POL343 - Theories and Practice of Public Administration PDF
POL343 - Theories and Practice of Public Administration PDF
POL343 - Theories and Practice of Public Administration PDF
GUIDE
POL 343
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NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
University Village, Plot 91, Cadastral Zone,
Nnamdi Azikiwe Express Way,
Jabi- Abuja.
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POL 343 Course Guide
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POL 343 Course Guide
1.1 Introduction
Welcome to POL 343: Theories And Practice Of Public Administration.
This course is a three (3) unit course for undergraduate students in Political Science. The
course guide gives you an overview of what Theories and Practice of Public Administration
is all about. It equally provides you with the necessary information on the organization and
requirements of the course. Indeed, the overall objective of this course is to expose you to the
concept of administration, public administration, management, organization and their
attendant relevance in the political development of a nation. It provides the theoretical
underpinnings and practical applications of broad-based knowledge of democratic ethos,
transparency and accountability, and abilities required for improving the delivery of public
services and implementation of government policies and programs. This is important because
the critical issues of underdevelopment in most communities across the world are not
unconnected with the failure of governance or public administration. The reasons why there
are successes and failures of the use of power and authority by leaders or government
officials and different perception of governance across the world will be made clear in this
course.
1.2 Course Aims & Objectives
The course ensures you:
(1) Have background information and knowledge in Theories and Practice of Public
Administration;
(2) Be up to date with the theoretical perspectives as well as methodological issues which the
course has to grapple with;
(4) Explain the similarities between public and private administration, and discuss the
ecology of administration
(7) Understand and discuss the relationships between administration and politics as well as
the various debates on the relationships that exist between them.
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(8) Identify and operationalise the concepts of administration and political institutions.
(9) Understand and discuss the orthodoxy in thinking concerning how the political system
functions in relation to administration.
(10) Identify and operationalise the concept of decision making and its theoretical bases.
(11) Explain the meaning of personnel management, recruitment, selection and placement of
personnel,
(12) Discuss the compensation of personnel in terms of wages and salary
(13) Describe the scientific management theory and trace its philosophy, evolution and
relation with mechanization and automation as well as its impact in planned economies.
There are twenty-one units in this course spanning five modules. These are as follows:
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MODULE 3: SELECTED THEORIES OF ADMINISTRATION I
Unit 1: Scientific Management Theory
Unit 2: Bureaucratic Management Theory
Unit 3: Functional Management Theory
Unit 4: Human Relations Movement
Every unit contains a list of references and further readings. Try to get as many as possible of
those textbooks and materials listed. The textbooks and materials are meant to deepen your
knowledge of the course. For this course, it is highly recommended that you consult widely in
your further choice of reading materials.
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1.7 Tutor Marked Assignment (TMAs)
You will have to submit a specified number of the (TMAs). Every unit in this course has a
Tutor-Marked Assignment. You will be assessed on four of them but the best three
performances from the (TMAs) will be used for computing your 30%. When you have
completed each assignment, send it together with a Tutor marked Assignment form to your
Tutor. Make sure each assignment reaches your tutor on or before the deadline for
submissions. If for any reason, you cannot complete your work on time, contact your tutor for
a discussion on the possibility of an extension. Extensions will not be granted after the due
date unless under exceptional circumstances.
Assessment Marks
Total = 100%
Presentation Schedule
The dates for submission of all assignment will be communicated to you. You will also be
told the date of completing the study units and dates for examinations.
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Course Overview
Unit Title of Work Week(s) Assessment
Activity
Course Guide
Module 1 CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS
Module 2 POLITICS/POLICY/ADMINISTRATION
DICHOTOMY
The following is a practical strategy for working through the course. If you run into any
trouble, telephone your tutor. Remember that your tutor’s job is to help you. When you need
assistance, do not hesitate to call and ask your tutor to provide it.
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1. Read this course guide thoroughly; it is your first assignment.
2. Organize a study schedule. Design a ‘Course Overview’ to guide you through the Course.
Note the time you are expected to spend on each unit and how the assignments relate to the
units. Important information, e.g. details of your tutorials, and the date of the first day of the
semester is available from the Study Centre. You need to gather all the information into one
place, such as your diary or a wall calendar. Whatever method you choose to use, you should
decide on and write in your own dates and schedule of work for each unit.
3. Once you have created your own study schedule, do everything to stay faithful to it. The
major reason that students fail is that they get behind with their course work. If you get into
difficulties with your schedule, please, let your tutor know before it is too late for help.
4. Turn to Unit 1, and read the introduction and the objectives for the unit.
5. Assemble the study materials. You will need your text books and the unit you are studying
at any point in time.
6. Work through the unit. As you work through the unit, you will know what sources to
consult for further information.
7. Keep in touch with your Study Centre. Up-to-date information on your course subjects will
be continuously available there.
8. Well before the relevant due date (about 4 weeks before due dates), keep in mind that you
will learn a lot by doing the assignment carefully. They have been designed to help you meet
the objectives of the course and, therefore, will help you pass the examination. Submit all
assignments not later than the due date.
9. Review the objectives for each study unit to confirm that you have achieved them. If you
feel unsure about any of the objectives, review the study materials or consult your tutor.
10. When you are confident that you have achieved a unit’s objectives, you can start on the
next unit. Proceed unit by unit through the course and try to pace your study so that you keep
yourself on schedule.
11. When you have submitted an assignment to your tutor for marking, do not wait for its
return before starting on the next unit. Keep to your schedule. When the assignment is
returned, pay particular attention to your tutor’s comments, both on the tutor marked
assignment form and also the written comments on the ordinary assignments.
12. After completing the last unit, review the course and prepare yourself for the final
examination. Check that you have achieved the unit objectives (listed at the beginning of
each unit) and the course objectives (listed in the Course Guide).
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Tutors and Tutorials
Information relating to the tutorials will be provided at the appropriate time. Your tutor will
mark and comment on your assignments, keep a close watch on your progress and on any
difficulties you might encounter and provide assistance to you during the course. You must
take your tutor-marked assignments to the study centre well before the due date (at least two
working days are required). They will be marked by your tutor and returned to you as soon as
possible. Do not hesitate to contact your tutor if you need help. Contact your tutor if you
experience any of the following:
*Not understanding any part of the study units or the assigned readings;
*Having difficulty with the exercises;
*You have a question or problem with an assignment or with your tutor’s comments on an
assignment or with the grading of an assignment.
Moreover, you should try your best to attend the tutorials. This is the only chance to have
face-to-face contact with your tutor and ask questions which are answered instantly. You can
raise any problem encountered in the course of your study. To gain the maximum benefit
from course tutorials, prepare a question list before attending them. You will learn a lot from
participating in discussions actively.
Summary
The course guide gives you an overview of what to expect in the course-Theories and
practice of Public Administration such as: Administration, Management, Organisation, Public
Administration and Management dynamics as it affect politics. Public Administration
theories and subsequently policy-making process. We wish you success in the course and
hope that you will find it both interesting and useful.
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CONTENTS
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MODULE 1: CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS
1.0 Introduction
The thrust of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concept of
administration. This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions
and ambiguities surrounding the concept of administration arising from the
multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Understand the different descriptions of administration,
b. Describe the differences between public and private administration,
c. Explain the similarities between public and private administration, and
d. Discuss the ecology of administration
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organism so perfectly that they should all operate as a unit (Adebayo, 1984).
Increasingly, those definitions and explanations, among others point to the fact
that administration is both public and private. Furthermore, there is another
sense in which the term administration may be used. This is in the sense
whereby the term administration is used to refer to senior personnel in the
executive branch of government. It is in this sense that the term is employed
when people speak of the “Shagari Administration”, “Babangida
Administration”, “Obasanjo Administration” etc. In whatever sense it is used,
administration has a long history which dates back to the beginning of the
history of mankind with research revealing administrative tasks and practices
since recorded history. Indications are that what we have today as modern
systems of administration have emerged, in one way or the other, from the old
practices and experiences of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, the Greeks and
Romans and much later from the Christian Church and the German Cameralists
of the Middle Ages.
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major objective of private administration is to maximize profit or other goals of
the owner(s) or group(s). In effect, the main beneficiary of the private
organisation is the individual owner or private group.
(ii) Focus on service or profit: The overriding aim of most private
organisations is to make profit. Accordingly, administration within such
organisations is concerned with the management of men and materials to attain
private aims, usually the maximisation of profit. This is not the case with
administration in public organisations. The primary purpose administration in
public organisation is service to the public. Even when government establishes
agencies which undertake commercial activities such as electricity,
telecommunication, and transportation, the major aim of such enterprises is to
provide service. Profit is accorded a secondary place.
(iii) Accountability and measure of Success: Private organisations are usually
established and financed by individuals, and groups. Administration within
private organisations is answerable to the owners and its success or efficiency is
usually measured in terms of the amount of profit it makes. By contrast, public
organisations are usually established by the acts of the parliament or orders of
the executive arm of government. The goals of the organisations are expected to
reflect the needs and aspirations of the citizens. Besides, public organisations
are supported with public funds. For these reasons, public officials who manage
public organisations are made accountable to the public The parliament, the
press, and even ordinary citizens have the right to inquire into the activities of
such public officials in order to ensure that the public purpose is served, and
that resources are not misappropriated. It is to be noted also that while
efficiency can easily be measured in private organisations by reference to profit,
this is not so in most public organisations. Indeed, it is not possible to measure
the profitability of some of the services provided by public agencies because of
the nature of such services. Furthermore, in order to promote public welfare,
government often undertakes unprofitable projects or provides services at
subsidised rates.
