Intro To Public Administration
Intro To Public Administration
Intro To Public Administration
The word administer is derived from the Latin word administere, which means to care for or to
look after people, to manage affairs. Administration may be defined as group activity which
involves cooperation and coordination for the purpose of achieving desired goals or objectives.
Administration comprises two essentials, namely (1) cooperative effort, and (2) pursuit of common
objectives.
According to William Schulze Administration is the force, which lays down the object for which an
organisation and its management are to strive and the broad policies under which they are to
operate. Administration sets the goal, management strives to attain it and organisation is the
machine of the management for the attainment of the ends determined by the administration.
Administration is a determinative function. Management, on other hand is an executive function
that is primarily concerned with carrying out the broad policies laid down by the administration.
Organisation is the machinery through which coordination is established between administration
and management.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Encyclopaedia Britannica defines public administration as the application of a policy of a state
through its government. But today the term public administration is used in a broader sense that it
is not only involved in carrying out the programmes of the government, but it also plays an
important role in policy formulation and covers the three branches of the government.
As a study public administration examines every aspect of governments efforts to discharge the
laws and to give effect to public policy; as a process, it is all the steps taken between the time an
enforcement agency assumes jurisdiction and the last break is placed (but includes also that
agencys participation, if any, in the formulation of the programme in the first place); and as a
vocation, it is organising and directing the activities of others in a public agency.
Definition offered by F.A. Nigro and L.G. Nigro. According to them Public Administration:
is co-operative group effort in a public setting;
covers all three branches-executive, legislative, and judicial, and their inter-relationships;
has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus a part of the political
process;
is different in significant ways from private administration; and
is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the
community.
In sum, public administration:
is the non-political public bureaucracy operating in a political system;
deals with the ends of the State, the sovereign will, the public interests and laws;
is the business side of government and as such concerned with policy execution, but it is also
concerned with policy-making;
Scope of Public Administration as a Discipline: POSDCoRB view and Subject Matter view.
POSDCoRB Planning, Organisation, Staffing, Directing, Co-ordinating reporting the Budgeting.
Public administration is an instrument with two blades like a pair of scissors. One blade may be
knowledge of the field covered by POSDCoRB, the other blade is knowledge of the subject matter in
which these techniques are applied. Both blades must be good to make an effective tool.