that fit effectively to the new public administration instead of using quick solutions obtained from private sector and which do not fit into the more scientific new government problems. Today, public confidence in public administration is dependent on performance and incorporating new perspectives to making large and complex organizations that are bureaucratic is more responsive to the needs of citizens (Kettl 7). As a matter of fact, I think it is not worth providing theory to student public administrator without giving them the ability to predict and comprehend something real and worth of engaging such that future problems in public administration are answered (Kettl 7). Apart from conforming to the law, Spicer highlights that public administrators and public managers should see to it that they conform to rules, principles, social and political order customs such that they offer their services ethically to all citizens (30). Works cited Bryer, Thomas. "Bureaucratization and Active Citizenship: Approaches to Administrative Reform" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 15, 2004. 3 April 2013 Dahl, Robert A. “The science of public administration: Three problems.”Public Administration Review 7.1 (1947): 1-11. Print. Henry, Nicholas. “Paradigms of public administration.” Public administration review35.4 (1975): 378-386. Print. Holzer, Marc and Gabrielian Vatche. “Five Great ideas in American public administration.”Principles and Practices of Public Administration. Ed. Jack Rabin, Robert F. Munzenrider and Sherrie M. Bartell. New Jersey: Marcel Dekker, Inc.,2003. 1-55. Books a million.Web. 25 Mar. 2013. Katsamunska, Polya. “Classical and Modern Approaches to public Administration.” Economic Alternatives, 1 (2012): 74-81. Print. Kettl, Donald F. “The Future of Public Administration”. Journal of Public Affairs Education 5 (1999): 127-133. Print. Riggs, Fred W. “Public Administration in America: the Exceptionalism of a hybrid Bureaucracy.” Hawaii.edu. N.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2013. Spicer, Michael W. The founders, the constitution and public administration: a conflict in World Views.Washington, DC: Georgtown University press, 1995. Print. Molakovich, Michael E., and Gordon J. George.Public administration in America. Boston, MA: Cengage learning, 2009. Print. Zouridis, Stavros and Thaens Marcel. “E-Government: Towards a Public Administration Approach.”Asian Journal of Public Administration25.2 (2003): 159-183. Read More