(iv) Level of complexity: It has been suggested that public administration is
more complex than private administration. The reason for this viewpoint is that
public agencies much more than private organisations need to respond to more
conflicting demands of the public. For instance, public administration is
required to respond to demands for fair treatment of citizens, representation of
different sectors of the society in addition to efficient provision of services.
These demands are too many to be responded to at the same time.
(v) Organisational procedure: The process of administration in government
organisations is much slower when compared with the process in private
organisations. This is the problem that people refer to when they accuse public
agencies of ‘red-tape’. For instance, the processes of hiring, promoting and
disciplining staff are usually very sluggish in public agencies. Public
organisations also respond more slowly to the wishes of the people. One major
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reason for the delays in procedure is the need to ensure adherence to established
rules and to protect public funds.
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territory influenced the growth and development of public administration in
Nigeria. Indeed, it was the colonial public administration which managed the
colonial territory (Nigeria) from about 1861 to 1954 when regional governments
were created, and made the territory to operate federal structure. Thus, the
public services of the then regional governments from 1954 to 1960, and up to
1966, were direct offshoots of the early British colonial public service
administrative structure in terms of ethics or values, culture and tradition,
training, procedures and espirit de corp associated with the public service.
Nigeria’s socio cultural conditions or the social Setting made up of very many
ethnic and cultural groups, and many languages also have affected the growth
and development of public administration in Nigeria. Those factors have created
problems of balancing management and control in the public service. In fact,
they are partly responsible for the problem of nepotism, and tribalism often
associated with the management of the public service in Nigeria.
The civil war of 1967 to 1970 was another significant influence on public
administration in Nigeria. The impact of the war was felt in all segments of the
Nigerian society: At the end of the War, the military apparently had such power
and authority in the federation which could not be easily challenged by any of
the constituents of the federation. That enabled the military to establish what
was called a results-oriented and unified grade structure public service for the
entire country through the recommendations of the 1974 Public Service Review
Commission (Udoji Commission). That public service reform has continued
influence on the structure and procedures of public administration in Nigeria till
date.
Even at the level of the private sector administration, there was also the
influence of capitalist mode of production, the capitalist values “profit and loss”
“demand and supply”, “market forces” etc. which have determined management
at the area of private business administration. Thus, till this day, capitalist
values and mode of production still dictate the dynamics of business
organisation and practice in Nigeria. Also to a very large extent, all these
considerations have influenced the nature and scope of public administration as
it is studied in Nigeria, and indeed in the rest of the world.
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4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to operationalise the basic concepts that are
central to understanding administration. The learner has been exposed to the
basic facts that there are various definitions of the concepts as presented by
various scholars. Despite the multidimentional and multidisciplinary approach
to the concept certain key characteristics are paramount.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to conceptualise administration, the
differences and similarities between public and private administration and
ecology of administration.
1. What is administration?
2. Attempt a historical sketch of the development of the discipline.
3. Make a distinction between private and public administration.
4. What is ecology of administration?
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7.0 References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed.) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan:
Spectrum Books.
Albers, H.U. (1973), Principles of Management: A Modern Approach, Paris:
Wiley international edition.
Anifowose, R. and F. Enemuo, (eds.) (1999), Elements of Politics, Lagos:
Malthouse Press.
Ashiru, A.T. (200 I), Management Theory: An introductory Approach, Ibadan:
Rasmed Publications Ltd.
Ikelegbe, A.O. (ed.) (1995), Politics and Government: An Introductory and
Comparative Perspective, Benin City: Uri Publishing Ltd.
Jones, G. R. et. al. (1998), Contemporary Management, Boston: Irwin McGraw
Hill.
Merril. A. F. (ed.) (1960), Classics in Management, New York: American
Management Association.
Nwachukwu C. C. (1988), Management Theory and Practice, Onitsha: Africana
FEP Publishers Limited.
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Unit 2: Management
1.0 Introduction
The thrust of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concept of
management, types of management, scope of management and historical
development of management. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the concept of management arising
from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Identify the different descriptions of management,
b. Describe the different types of management,
c. Explain the scope of management, and
d. Narrate the history of management.
Both administrators and managers are obsessed with the question of efficiency
and effectiveness; that is how best to achieve organizational objectives. Thus,
no matter the nature of what is being discussed whether it is administrative or
management theory, it invariable boils down to the same thing i.e. the proper
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structuring of organization in its capacity to function effectively (Adamolekun,
2002).
The English verb "manage" comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle,
especially tools or a horse), which derives from the
two Latin words manus (hand) and agere (to act). The French word for
housekeeping, ménagerie, derived from ménager ("to keep house";
compare ménage for "household"), also encompasses taking care of domestic
animals. Ménagerie is the French translation of Xenophon's famous
book Oeconomicus (Greek: Οἰκονομικός) on household matters and husbandry.
The French word mesnagement (or ménagement) influenced the semantic
development of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.
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of business administration knowledge. Administration has an input-dominated
structure with output being only incidental. In trying to control everything, the
administrators become so obsessed with how things should be done that they
ignore result.
3.Lower managers, such as supervisors and front-line team leaders, oversee the
work of regular employees (or volunteers, in some voluntary organizations) and
provide direction on their work.
In smaller organizations, an individual manager may have a much wider scope.
A single manager may perform several roles or even all of the roles commonly
observed in a large organization.
1. forecasting
2. planning
3. organizing
4. commanding
5. coordinating
6. controlling
According to Fayol, management operates through five basic functions:
planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding, and controlling.
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Management skills include:
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departments that teach management as "business schools". Some such
institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name, while others
(such as the Yale School of Management) employ the broader term
"management".
English-speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as
a collective word describing the managers of an organization, for example of
a corporation. Historically this use of the term often contrasted with the
term "labor" – referring to those being managed. But in the present era the
concept of management is identified in the wide areas and its frontiers have
been pushed to a broader range. Apart from profitable organizations even non-
profitable organizations (NGOs) apply management concepts. The concept and
its uses are not constrained. Management on the whole is the process of
planning, organizing, coordinating, leading and controlling.
In profitable organizations, management's primary function is the satisfaction of
a range of stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the
shareholders), creating valued products at a reasonable cost (for customers), and
providing great employment opportunities for employees. In nonprofit
management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models
of management and governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors,
and the board then hires senior management. Some organizations have
experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models) of
selecting or reviewing managers, but this is rare.
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system model, and various information-technology-driven theories such as agile
software development, as well as group-management theories such as Cog's
Ladder.
As the general recognition of managers as a class solidified during the 20th
century and gave perceived practitioners of the art/science of management a
certain amount of prestige, so the way opened for popularised systems of
management ideas to peddle their wares. In this context many management
fads may have had more to do with pop psychology than with scientific theories
of management.
Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of
six separate branches, namely; financial management, human resource
management, information technology management (responsible
for management information systems), marketing management, operations
management and production management and strategic management
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Vries, a contemporary senior-management team will almost inevitably have
some personality disorders.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to operationalise the basic concepts that are
central to understanding management, its types, scope and history. The learner
has been exposed to the basic facts that there are various definitions of the
concepts as presented by various scholars. Despite the multidimentional and
multidisciplinary approach to the concept certain key characteristics are
paramount.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to conceptualise management, its types,
scope and historical development.
1. Describe management.
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7.0 References/Further Readings
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Legge, David; Stanton, Pauline; Smyth, Anne (October 2005). "Learning
management (and managing your own learning)". In Harris, Mary
G. Managing Health Services: Concepts and Practice. Marrickville, NSW:
Elsevier Australia (published 2006). p. 13. ISBN 9780729537599.
Retrieved 2014-07-11.
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries: "The Dark Side of Leadership" – Business
Strategy Review 14(3), Autumn p. 26 (200).
Melling, Joseph; McKinlay, Alan, eds. (1996). Management, Labour, and
Industrial Politics in Modern Europe: The Quest for Productivity Growth
During the Twentieth Century. Edward Elgar. ISBN 9781858980164.
Retrieved 2015-08-29.
Merril. A. F. (ed.) (1960). Classics in Management, New York: American
Management Association.
Nwachukwu C. C. (1988). Management Theory and Practice, Onitsha: Africana
FEP Publishers Limited.
Stoner, James A.F. (1995). Management (sixth edition). Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-13-149444-2.
Taylor. F. W. (1911), The Principles of Scientific Management, New York:
Harper and Brothers.
Weber, M. (1984). "Legitimate Authority and Bureaucracy" in Pugh. D.S. (ed),
Organization Theory, Harmsworth: Penguin Books.
Waring, S.P., (2016). Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory
since 1945. UNC Press Books.
