INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER - 1

Administration has been a part of the human culture since a century. Prior to that, it
was more about ‘who rules the populace’ rather than ‘how it was to be done’.

Administration is a combination of two words, ‘ad’ and ‘ministaire’ meaning to ‘serve’.

In crude terms, Public Administration is ‘to serve’ the people by the State that is
ruling or as it is today, the government in power.

It involves implementation of public policy by the executive branch of a government

caters to the needs of the citizens.

The State is a recent phenomenon. We have some evidence of the system of the
republic in Rome where it was established. Greece supported democracy whereas
India has the rich heritage of Kautilya’s ‘Arthashastra’ in which guidelines were
provided for a king on ‘how to rule’ but the ancient period was consistently
riddled(pudhiraana) with conspiracies(sattathittangal) and wars to win the lands and
increase territories.

Public interest and public good were the least of their worries. The present-day
governments have the responsibility to deliver public goods effectively and efficiently
for the benefit of the public. To accomplish this, a new study began and scholars
began theorizing about it

The definition of Public Administration as provided by eminent thinkers is

given in the following section, along with brief explanations were necessary;

KARL MARX:
Administration is the concrete action taken to achieve a conscious goal.
It is the systematic arrangement of affairs and the calculated use of resources aimed
at making the things one wants happen.
Marx implied that administration does not and cannot happen on its own. It is a
deliberate effort with a goal in mind.
Secondly, it cannot be an unplanned effort and should be carried on in a systematic
planned, sequential way with a judicious utilization of available resources.

W. F. Willoughby ‘
Administration of a government exactly parallels the management of organizational
affairs in any sphere and has efficiency as itsprimary concern’.
He gave five principles of administration which are:
• General or overhead administration: planning, coordination, commanding, etc.
• Organizational structure: study of the design of the organization, such as, hierarchy,
scalar chain, etc.
• Personnel Administration: recruitment, training, promotion, etc.
• Financial Administration: economic use of financial resources.
• Materials and supply: materials management.

J. M. Pfiffner
‘Administration is the organization and direction of human and material resources to
achieve desired ends’.
This definition depicts administration as an instrument using physical and human
resources to attain the identified goals. So, it becomes a cooperative effort to work
for common objectives. He lays stress on the coordinating role of administration.
Woodrow Wilson
‘Public Administration is a detailed and systematic application of law’

K. D. White
‘Public Administration comprises all those operations that have for their purpose the
fulfilment or enforcement of public policy’.

Marshall E. Dimock
‘Public Administration is the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy as declared by
the competent authorities. … Public Administration is law in action. It is the executive
side of government’

Luther Gulick
‘Public Administration is that part of administration which has to do with the
government and this concerns itself primarily with the executive branch, where the
work of the government is done, though there are obviously administrative problems
also in connection with the legislative and judicial branches’.

Felix A. Nigro and Lloyd G.

Nigro They defined Public Administration focussing the following aspects:
• A cooperative group effort in a public setting
• Covers all three branches—executive, legislative and judiciary—and their
interrelationships.
• Has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part of the
political process.
• Is more important than, and is also different in significant ways from private
administration.
• Is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing
services to the community.

According to the UNDP, Public Administration has two closely related concepts:
Responsible for the direction of the administration and affairs of the total
machinery(policies, rules, procedures, systems, organizational structures, personnel
and so forth) and executive government financed by the state budget and its
interaction with the state, society and other stakeholders in the external environment.

The management and implementation of the whole set of government activities

dealing with the implementation of laws, regulations and decisions of the government
and the management related to the provision of public services.

This definition of Public Administration was given by UNDP in 2003 which is probably
the reason why it is such a comprehensive one. It talks about almost all the areas of
Public Administration.

Vews held about Public Administration with respect to the nature of the
discipline.
Ans. The activities and scope of Public Administration is changing drastically with
time and the definitions cannot sustain for long. Yet it is true that the definitions of
Public Administration lead to the emergence of two views regarding the nature of
Public Administration, one being the integral view and the other the managerial view

The Integral View

The ‘Integral View’, as given by L.D. White, holds Public Administration as the, ‘the
sum total of all the activities undertaken in pursuit of fulfilment of policy.’ These
activities include managerial, technical, manual and the clerical activities undertaken
to achieve the objective.