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Unit 3: Organisation
1.0Introduction
The thrust of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concept of
organisation, types of organisation, characteristics of organization, theories of
organization, leadership, its skills and styles as well as leadership theories. This
is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions and ambiguity
surrounding the concept of organisation arising from the multicultural and
multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the unit
maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Identify the different descriptions of organisation,
b. Describe the different types of organization,
c. Explain the characteristics of organization,
d. Describe leadership and its skills and styles, and
e. Discuss the theories of leadership.
3.0Main Contents
3.1Description of Organisation
Organisation is defined in many ways and 'each definition tries to reflect a
particular perspective which scholars adopt about organisations, One of such
definitions views organisation as “a highly rationalized and impersonal
integration of a large number of specialists cooperating to achieve some
announced specific objective” Another definition sees organisation as a system
of consciously co-ordinated personal activities or forces of two or more persons.
Yet another view defines organisation as a continuing system of differentiated
and co-ordinated human activities utilizing, transferring, and welding together a
specific set of human;' material, capital, land natural resources into a unique,
problem solving whole, whose function is to satisfy particular human needs in
interaction with other systems of human activities and resources in its particular
environment.
Sociology can be defined as the science of the institutions of modernity; specific
institutions serve a function, akin to the individual organs of a coherent body. In
the social and political sciences in general, an organisation may be more loosely
understood as the planned, coordinated and purposeful action of human beings
working through collective action to reach a common goal or construct a
tangible product. This action is usually framed by formal membership and form
(institutional rules). Sociology distinguishes the term organisation into planned
formal and unplanned informal (i.e. spontaneously formed) organisations.
Sociology analyses organisations in the first line from an institutional
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perspective. In this sense, organisation is an enduring arrangement of elements.
These elements and their actions are determined by rules so that a certain task
can be fulfilled through a system of coordinated division of labour.
Economic approaches to organisations also take the division of labour as a
starting point. The division of labour allows for (economies of) specialisation.
Increasing specialisation necessitates coordination. From an economic point of
view, markets and organisations are alternative coordination mechanisms for the
execution of transactions.
An organisation is defined by the elements that are part of it (who belongs to the
organisation and who does not?), its communication (which elements
communicate and how do they communicate?), its autonomy (which changes
are executed autonomously by the organisation or its elements?), and its rules of
action compared to outside events (what causes an organisation to act as a
collective actor?).
By coordinated and planned cooperation of the elements, the organisation is
able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities of the single elements. The price
paid by the elements is the limitation of the degrees of freedom of the elements.
Advantages of organisations are enhancement (more of the same), addition
(combination of different features) and extension. Disadvantages can be
inertness (through co-ordination) and loss of interaction.
An organization is an entity comprising multiple people, such as
an institution or an association, that has a particular purpose. The word is
derived from the Greek word organon, which means "organ". There are a
variety of legal types of organisations,
including corporations, governments, non-governmental organisations, political
organisations, international organisations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit
corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and educational institutions. A hybrid
organisation is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private
sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial
market activities. A voluntary association is an organisation consisting of
volunteers. Such organisations may be able to operate without legal formalities,
depending on jurisdiction, including informal clubs. Organisations may also
operate secretly or illegally in the case of secret societies, criminal
organisations and resistance movements.
Committees or juries
These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The
difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee
are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to
a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common
law countries, legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify
damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar
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activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the Middle
Ages, juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to
consensus among local notables.
Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury
theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then
adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a
correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average
member is subsequently worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions
grow worse, not better; therefore, staffing is crucial. Parliamentary procedure,
such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in
lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.
Ecologies
This organisational structure promotes internal competition. Inefficient
components of the organisation starve, while effective ones get more work.
Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and so runs a tiny business that has
to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilise this organisation type
reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case
that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not, in general,
compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous.
Matrix organisation
This organisational type assigns each worker two bosses in two different
hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in
the organisation is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in
the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects
completed using the experts. Projects might be organised by products, regions,
customer types, or some other schemes.
As an example, a company might have an individual with overall responsibility
for products X and Y, and another individual with overall responsibility for
engineering, quality control, etc. Therefore, subordinates responsible for quality
control of project X will have two reporting lines.
Pyramids or hierarchical
A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads other
individual members of the organisation. This arrangement is often associated
with basis that there are enough imagine a real pyramid, if there are not enough
stone blocks to hold up the higher ones, gravity would irrevocably bring down
the monumental structure. So one can imagine that if the leader does not have
the support of his subordinates, the entire structure will collapse. Hierarchies
were satirised in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that
introduced hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee
tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
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3.2 Types of Organisation
An organisation that is established as a means for achieving
defined objectives has been referred to as a formal organisation. Its design
specifies how goals are subdivided and reflected in subdivisions of the
organisation. Divisions, departments, sections, positions, jobs, and tasks make
up this work structure. Thus, the formal organisation is expected to behave
impersonally in regard to relationships with clients or with its members.
According to Weber's definition, entry and subsequent advancement is by merit
or seniority. Each employee receives a salary and enjoys a degree of tenure that
safeguards him from the arbitrary influence of superiors or of powerful clients.
The higher his position in the hierarchy, the greater his presumed expertise in
adjudicating problems that may arise in the course of the work carried out at
lower levels of the organisation. It is this bureaucratic structure that forms the
basis for the appointment of heads or chiefs of administrative subdivisions in
the organisation and endows them with the authority attached to their position.
Informal organisations
In contrast to the appointed head or chief of an administrative unit, a leader
emerges within the context of the informal organisation that underlies the
formal structure. The informal organisation expresses the
personal objectives and goals of the individual membership. Their objectives
and goals may or may not coincide with those of the formal organisation. The
informal organisation represents an extension of the social structures that
generally characterise human life – the spontaneous emergence of groups and
organisations as ends in themselves.
In prehistoric times, man was preoccupied with his personal security,
maintenance, protection, and survival. Now man spends a major portion of his
waking hours working for organisations. His need to identify with a community
that provides security, protection, maintenance, and a feeling of belonging
continues unchanged from prehistoric times. This need is met by the informal
organisation and its emergent, or unofficial leaders.
Leaders emerge from within the structure of the informal organisation. Their
personal qualities, the demands of the situation, or a combination of these and
other factors attract followers who accept their leadership within one or several
overlay structures. Instead of the authority of position held by an appointed
head or chief, the emergent leader wields influence or power. Influence is the
ability of a person to gain cooperation from others by means of persuasion or
control over rewards. Power is a stronger form of influence because it reflects a
person's ability to enforce action through the control of a means of punishment.
35
3.3 Characteristics of Organisation
The various definitions help to identify some common characteristic of
organisations.
1. Organisations are purposeful, complex human collectivities;
2. They are characterised by secondary (or impersonal) relationships;
3. They have specialised and limited goals;
4. They are characterised by sustained co-operative activity;
5. They are integrated within a larger social system;
6. They provide services and products to their environment;
7. They are dependent on exchanges with their environment;
36
3. From a process-related perspective, an organisation is viewed as an entity
is being (re-)organised, and the focus is on the organisation as a set of
tasks or actions.
Among the theories that are or have been influential are:
37
also important to note that leadership plays a major role in the motivation of
employees and in the direction of the firm.
A leader in a formal, hierarchical organisation, who is appointed to a managerial
position, has the right to command and enforce obedience by virtue of the
authority of his position. However, he must possess adequate personal attributes
to match his authority, because authority is only potentially available to him. In
the absence of sufficient personal competence, a manager may be confronted by
an emergent leader who can challenge his role in the organisation and reduce it
to that of a figurehead. However, only authority of position has the backing of
formal sanctions. It follows that whoever wields personal influence and power
can legitimise this only by gaining a formal position in the hierarchy, with
commensurate authority.
38
4) Inquisitiveness - A leader should be inquisitive and new things and ideas
should always interest him.
5) Spirit of competition - He must always welcome competition and should
make effective use of his personal and business resources to succeed and
survive in a volatile and competitive environment.
Leadership style is the pattern of behaviour that the person exhibits over time in
leadership situations. That is, situations in which he/she most influence other
people. There are different leadership styles as discussed below. This is divided
into three?
Trait Theory
This theory got its origin from the 'great man' theory of leadership, which
contended that leaders are born not made. The theory holds that leaders are born
with certain personality traits. Those who follow this theory believe that by
studying the personalities and backgrounds of great leaders, they can be able to
develop a combination of traits that made these people outstanding leaders. So,
they attempt to identify the traits of character and personality that make a
leader. These traits they assure distinction between leaders and non-leaders.
The following traits characterize a leader:
39
c) Initiation - A person who does not initiate vision or ideas cannot be called
a leader.
Behavioural Theory
This theory focuses on what leaders do on the job rather than on what traits or
characteristics they possess. The central argument among behavioural theorists
is that since behaviour can be changed, leaders can be 'made' or trained rather
than "born'.
Situational Theory
There is no one best way to leadership. Situational theory is gaining ground and
is more accepted today than the theories discussed above. According to Dale
(1978), this theory is saying that, "leadership is specific to the particular
situation under investigation". Thus, the choice of a leader will depend on the
problem facing the group and the character of the group itself.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to operationalise the basic concepts that are
central to understanding organisation, its types, characteristics and theories.
Included is leadrship, leadership skills, styles and theories. Despite the
multidimentional and multidisciplinary approach to the concept certain key
characteristics are paramount.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to conceptualise organisation, its types,
characteristics and theories as well as leadership, its skills, styles and theories.
40
7.0References/Further Readings
Coase, Ronald (1937). "The Nature of the Firm" Economica, 4(16), pp. 386–
405.
Hewlett, Roderic. (2006). The Cognitive leader. Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc.
Rogers, Carl R.; Roethlisberger, Fritz Jules (1990). Barriers and gateways to
communication. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review. OCLC 154085959.
41
Samson, D., Daft, R. (2005). Management: second Pacific Rim edition.
Melbourne, Victoria: Thomson
42
Unit 4: Public Administration
1.0 Introduction
The focus of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concept of public
administration. This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions and
ambiguity surrounding the concept of public administration arising from the
multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore, expected
to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Understand the different definitions of public administration,
b. Describe the evolution of public administration, and
c. Assess the relevance of theoretical underpinning of public administration
1. Of, or relating to or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation
or state;
2. Of, or relating to a government or being in the service of the community
or nation;
3. Of, or relating to business or community interest as opposed to private
affairs; exposed to general view.
From the same dictionary, administration has been defined as the act or process
of administering:
43
a. The performance of executive duties;
b. The execution of public affairs as distinguished from policy making;
c. The term of office of an administrator.
It thus implies that the meaning 'public' relates to public affairs, public service,
public servant, public figure and that which is exposed to public view. Similarly
the term administration is derived from two Latin words, "ad" and "minister"
which means, 'to serve or to manage'. It denotes something to administering a
nation, or state or a group of people. The major strand in this definition is that
administration deals with national service and with community interest at heart,
as opposed to private affairs. Moreover, this type of administration has to be
assessable to all members of the community. Therefore, the business of any
government should be open to the public it governs for scrutiny and review, and
never a closed-door affair of those who carry it out.
44
towards the understanding of governmental administration, accomplishment of
the authoritative purposes of the state and as a field of study considered as a
branch of the social science. Rhodes (1976:77) believes that the study of public
administration is "the multi-disciplinary study of the political-management
system (structures and processes) of public bureaucracies". In a less recent
definition, White (1926) defined it as the "management of man and materials in
the accomplishment of the purposes of the state".
45
by appointed officials. In the field of sociology, it is understood as a particular
type of organization rather than as a system of government. To the Economists,
what is viewed as public organizations are characterized by the fact that being
funded through the tax system they are neither disciplined by the profit motive
nor responsive to market pressures.
Importantly, political science, the parent of public administration has had more
profound effects on the field than has management, its foster parent. This is
because public administration was born in the house of political science and its
early rearing occurred in its backyard. Therefore, the fundamentals of political
science such as democracy, pluralistic polity, political participation, rule of law
and due process among others continue to be held by the most independently
minded of public Administrationists. Thus, the environment of political science
sharpened and deepened the commitment of public Administrationists to core
constitutional concepts. Consequently, if public administration had been born
and bred in the business schools there wouldn't have been the same kind of
academic field as it is today. Invariably, it could be argued that political science
was the one that laid the philosophic and normative foundation of public
administration but at the end public administration has been able to define its
identity as something apart and distinct from both political science and
management (Gaus, 1950).
46
In other words, political science was profoundly influential on the evolution of
public administration, whereas management was less so. But in many ways, the
impact of management on public administration has been more positive. This
was partly because management entered into the upbringing of public
administration when the field was beginning its adolescence but unlike political
science it was not a blood relative, consequently, public administration, was
granted more independence and breathing space to grow and develop on its
own. This is not to say that the household environment created by the field of
management for public administration was warmth and succor. But instead of
treating public administration like an abusive parent, management allow public
administration to stay in its house like an absent-minded aunt who was never
quite sure of who was living in which room and who often forgot to serve
meals.
47
3.3 Theoretical underpinning of Public Administration
Essentially, the theory of public administration draws its greatest strength and
its most serious limitation from its diversity. Therefore, public administration
theorists are required to understand a broad range of perspectives relevant to
their theory-building task. This implies that, there is a tremendous richness and
complexion built into public administration theory. Unequivocally, there is
diversity and complexity of the theoretical enterprise in public administration
theory. The public administration theorists have continued to address many
traditional concerns of public administrationist such as the role of public
organizations in the governance process. The increased attention now is paid to
the ethics of public service along with related topics such as citizenship. There
is also more positive approach of epistemologists and the new interest in
psychological studies, as well as in inter-organisational networks and economic
models of bureaucratic behaviour.
To Burrell and Morgan (1979), all theories of organization are based upon a
philosophy of science and a theory of society. That, there are two dimensions on
which theories of organization can be arranged. One, the assumptions about the
nature of social science in relation to ontology, epistemology, human nature,
and methodology. And that discussion on them could take two dimensions,
which could be further grouped into the subjective-objective dimension. This
dimension ranges from- German idealism, which emphasizes the subjective
nature of human affairs to the sociological positivism, which seeks to apply the
natural science procedures to the collection and analysis of human behaviour.
Two, the assumption about "the sociology of regulation" and "sociology of
radical change". The former emphasizes the underlying order to cohesiveness of
human systems while the latter seeks explanations for radical changes in
society.
Furthermore, there is no-doubt in the fact that at various points in the history of
public administration other disciplines have been eager to embrace it under their
own theoretical banner. Based on this posture many early public administration
theorists and some still today have argued that public administration is distinct
by its relationship to the governmental process. In contrast other theorists have
argued that the behaviour of individuals within organizations and the behaviour
of organizations themselves is much the same regardless of the kind of
organization being studied. But contemporary theorists accept that public
administration is best viewed as a profession drawing from many different
perspectives. This is because there is no single discipline that can currently
provide the range of knowledge needed by administrators in the public sector
than it seems reasonable to bring coherence to programme through their
professional orientation (Denhardt, 1992).
48
According to Heywood (2003) in order to make sense out of the various usages
of administration three contrasting theories emerged; rational-administrative
machine, conservative power bloc model and source of government theory. In
discussing the rational-administrative machine theory, the work of Max Weber
on bureaucracy could be made use of whereby he sees bureaucracy as an "ideal
type" of rule based on a system of rational rules as opposed to either tradition or
charisma. The set of principles that characterized this bureaucratic organization
are;
1. Jurisdictional areas are fixed and official, and ordered by laws or rules,
2. Firmly ordered hierarchy which ensures that specific higher ones within a
chain of command supervise lower offices,
3. Business is managed on the basis of written documents and a filing
system,
4. The authority of official is impersonal and stems entirely from the post
they hold, not from personal status,
5. Bureaucratic rules are strict enough to minimize the scope of personal
discretion, and
6. Appointment and advancement within a bureaucracy are based on
professional criteria, such as training, expertise and administrative
competence.
The view of public administration as a power bloc stems largely from socialist
analysis particularly Marxism. Marx linked bureaucracy to the specific
requirements of capitalism. He was concerned with the class role played by the
state bureaucracy seeing it as a mechanism through which bourgeois interests
are up held and capitalist system defended. Further analysis by neo-Marxist
such as Morgan (1983) paid attention to the capacity of senior servants to act as
conservative veto group that dilutes or even blocks the radical initiatives of
socialist government. In other words, top civil servants are conservative because
49
they are within their allocated sphere and consciously or unconsciously allies of
existing economic and social elites. This is because despite the formal
requirements of political neutrality, top civil servants share the same educational
and social background as industrialists and business managers and are likely
share their ideas, prejudices and general outlook. This conservative outlook of
higher civil servants is reinforced by their ever-increasing closeness to the world
of corporate capitalism. This was the consequence of state intervention in
economic life, ensuring an ongoing relationship between business groups and
civil servants who define national interest in terms of the long-term interest of
private capitalism. The implication of this analysis is that if senior civil servants
are wedded to the interests of capitalism, a major obstacle is created for any
attempt to achieve socialism through constitutional means.
The oversupply model on the other hand is drawn from the emergence of
rational choice motivations of bureaucrats. Rational theory is based on the same
assumptions about human nature as those in neoclassical economics. That is,
individuals are rationally self-seeking creatures or utility maximizers. The
public choice theory applied this economic model of decision-making to the
public sector.
4.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, discussions on the conceptual and theoretical framework of
public administration as well as its evolution carried out in this unit sees public
administration as a field of study and as a profession. As a field of study it
emanates from political science and nurtured by management. As a profession it
entails activities in running public organizations such as planning, organization,
staffing, directing, co-coordinating, reporting and budgeting, In terms of
theoretical underpinning of public administration, three theories were identified,
50
namely; rational-administrative machine, conservative power bloc model and
source of government oversupply.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to conceptualise public administration, its
evolution, the influence of political science and management on it and its
theoretical underpinning.
51
7.0 References/Further Readings
Bradbury, J. (1996), "Public administration" in Mclean, I. (ed.), Oxford Course
Dictionary of Politic, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burnham. J. (1987), The Management Revolution. Hannondsworth: Penguin.
Burrel, G. and G. Morgan (1979), Sociological Paradigms and Organizational
Analysis, London: Heinemann.
Denhardt, R.B. (1992), "Public Administration theory: The State of the
Discipline" in Lynn, N.B. and A. Wildavsky (eds.) Public Administration: The
Slate of the Discipline. New Jersey: Chatham J louse Publishers. PP. 43-72.