Scholars like L. D. White, Marshall Dimock and Henri Fayol, Woodrow Wilson, F. A.
Nigro and Pfiffner prescribed to this view. They called it the ‘wider view’ which
comprises the three branches of the government, that is, the executive, the
legislative and the judiciary. Dimock states that the issues deal with the ‘what’ and
‘how’ of a government. The ‘what’ being the subject matter and the technical
knowhow to enable the administrating official to carry out his activities.

Managerial(nirvaagam) View
As the name suggests, this view proposes that Public Administration deals with the
work of those individuals who are engaged in the managerial functions in an
organization. Such officials are responsible for planning, programming and
organizing all the operational activities to accomplish the identified goals.

‘According to Gullick Management is concerned with getting things done by

accomplishing(saadhikiradhu) defined objectives.’

Gulick and Urwick provided the concept of POSDCORB—Planning, Organization,

Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting.

Both the views, integral and managerial, differ in their approach. Dimock and Koenig
stated that Public Administration, as a study, basically involves all aspects of a
government’s intentions to implement laws to bring public policy to the ground zero.
On the other hand, Public Administration as a process comprises all the phases
beginning from the enforcing agency demarcating and implementing the public
policies in jurisdiction along with the other agencies particular to complete the
process. However, the integral view would be more suited to India as the
administration is quite traditional

SCOPE OF PUB AD;

Public Administration is a tool of the government to carry out all its activities, hence
its scope(nokkam) is the government’s activity. While studying the scope of Public
Administration, it is implied that we are dealing with the most relevant of its
operations as an activity as well as a discipline.

There are various views on this issue, but the common keywords that arise are
government and public policy. As provided by Willoughby, we can examine the
division of government functions into five areas – public administration, organization,
personnel, material and finance. With the recent developments of globalization,
privatization and liberalization, it can be said that privatization is prevailing when
determining the scope of public administration.

Even though there are varying views on what the scope of Public Administration is,
an effort will be made here to mention all the views:
• The Traditional View: The scholars supporting this view refer to only the executive
branch. The involved activities here were organization, personnel and procedures in
any governmental activity to execute public policies. This view did not hold strong in
the light of other views with respect to scope.

• The Modern View: Thinkers of Public Administration held that a modern state had to
undertake various types of activities and that the scope of Public Administration
comprises all activities of the government in the field of public goods and services,
defence, law and order, accountability and transparency and in public sector
undertakings.

Public Administration as a Discipline: Public Administration developed as an

individual discipline in the twentieth century when the political leaders and scholars
began realizing its importance. The major contributor of this view was Luther Gulick
who provided the concept of POSDCORB

POSDCORB in a nutshell, promotes unity, certainty and predictability to Public

Administration. It provides an instrumentality that combines interrelated interacting
elements to work as a coherent entity. However, it is criticized on grounds that the
POSDCORB techniques cannot form the scope of Public Administration.

Subject matter or substantive views : மேலே விளக்கப்பட்ட POSDCORB

பார்வை சரியானதல்ல என்பதால், பாதுகாப்பு, சட்டம் மற்றும்
ஒழுங்கு போன்ற நிர்வாக நிறுவனங்களால் வழங்கப்படும்
மற்றும் செய்யப்படும் சேவைகள் கருத்தில் கொள்ளப்பட
வேண்டும்.

The areas on which these techniques can be applied are:

• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Public Personnel Administration
• Public Financial Administration
• Comparative and Development Administration
• Public Policy Analysis.
L. D. White also supported this view taking the broader view covering the subject. To
sum up, the modern state needs to combine all these views and keep up with the
dynamically changing needs globally. The scope of the Public Administration keeps
changing and expanding with times.

Significance of the discipline with special reference to modern day

democracies;
Public Administration is a tool to deliver goods and services to people. Its whole
purpose revolves around this function, that is, ‘to serve’. The effort is to improve all
the fields whether it is defence, law and order, health and sanitation. Public
Administration, as a social service, does not mean the absence of authority or power,
for example, there is an essential need to have economic control mechanisms to
have a balanced economic growth or a strong police force to maintain law and order.
It is the right amalgamation of power and the consciousness of duties and
responsibilities. Public Administration as a ‘discipline’ has been evolving to invent
methods and techniques to achieve an increase in the 3 ‘Es’ of Efficiency, Economy
and Effectiveness.