Downs, B. (1982), "Undergraduate Public Administration Education: An
empirical analysis with options for programme review by the undergraduate
section of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and
Administration, Washington DC: National Association of Schools of Public
Affairs and Administration.
Gaus, J. (1950), "Trends in the Theory of Public Administration" in Public
Administration Review. 10(3): 161-68.
Henry, N. (1992), Public Administration and Public Affairs. Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice Hall.
Heywood, A. (2003), Politics. New York: Palgrave.
Ikelegbe, A.O. (ed.) (1995), Politics and Government: An Introductory and
Comparative Perspective, Benin City: Uri Publishing Ltd.
Morgan, G. (1983), Beyond Method, BeverlyHills: Sage.
Niskamen. W.A. (1971), Bureaucracy and Representative Government,
Chicago: Aldine Atherton.
Weiss.C.H. (1972), Evaluation Research: Methods of Assessing Programmes,
Englewood Cliff: Prentice-Hall.
Welch, S. and 1. C. Comer (1983), Quantitative Methods for Public
Administration: Technique and Applications, Home wood: Dorsey.
White, J. (1985), "Much Ado About Everything: Making sense of Federal
Budgeting", Public Administration Review. 45: 623-30.
52
MODULE 2: POLITICS/POLICY/ADMINISTRATION DICHOTOMY
1.0 Introduction
The focus of this unit is to identify and discuss the relationships between
administration and politics as well as the various debates on the relationships.
This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions and ambiguity
surrounding the relationships between administration and politics arising from
the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Discuss the relationships between administration and politics, and
2. Understand the trends in the debates on administration and politics,
However, there are other scholars who hold the opposite viewpoint and have
argued that there is no rigid distinction between politics and administration. One
of the exponents of this position, Appleby has remarked that, “public
53
administration is policy making. Public administration is one of the numbers of
basic political processes by which people achieve and control government”.
Since the beginning of the debate, some scholars have gone on to suggest that
public administration is more part of “management science” than political
science. Those scholars present strong theoretical reasons for choosing
management with emphasis on organisation theory as the paradigm of public
administration. Examples of scholars who advanced this viewpoint are
Henderson, Marchand, Simon, and Thomson.
The second paradigm 1927-1937 was the “high noon of orthodoxy” and prestige
of public administration which was marked by the thoughts of Henri Fayol and
Frederick Taylor. This was the high point of the “administrative management”
school. The debate at this time insisted on the existence of certain scientific
principle of administration which could be discovered, and administrators
would be experts in their work if they learnt how to apply those principles. It
was at this stage that POSDCORB was introduced and popularised. This period
was followed closely by a third school of thought which produced scholars like
Herbert Simon, Robert Dahl and Dwight Waldo. These scholars argued that it
was not feasible to develop a universal principle of administration. For instance,
Herbert Simon argued that instead of principle of administration, there should
be a more human process of decision-making.
The third school of thought coincided with the behavioural period in political
science, 1950-1970, when public administration focused on what became
comparative and development administration. Another name for this approach
was cross-cultural public administration According to Fred Riggs; one of the
prominent authors at the time, the aim of comparative administration was to use
that field to strengthen public administration theory.
54
"management science. The thinking was entertained that “administration
was administration” whether in public, business or institutional administration.
Emphasis in the study was “organisational theory,” bureaucracy, whether
public, or private.
In sum, therefore, political science and management are the major influences on
the present stage of development of public administration. The present stage
pays extra attention to areas of organisation theory and information science,
emphasizing areas like the state, local government, executive management,
administrative law, and all those questions which seek to explain what the
public interest is in a democracy and under a highly bureaucratic set up that is
confronted by high technology. Accordingly, core areas of the present state of
the study are:
a. Environment of public administration (ecology);
b. Quantitative methods, public budgeting and financial management;
c. Personnel administration
d. Public policy
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to establish the relationship between
administration and politics. The learner has been exposed to the basic facts on
the debate on administration and politics dichotomy.
55
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss the relationships between
administration and politics. In addition, the debate by various scholars on
administration and politics dichotomy were discussed.
56
7.0References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum
Books.
Albers, H.U. (1973), Principles of Management: A Modern Approach, Paris:
Wiley International edition.
Anifowose, R. and F. Enemuo (eds.) (1999), Elements of Politics, Lagos:
Malthouse Press.
Ashiru, A.T. (200 I), Management Theory: An introductory Approach, Ibadan:
Rasmed Publications Ltd.
Jones, G. R. et. al. (1998), Contemporary Management, Boston: Irwin McGraw
Hill.
57
Unit 2: Inter play of Political Institutions and Administration
1.0 Introduction
The focus of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concepts of
administration and political institutions. This is to enable the learner overcome
some misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the concept of administration
and political institutions arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary
approaches to it. Included is the legal basis of political institutions, political
institutions as forms of social domination, gender as a means of legitimating
social institutions, relationship of Administration to political institutions and
control of behavior in politics and administration. You are therefore, expected to
give the unit maximum attention it deserves. It should be noted that the
discussion in this unit draws extensively from experience of France as a main
case study.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Understand the different definitions of administration and political
institutions,
b. Describe the legal basis of political institutions,
c. Discuss how gender serves as a means of legislating political institution,
and
d. Explain how behavior is control in politics and administration.
58
This process requires planning, organization, command, coordination and
control. All of these constitute administration (Adebayo, 1994; Murray, 1974).
3.2Political Institutions
While studying institutions as a key aspect of the social sciences, analysis of the
institutions must directly involved in exercising political power (the
government, parliament, the presidency, etc.) which long failed to make it onto
the research agenda. This lack of interest can largely be explained by the
division of research topics between legal studies and political science. Political
science set itself apart from law by addressing topics that were not pre-empted
by legal specialists (electoral behaviour, political parties, etc.) leaving the latter
to the monopoly on studying institutions. The renewal of studies in comparative
politics in the 1970s and 1980s and later the spread of the neo-institutionalist
trend in France in the 1990s, had little effect on this state of affairs. At most,
political institutions were included as explanatory variables in analyses of
public policy, international relations, or social movements. They did not,
however, gain the status of a subject in and of themselves among social science
researchers and this field of inquiry therefore remained a science of
constitutional texts.
However, this empirical stance did not mean that they eschewed theoretical
ambitions. Quite the contrary, the latter were a central component in how they
construed their subject. The key research issue they addressed in their studies
was the way in how political institutions can objectify the social order. Put
differently, their primary aim was to fully embed political institutions in the
social world. French researchers are less interested in institutions than in
processes of institutionalisation and their aim tends to understand the links
between these processes and the social order. In doing so, they can be said to be
pursuing an avenue opened up by Max Weber, according to whom domination,
when exercised over a large number of individuals in a lasting fashion, requires
political and administrative apparatuses tasked with maintaining belief in its
legitimacy.
Broadly speaking, two main lines of research can be distinguished from this
perspective. The first is macro-sociological and aims to understand the
processes through which political institutions are invested with socially shared
beliefs that legitimate the way political power is exercised in contemporary
democracies. The second is more micro-sociological and examines the
conditions under which relations of domination are reproduced or transformed
within institutions. This second line of research sheds complementary light on
the first: it deconstructs the relations of domination that tends to be objectivised
by the legitimating of institutions.
The power that institutions exercise over individuals is a key issue in this field
of inquiry. For a long time, this question was addressed in two mutually
exclusive ways: on the one hand, the likes of Emile Durkheim and Michel
Foucault, to name the most renowned, showed that institutions had the power to
discipline bodies and minds; on the other, people such as Erving Goffman and
Anthony Giddens emphasised individual actors’ margin of freedom and their
ability to play with, and even subvert, institutional rules. However, as Jacques
Lagroye and Michel Offerlé have noted, studies devoted to political institutions
are strikingly different from their predecessors in this regard. Insofar as they pay
careful attention to the heterogeneous nature of relationships to institutions, they
60
immediately reject this binary choice. Rather than judging the degree of
constraint exercised over actors by objectivated bodies of rules and beliefs, they
strive to show the various ways in which actors engage with these rules and
beliefs.
Answers to these questions were first provided in the wake of Max Weber’s
work. According to Weber, the contemporary state is modern insofar as it is
based on rational legal domination, which in turn rests on a belief in the legality
of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to
issue commands. Following on from this, some researchers have underscored
the key role that the law plays in contemporary democracies: as the official
language of institutions, it lends them legitimacy through the weight of its
impersonal, general form; as a doctrine relating to how public authorities are
organised, it tends to mask the arbitrary aspect to power by disembodying it. In
other words, these studies shed light on the creation of a belief that is
fundamental to the legitimation of democratic political institutions, namely the
belief that they are neutral. This serves as a veritable front which, as James G.
March and Johan P. Olsen explain, long prevented their scientific analysis.
More specifically, by retracing the genesis of Republican constitutional
doctrine, looking at how it became autonomous from political power, or
examining how it is used in the government of international institutions, such
research sheds novel light on the socio-professional conditions of political
legitimation without slipping into a sociology of conspiracy. Due to both their
professional ethos and the specificities of the legal field, legal specialists are in
fact the first to subscribe to the justifications they produce. As for political
leaders, the legal formatting of their positions constrains their actions just as
much as it legitimates them.
61
Article 5 of the 1958 Constitution, as we know, justifies the exceptional powers
of the President of the Republic given the role of arbitre (with its dual meaning
of both arbitrator, in the legal sense, and umpire). However, as a consequence of
this legal definition of the presidential role, those who take it on then find
themselves distanced from party support, which can place them in somewhat of
a double bind when it comes to re-election. In February 2016, for example,
when a journalist from radio station France Inter asked President François
Hollande whether he was “still left-wing”, he responded spontaneously, as if a
prisoner of the legal definition of his role, “I’m the President of the Republic…
I represent all French people”, drawing sarcasm and caustic comments from
many editorialists and left-wing voters.
The fact remains that while these studies have considerably enriched our
knowledge of rational legal domination, research on the legitimation of political
institutions cannot stop there. First, nothing in Weber’s work allows us to think
that this is the only kind of domination that subsists today, despite evolutionist
readings of the different forms of domination he describes in Economy and
Society. As Weber explains, they are only ideal-types, which are neither
successive nor exclusive. Studies analysing charismatic phenomena in the most
bureaucratised states of law have clearly demonstrated this and it is particularly
true of the Fifth Republic. As Brigitte Gaïti has shown, its legitimation was first
and foremost predicated on General de Gaulle as a figure and on his “prophetic”
Bayeux speech. His charisma was routinised in such a way as to place the future
of the regime in the balance and was a key issue in political competition during
the early years of the Fifth Republic, which had a lasting impact on the
presidential role. The case of French political institutions, while emblematic, is
far from being exceptional. As other studies have shown, the construction of
European institutions also owes much to the charismatic communities that
formed around Jean Monnet and Pierre Henry Teitgen .
62
rational legal domination – researchers have also examined the hypothesis that
the legitimacy of democratic institutions is based on their capacity to be
identified with certain social norms.
First, holding political office means taking on the role of elected official and
this comes with certain social expectations. These may sometimes be weak or
unclear in relatively recent institutions or those little known to the public.
However, within the most established institutions, such as the Presidency, these
expectations serve as prescriptions determining the behaviour of those post-
holders. For example, socialist party mayors proved unable to subvert the
mayoral office as they had originally hoped. Quite the contrary, in fact: the
various interactions in which they were caught up as councillors (with
the Préfet, the administration, the voters) progressively socialised them to the
norms of their role as “notables”.
Second, whatever the expectations weighing on the roles of elected officials,
advancing in Conseils municipaux, Parliament, etc. requires a certain political
know-how, linked particularly to public speaking – eloquence, repartee, humour
– that are not evenly distributed throughout society. It is therefore not enough to
be elected in order to become a fully legitimate member of parliament,
something that the first working-class parliamentarians discovered at their
expense, as did both the Poujadist tradesmen who joined the Assemblée
nationale in 1956 and the first elected officials from the Front National party .
Whether in the ranks of the Assemblée nationaleitself or in the press, these
socially atypical parliamentarians faced stigmatising social judgments that
discredited them as representatives.
What is true for class is also true for gender. As early as 1988, Mariette Sineau
showed that political institutions, while theoretically universal, were in reality
gendered and gendering. In other words, they forced female elected officials to
63
imitate the virile behaviour of their male counterparts. In this regard, while the
parity law introduced in June 2000 offers an unprecedented way of promoting
women in politics, it has not necessarily made the task any easier for the women
wanting to pursue a career in the field. Elected due to their sex, they nonetheless
still have to conform to the masculine norms of the role in order to
avoid symbolic sanctions. Political institutions are therefore not just mirrors
reflecting existing social inequalities: they also contribute actively to the
unequal distribution of power in society between classes, sexes, and races.
This is the case, for example, where the President/Prime Minister relationship is
concerned. It is largely undetermined by law, in terms of both the boundaries of
competence of each role and the hierarchy between the two. Significantly, the
press talks about the “President/Prime Minister couple” and their “divorce”
when certain heads of government leave the role. Similarly when, in 2005, the
President made his Minister of the Interior (who was the leader of the majority
at the time) second in the order of precedence instead of the Prime Minister, this
unprecedented configuration within the executive was described as a “ménage à
trois”. The rhetoric used to frame these situations is therefore neither legal nor
64
even political but domestic. Above all, in this language, the Prime Minister is
positioned on the side of the dominated/feminine gender to the extent, in fact,
that it can create gender trouble for those who take on the role.
In the Fifth Republic, the Prime Minister is the leader of the government but not
of the executive. Periods of cohabitation aside, since 1962, the leader of the
government has always played the “secondary” role and even more so when
appointed during the president’s term. It is striking to note that, in the press,
political actors who accept this role tend to be framed in feminine terms. In
other words, the qualities ascribed to them are those usually associated with
women in politics (listening, being discreet, being likable, etc.) and journalists’
attention focuses to an unusual degree on their families, bodies, and clothes.
These feminine identity markers attached to political leaders can be analysed as
a way of naturalising their subordinate position in the hierarchy of executive
power, while symbolically preserving the gendered order of the social world.
Having underlined the role of law and legal specialists in producing the beliefs
that legitimate how political power is organised, current research now highlights
the role played by gender and journalists. In this regard, the rise in work on
gender in communication and media studies – whether in information and
communication technologies or in political science has contributed to furthering
knowledge about the legitimation of political institutions. From this perspective,
that legitimation appears less grounded in reason (legal, economic, etc.) than in
nature. To use Mary Douglas’s terms, because they are linked by analogy to
naturalised elementary classifications, such as the male/female divide, political
institutions “are part of the order of the universe and so are ready to stand as the
grounds of argument” . What remains to be understood is how, on a concrete
level, they contribute to founding the social order.
65
researchers’ libido sciendi. As Bernard Lacroix and Jacques Lagroye explain in
their introduction to Président de la République, the original aim here was to
break away from the presuppositions inherent to legal analysis and particularly
with any reified view of the research object at hand. In this context, Emile
Durkheim’s call to broach social facts as “things” seemed less of a priority that
Max Weber’s call to understand actors’ motivations.
This stance was first expressed conceptually through redefinitions of the notion
of “role”. In a key interview with the journal Politix, published under the
somewhat telling title “We are not subjected to our roles”, Jacques Lagroye
defined a “role” as a “set of behaviours linked to an institutional position which
enable that position to exist, which make it perceptible to others”. At first
glance, this definition might seem vague. However, this is far from being a
limitation; on the contrary, it is precisely where its value lies: as well as
encouraging us to look as closely as possible at practices and collective
representations of institutions, this definition offers a way of ‘escaping the futile
contrast between approaches framed in terms of how roles are learnt,
emphasising a certain “institutional logic”, and interactionist analysis, which, on
the contrary, tends to present roles as behaviour resulting solely from the
partners’ expectations’.
66
changes, even under authoritarian regimes. For example, far from consolidating
the pershmega’s power, the progressive autonomy of the Iraqi-Kurdistan
parliament underway since the mid-2000s has in fact weakened it. Within this
institution, elected officials’ social and political identity, as well as their
allegiances, have shifted as partisan resources have given way to academic
qualifications.
From as early as the 1965 vote, the role became politicised under pressure from
the left wing, to the extent that electing a candidate with little or no party capital
seems impossible today. At the same time, defining the presidential role became
the main prize in a symbolic struggle where the social value of economic
capability was at stake, along with the social value of the groups who could take
advantage of it. Although this struggle also went beyond this, it culminated in
the 1965 presidential campaign when the General de Gaulle was forced to
defend the economic results of his first seven-year term and to publicly
acknowledge the importance he placed on economic issues in playing his role.
67
offices” for political leaders. This is where actors are socialised to politics as a
profession; it is also where those who want to exercise power are chosen, both
through the processes selecting nominees for elections and, more recently,
through the primary elections for presidential candidates. It has long been
established that voting systems have an impact on the composition of
deliberative assemblies. In this regard, the preference for a single-member
plurality system in the legislative elections is not insignificant. As well as
restricting political pluralism by creating parliamentary majorities, it also gives
an advantage to outgoing parliamentarians and has discriminatory effects on
outsiders to political competition. Nevertheless, this kind of control over the
selection of politicians does not guarantee control over expected behaviour. This
is apparent in the lack of discipline regularly shown by majority
parliamentarians as well as by the many conflicts that have rocked the history of
President/Prime Minister relations under the Fifth Republic outside periods of
cohabitation and despite the fact the President has almost sole discretionary
power in appointing a government leader who will not dispute presidential
precedence within executive power.