Polity is responsible for making and enforcing laws,providing public services and
resolving disputes . Governance refers to process of making and implementing
decisions in orderr to achieve a goal or set of goals.

The significance of Public Administration, cannot be underestimated. Given below

are the relevant areas of the importance of Public Administration

A Governance Tool:
Public Administration is first and foremost, a governance tool. The government
activities have increased manifold with public interest as its motive. Government is a
necessary face the globalization, privatization and liberalization with respect to the
regulatory factor in its execution, for example, in dealing with economy, terrorism,
food and agriculture, control of corruption, etc.

Global governance indicators include voting rights and accountability, political

stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule
of law, and control of corruption, which are crucial to having a prosperous society.

A Tool for Development:

Economic, social and cultural growth is not possible without paying attention to
Development Administration. Growing multinational corporations as a consequence
of globalization require Public Administration to play an important proactive role.
Historically, Public Administration has been a tremendous tool for development
administration.

There is evidence that the Roman Republic indulged in a lot of public activities and
gave special encouragement to the systems of administration, law and legislative
democracy. Such activities can be termed as developmental as they add to the
betterment and upliftment of the society

Herodotus, also a Greek scholar, researched a lot about comparative Public

Administration. Development administration is considered important with respect to
the growth of methodologies to execute public policies though it was a part of
Comparative Public Administration.
Development administration deals with the administrative capacity building in the
fields of personnel, finance, accounting, etc. to conduct social activities.
It focuses on the developmental activities of the Government. India has seen growth
of development administration via Planning Commission through Five Year Plans
and now via NITI Aayog which aims at developing the nation at the grassroots level

Public Administration in a Welfare State: The concept of a welfare state gained

momentum after the decline of colonialism and the growth of sovereignty in the post-
World War I period. Before the World Wars, the nation-state was only concerned with
improving its borders and how to win wars. To do that, it had to strengthen its police
and military strength. After the wars, the welfare state emerged, which assumed the
duties and responsibilities of fulfilling the welfare of the people. The government was
supposed to provide physical and social infrastructure to the citizens.

CHAPTER - 2
Wilson’s View of Public Administration.

Wilson’s view of Public Administration.

Ans. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was born in Stanton,
Virginia in USA.He became the President of the USA in 1911 and
wrote eight books.

While he contributed a lot to the study of Public Administration, he

managed to achieve a lot in the field of politics by keeping USA out
of the First World War. This was a big accomplishment since it kept
the country on the developmental path.

He gave a world-changing slogan to the Americans, ‘Let’s make the

world a safe place for democracy’. He insisted on USA taking over
as the world’s judge as well as its chief of police.

He was the 28th President of the USA and wrote eight books on
administration,with specific focus on a scientific study on
administration. His essay on, ‘The Study of Administration’ became
very popular in 1887 after it was published in the ‘Politics Science
Quarterly’.

Backdrop to the Science of Administration

The backdrop to the paper is that there was a spoils system[1] in
the USA and it was being exploited at the political level. The period
from 1880 to 1900 in the USA was one of reaction and began a
movement against the problems of urbanization, immigration,
corruption, inefficiency and loss of ethics. The sorry tale for the
system was caused in part because President Jackson had given
high posts to party supporters without any merit criterion
CONTRIBUTION OF WILSON TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Wilson provided many concepts such as, public opinion, uniformity
of administrative systems, constitutional law, etc. There is a need
to understand how he considered Public Administration to be a
science

Nature of Public Administration;

Wilson believed that public administration was a science. As he was in contact with
German and French scholars, he observed that it was their fault that administration
was not clearly defined. Second, European governments were not elected by the
people, and they were highly centralized. This made administration easier because
officials did not have to worry about public opinion, which made administrative
operations slow and cumbersome.

Constitutional Principle and Administrative Reforms;

Wilson believed that a constitution should be amended within 10 years for some
issue. Therefore, Administrative reforms cannot be combined with law because law
can change and it takes a hard time for the government to adapt to the changes.
Therefore, administrative science should be studied very carefully.