68
As Damien Lecomte has shown, the socialist parliamentary group – which had a
majority in the Assemblée nationale under the fourteenth legislative term – was
entirely focused on the quite tricky task of regulating/channelling
parliamentarians’ behaviour. The key function of the group’s bureau is to ensure
that members of parliament are present in plenary sessions, but it also manages
its members’ activities very closely with a view to ensuring they follow the
internal rules. According to these, bill proposals and amendments should only
be submitted to the bureau of the Assemblée nationale after gaining approval
from the parliamentary group. While it is possible to depart from this rule,
amendments signed by the group are more likely to be adopted in plenary
sessions, if only because one of the roles of the bureau (and the rapporteur) is to
negotiate such amendments with the minister in charge of the bill. In cases of
persistent disagreement, however, the group’s bureau has limited means through
which to put pressure on its troupes. Sanctions do theoretically exist, but are
rarely applied because they are relatively ineffective. It is therefore easier for
the bureau to negotiate discipline in return for certain collective resources –
requesting legislative reports, putting forward bills in the name of the group,
asking questions at government “question time”, etc. The bureau can determine
how such resources are distributed within the group and potentially restrict
access to them to any “disloyal” members. However, this remains an imperfect
means of control: first, these resources are relatively rare, and second, many
members of parliament are quite happy to hold office without ever being a
rapporteur, having a slot in question time, or putting forward any legislative
proposals.
However, the power of political institutions can only be fully understood when
we also take into account that behaviour is also controlled in unintentional
ways. As several studies have shown, in order to understand how actors
conform to the institution’s requirements, it is necessary to look at how their
work is organised. For example, the system of different meetings involved in
the deliberations of inter-municipal bodies operate as “a series of ‘sieves’
calibrating and filtering debates and decisions before they arrive in front of
the Conseil” . This considerably reduces the possibility of conflicts arising in
the Conseil itself and leads, de facto, to a “consensus regime” in which party
resources and conduct are ineffective. Similarly, studies on women in politics
have shown that the dual segregation – both vertical and horizontal – affecting
female elected officials in parliaments worldwide is also linked to how work is
organised through specialist committees in these sorts of assemblies. This
bureaucratic organisation based on specialisation encourages female elected
officials to turn to their field of socio-professional competence. Given current
academic and professional career paths, this tends to lead to women being
mainly present on committees devoted to “social” and/or “cultural” affairs,
which are less strategic areas for building a career in politics.
69
Finally, in the same line as Michel Foucault’s work, pragmatic sociology has
shown that behaviour is also controlled through the most material aspects of
institutions. As Jean-Philippe Heurtin has explained, the architectural apparatus
of parliamentary assembly rooms used since 1789 – face-to-face, circles,
hemicycles, etc. – contributes to ordering speech within the institution. More
recently, Delphine Gardey has looked behind the scenes at the Palais
Bourbon and highlighted how important administrative staff – stenographers,
administrators, bailiffs, etc. – are in the way practices are institutionalised at
the Assemblée nationale. By reminding us that institutions are above all made of
bodies and things, these studies pave the way for new avenues that remain to be
explored. They encourage the sociology of political institutions to stop focusing
solely on professional politicians and to also address other aspects, including the
everyday activities which have often been ignored (because they are considered
marginal and not strictly political) and yet which contribute to perpetuating the
institutional order.
Today, analysis stands to gain the most from pursuing research at the margins of
political institutions . First, because administrative staff are often attached to
political institutions on a more long-term basis than professional politicians and
therefore carry with them an institutional memory that contributes to routinising
practices. This is particularly true for the General Secretariat of the government,
the General Secretariat of the Élysée and the administrators at the Assemblée
nationale and the Sénat. It would also be reasonable to assume that because of
how they are trained (often in legal studies) and selected (through competitive
entrance exam) and because of their status (usually civil servants) and their
missions (providing solely technical assistance), these actors tend to identify
with the institution more than the politicians whom they serve. Their
relationship to the institution certainly warrants analysing to the same extent as
that of political actors.
70
requests, complaints, and comments sent to the Élysée. And when people appeal
to their elected officials, in town halls or local constituencies, it is the
representatives’ staff who deals with their complaints. Studying these
“marginal” actors and their activities would therefore afford an understanding of
the relationship between ordinary citizens and political institutions, an issue that
is all too often left to the remit of opinion polls and communications advisors.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to establish the interplay of political
institutions and administration. The learner has been exposed to the basic facts
on the legitimation of political institutions and its powers.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss the relationships between
administration and political institutions. In addition, the legal basis of political
institutions, political institutions as forms of social domination, and gender as a
means for legitimating political institutions were discussed. Added is
behavioural control in politics and administration.
71
7.0 References/Further Readings
Barbey, Aron K.; Colom, Roberto; Grafman, Jordan (March 2014). "Distributed
neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping". Social
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 9 (3): 265–
272. doi:10.1093/scan/nss124. PMC 3980800. PMID 23171618.
Gold, Joshua I.; Shadlen, Michael N. (2007). "The neural basis of decision
making". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 30: 535–
574. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.113038. PMID 17600525.
Hall, Crystal C.; Ariss, Lynn; Todorov, Alexander (July 2007). "The illusion of
knowledge: when more information reduces accuracy and increases
confidence" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes. 103 (2): 277–290. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.01.003.
72
Heidenheimer, A. H. Heclo and C. T Adams Comparative Public Policy (3rd
ed.) (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1990).A good discussion of public
policy and the performance of political systems.
Kahneman, Daniel (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux. ISBN 9780374275631. OCLC 706020998.
Kennerley, Steven W.; Walton, Mark E.; Behrens, Timothy E. J.; Buckley,
Mark J.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S. (July 2006). "Optimal decision making and
the anterior cingulate cortex". Nature Neuroscience. 9 (7): 940–
947. doi:10.1038/nn1724. PMID 16783368.
Reyna, Valerie F. (November 2013). "Psychology: Good and bad news on the
adolescent brain". Nature. 503(7474): 48–
49. doi:10.1038/nature12704. PMID 24172899.
Sharot, Tali (2011). The optimism bias: a tour of the irrationally positive
brain (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon
Books. ISBN 9780307378484. OCLC 667609433.
Sharot, Tali; Korn, Christoph W.; Dolan, Raymond J. (October 2011). "How
unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality". Nature
Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1475–
1479. doi:10.1038/nn.2949. PMC 3204264. PMID 21983684.
74
Ulea, Vera (2002). A concept of dramatic genre and the comedy of a new type:
chess, literature, and film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0809324521. OCLC 51301095.
75
Unit 3: Institutional Setting and Administration
1.0 Introduction
Here, we shall discuss the orthodoxy in thinking concerning how the political
system functions in relation to administration. This centres on the study of
public policy as they constitute the dominant body of knowledge on the causes
and consequences of governmental action.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
a. Identify the different definitions of public policy and government,
b. Describe the relationship between politics and policy,
c. Discuss the theories of policy process, and
d. Explain the problems and challenges of policy making.
But what makes a policy ‘public’? What, in other words, distinguishes public
policy from, say, private policy? There are several ways of characterizing public
policy. Hogwood and Gunn (1984) have attempted a scheme for categorizing
the variety of different ways in which the word ‘policy’ is used. Many
definitions of public policy abound "and it may simply be futile trying to
76
discover which is correct or proper. However, at a broad level, public policy
will refer to the relationship of a government unit to its environment Thomas
Dye, simply defined public policy as “whatever governments choose to do or
not to do.” Other definitions associate public policy with purposive behaviour.
In this regard, public policy is viewed as “a purposive course of action followed
by an actor or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of a concern.
77
may be positive or negative. E. g. government may decide to do something or
may decide to do nothing about a particular matter. Public policy is based on
law, therefore it is authoritative. Accordingly, it must be obeyed. Failure to obey
the law on that policy will attract sanctions like imprisonment or fine.
The study of "public, policy has developed to have various sections which
include: public policy analysis, theories of the policy process, policy
development and implementation; to these may be added programme
development and implementation. So far as it is observed in practice, the
commonest practitioners of bureaucratic method of administration, and the
greatest formulators and implementers of public policies are members of the
public service of any public organization. The public service is the next and
final consideration of this work.
The public service represents the employees of government. They are those
responsible for the functioning of government through the implementation of
government policies. Such policies include welfare services rendered to the
citizens. The public service is therefore made up of workers in government
ministries, parastatals and agencies. Workers in the Ministry of Education,
Central Bank-of Nigeria, etc. are all members of the public service. Within the
public service, we have the civil service, which constitute the inner core, or the
heart of the public service.
From the period of Nigerian independence in 1960 to1967, there were five
public services (the Federal Public Service, the Public service of Eastern
Region, Northern Region, Mid-Western Region and Western Region). At the
end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970 a Public Service Review Commission (the
Udoji Commission) was set up to among other things, harmonise the structure
and organisation of the public service of Nigeria.28 In 1974 the Udoji
Commission came out with a recommendation for results oriented and unified
structure of public service for the whole country. This implies that
recruitment/appointment, promotion, remuneration, retirement, discipline
dismissal became governed by the same conditions all over the country.
In 1988, there was another review, the Phillips Civil Service Review Panel (The
Nigerian Federal Civil Service in the mid 80s and Beyond) which according to
the government was aimed at streamlining the public service along the lines of
the presidential system of government, with the purpose of making the public
service responsive to the Structural Adjustment Programme. One of the
recommendations of the review was that heads of ministries be called Directors
General instead of Permanent Secretaries. The review also recommended
specialization in the ministry where the officer found himself. The appointment
78
of the Directors General became political and the Directors General were
required to retire with the president who appointed them.