Discuss the contributions of Woodrow Wilson to the study of

Public Administration.
Wilson said that government operations had changed from an era when there
were no problems of public revenue or public debt to one that puzzled
financiers. The need to study administrative work is important because the
problem is to run the constitution rather than to create it.

Wilson says, ‘The idea of government is the conscience of management.’

Once the government has decided what to do in response to changing needs,
it must figure out ‘how’. This is where the relevance of ‘administrative science’
comes in. Administrative science was developed by German and French
professors, and it was foreign to other countries. It had to be adapted to the
complex and diverse state of America

The reason for the slow development of administrative science in America is that America is a free-
willed country and was founded on the principles of liberty, freedom and fraternity.
Therefore, the policies of the government were also liberal, and the government was also slow to
apply them.
The government grew with a 'bad' style, but its advantage was that it led to simplicity and health in
constitutional development.

PERIODS OF GROWTH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF

ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS
Period of absolute rulers;
In the days of absolute rulers, there was an administrative system
that transformed itself into an absolute government.
The regimes that exist today are only as good as those that have
been reshaped to suit the larger 'political light' and have the idea
that the rulers are merely servants of the governed.
Administrations are organized into governments that are used to
easily deal with the problems and sorrows of the common people.
Wilson gave the example of Prussia, where Frederick the Great
created a very strong civil service system, and it is one of the most
refined administrative systems today, originally created by a
monarch.

Administration as a buisness;
Wilson views the administration as a business department
separated from political and constitutional studies. Administration
demands to eliminate all kinds of confusion from administrative
systems and to establish it on the basis of empirically tested good
principles. He emphasized on the better performance of
administrative functions and improved methods of administrative
organization and functioning. Therefore, civil service reforms are a
precursor to administrative reforms

Blunkhli, an eminent German thinker considers administration

separate from politics and law

ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTION:

Constitution and administration are fundamentally different in terms of the changes that the
government has to make, according to the law, to facilitate administration. Wilson distinguished
between constitutional law and administrative functions. Wilson defined public administration as ‘the
detailed and systematic implementation of the general law and every specific application of the
general law is an act of administration’, for example, the formulation and collection of taxes. The
administrator has his own discretion in devising the means to achieve the set goals.

Division of Authority ;
Administrative review is closely related to the study of the proper
and systematic allocation of constitutional power.Wilson gave a few
principles regarding authority
Accountability(poruppudaimai);
For Wilson's era, the development of the concept of accountability
is highly commendable. He defined responsibility in addition to
accountability. This required a clear and consistent authority. The
separation of powers at the highest levels of government became a
significant constitutional standard. Management studies analyze
the concept of separation of powers to ensure credibility by
defining responsibility to improve the parameters of an
organization's performance.

Large powers lead to responsibility;

Wilson opined that if an officer is given more power at his
discretion, he is less likely to misuse it. The important condition
here is that it should be divided into shares proportional to the
position in an organization and not divided too much, otherwise,
the ‘power’ will be hidden and lead to less responsibility. Wilson
suggested that power should be centralized in the heads of service
and department heads. If an officer is given less power and
responsibility, he will feel insecure and neglected, and he will not
do his best and will be more likely to misuse his power

Public services;
What Wilson spoke important issue he addressed in his article was
public service. For him, the story of educating people about the
nature of governance does not end there. Political candidates
should know that they should deliver public services. At the time
Wilson made this point, he predicted the rise of political science,
but he also said that it would not help prepare administrators.

Training of civil servants;

Wilson spoke of creating a corps of civil servants with the
sensitivity to form opinions. A formal traditional school for civil
servants would teach them appropriate hierarchy and discipline,
although Wilson acknowledged that this class would become a class
hated by free and liberal Americans. The general principles of
government can be studied through political science (political
science), but it cannot develop the skills to manage government.
Political science can certainly help legislators, but not bureaucrats.
The civil service must be reorganized and better bureaucrats must
be produced by having a technically educated civil service.

Wilson was essentially talking about his own country, the United
States, and had no theory, method, or concept about the Third
World. ‘We do not study the art of governing: we govern,’ he said.
On the other hand, he said that there were rude democrats in
America who had a long way to go before they could become
civilized and sophisticated civil servants.
CPA will help evolve a system that can help in the interest of all to
form confederations like the British by helping governments. A
common objective to gain equality can hold the nations together