The latest review of the civil service was undertaken by the Allison Ayida Panel
on Civil Service Reform which submitted its report in July, 1995. The panel
examined the 1988 reform and suggested far-reaching changes. Based on the
panel’s recommendation, the Provisional Ruling Council, PRC, directed that the
post of director-general should revert back to the status of permanent secretary
and accounting officer of the ministry.
79
elements of society in that the maximisation of one or a set of values invariably
requires some costs in terms of minimisation or deprivation of other values.
A related issue derives from the philosophical speculation concerning the end of
government. Government, it is generally believed, ought to promote the public
interest and all governments invariably justify their actions as being in the
public interest. A venerable notion of politics held by political philosophers
from Aristotle to the present is that government is a public activity that involves
public purposes, or public interests, or a public good, or some distinctly ‘public’
aspect of human life. This concept of the public interest entails the ideas that
governmental actions ought to create and promote values that are for the good
of the general public and that are made with the welfare of most of society in
mind.
A key attribute of government is its authority, that is, its right to make,
administer and enforce legally binding policies and rules on its citizens. The
notion that governmental actions are under guarded by authority dates back to
Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle argued against those who say that all kinds of
authority are identical and sought to distinguish the authority of those who
occupy governmental roles from other forms of authority such as the master
over the slave.“ Government, by this argument, functions with respect to society
as a whole and its rules are legally binding on all people within the
government’s legal jurisdiction. Indeed, Aristotle defines the polis, or political
association as the ‘most sovereign and inclusive association’. The German
scholar, Max Weber has extended our understanding of the authoritative basis
of governmental action by postulating that an association should be called
political ‘if and in so far as the enforcement of its order is carried out
continually within a given territorial area by the application and threat of
physical force on the part of the administrative staff.
80
specific goal which policy makers hope to attain including the general course of
action to be followed and the specific means by which the goal is to be pursued.
The etymology of authority should not delay us here. It is only sufficient to note
that it is authority which legitimizes the political process by which values are
allocated. Significantly, authorities, properly so called, are responsible for
resolving the conflict of interests which necessarily arises out of the competing
demands which people make. There is a paradoxical aspect to politics which is
evident from this discussion, namely, that the political process is at once a
conflict generating and a conflict resolution process. As authorities seek to
allocate values, they make judgmental decisions which are favourable to some
and unfavourable to others. The cumulative decisions which authorities make
are what we generally refer to as public policies. This is another way of saying
that public policy is the output of the political process of value allocation.
The linkage between politics and public policy should by now be fairly obvious.
Public policy is what authorities do when they are seized with the political
process of sharing societal resources among competing values.
81
All policies originate from demands or claims made upon public officials by
other actors, private or official, in the political system for action or inaction on
some perceived problems. A demand is a request that government should do
something about a problem. Public policies are designed, almost invariably, to
satisfy or meet the demands or claims made on public officials.
All policies involve decision making by public officials that authorize or give
direction and content to public policy actions. Decision-making involves the
choice of an alternative from a series of competing alternatives. Some decisions
which affect public policy actions are fundamental while others are largely
routine and are made by officials in the day-to-day application of public policy.
The policy cycle comes to maturity with policy outputs, that is, the ‘tangible
manifestations of public policies, the things actually done in pursuance of policy
decisions and statements. The study of public policy as policy output clearly
demonstrates the wide gulf that exists between policy pronouncements and the
actual acts of government. Policy outcomes complete the policy cycle. Policy
outcomes are the consequences for society, intended or unintended, that flow
from action or inaction by government. Concern with policy outcomes directs
our attention to the impact of public policies, namely, whether policies meet the
original goals which led to their enactment.
82
made by governmental officials. At the implementation stage, administrators
carry out policies that have been adopted by formal political office-holders.
Finally, during the evaluation stage of the policy process, the concern is with
the estimation, assessment, or appraisal of policy, including its content,
implementation, and effects.
The linkage among the stages in the policy process would appear obvious. After
all, problems must receive the attention of policy makers who then must
contemplate the list of potential alternatives for policy choices which are, in
turn, legitimated through an adoption procedure. As policy makers contemplate
the outcome of the decisions they make in terms of their impact on the relevant
publics, new problems may be generated, and the cycle goes on.
Significantly, for each stage in the policy process, there are distinct sets of
actors whose relevance is determined, largely, by the resources which they
command. Actors in the policy process could be proximate or auxiliary, visible
or hidden. With respect to agenda setting, for example, elected officials and
their appointees are dominant actors, while alternatives, proposals and solutions
are generated largely within communities of specialists. There is equally an
agreement that bureaucrats are dominant at the implementation stage of the
policy process.
What make the contribution of these actors significant are the resources which
each command. Elected officials and their appointees command a set of
institutional as well as organisational resources with which they dominate the
public’s attention. Through these enormous resources, these officials are well
positioned to set the policy agenda. Professional staffers as well as academic
researchers and consultants, on the other hand, dominate the alternative
specification stage by invoking their reservoir of special skills and knowledge.
The dominance of civil service bureaucrats at the implementation stage of the
policy process owes largely to their acknowledged experience and power of
administrative discretion.
83
agencies are key actors in policy making, the specific mode of their impact on
the policy process has been a matter for theoretical disputation.
From the foregoing distinction between decision making and policy making, we
can make a further categorization of the theories of the policy process based on
the level of analysis of policy making. We thus make a distinction between
macro and micro theories of the policy process. At the micro level of analysis;
the concern is with explaining the behaviour of individuals and groups engaged
in the empirical activities involved in decision making Macro theorizing, on the
other hand, is based on analytical frameworks which are, in the main, systemic
and are concerned with the bigger and more fundamental questions relating to
vested interests and the distribution of economic and political power within a
society.
The role of theory in political analysis is to give direction to inquiry in the study
of policy making theories provide needed guidelines for focusing our effort in
weaving through the mass of data in the field. According to Thomas Dye,
theoretical models of policy analysis are useful because they:
84
1. Simplify and clarify our thinking about politics and public policy;
2. Identify important aspects of policy problems;
3. Help us to communicate with each other by focusing on essential features
of political life;
4. Direct our efforts to understand public policy better by suggesting what is
important and what is unimportant; and
5. Suggest explanations for public policy and predict its consequences.
What, then, is the nature of the policy-making process and what factors account
for the success or failure of governments in making and implementing policy
choices? We shall seek answers to these questions drawing on the experiences
of the so-called developing nations in policy formulation and implementation.
Those who have sought to analyze why developing nations frequently fall short
of their goals speak in terms of a peculiar “failure-prone policy process.”
According to economist Albert Hirschman, the fundamental problem of
developing nations lies in the inability of their policy-makers to make decisions
that will induce development due to certain psychological and social structural
inadequacies that inhibit them from bringing to bear the needed amount of
knowledge and commitment to make proper judgments about the allocation of
resources.
85
for two reasons. First, developing countries hardly possess governments with
the policy-making apparatus adequate to the task of producing a comprehensive
programme. Second, this inadequacy is met with the introduction of policy
‘solutions -from 'elsewhere,’ usually from advanced developed economies,
solutions which are hardly suitable to local problems. The adoption of foreign
solutions, in turn, undermines the capacity of local intellectual resources to act
on local problems, deepens the underdevelopment of local talents and deprives
them of the opportunity to master the problems on their own terms.
The evidence for the failure-prone thesis provided by the critical aspects of the
policy formulation and implementation processes. A key activity in policy
formulation is goal setting. Policy makers in developing countries engage in the
elaborate exercise of goal setting by creating structures for planning. As
policymakers make a fetish of planning as a basis for development, it would
appear that the more they planned, the less development is achieved. Far from
not trying, policy-makers in developing countries are, indeed, guilty of trying
too much to plan and set goals and targets for national development. To what do
we attribute the lag between the expectations and realisations of policy-makers
in developing countries?
The failure prone policy process thesis argues that policy-makers in the
developing nations are guilty of setting unrealistic goals. The thesis argues
further that the policy formulation process engenders expectations among the
people which can hardly be matched by the capacities of the system. Goals are
unrealistic because they are set at very comprehensive levels, because decision
makers lack reliable information on which to base their calculations and
sometimes, because the possibility of expressing alternative policy options is
either suppressed or non-existent.
Public policies also fail in developing countries because of lack of funds to pay
for the many projects and programmes tied to these policies. Governments of
developing countries are unable to finance their projects and programmes on
86
account of the indebtedness of their countries and the reluctance of international
financial institutions to sustain the profligacy and indiscipline which led to the
indebtedness, in the first place. Funds from donor agencies are equally
unavailable because of the severe conditionalities attached to these funds which
developing nations are unable or unwilling to fulfill. In addition, the capacity of
developing nations to source funds internally is severely limited.
Perhaps the social indiscipline alluded to above could have been moderated but
for the comparatively underdeveloped state of countervailing powers in
developing countries. In other words, there are few checks on unrestrained and
‘abused power of a dominant executive and its representatives.
In what follows, we shall account for the limited explanatory power of the
failure-prone thesis in terms of the neglect of the analysis of the context of
social action which defines the possibilities and limitations of policy-making.
What are the peculiarities of the policy environment in the developing countries
of the world and in what ways do these peculiarities affect the discharge of the
policy-making function in these countries?
In emphasizing the criticality of the context for the analysis of the efficacy of
public policies, we shall, following Claude Ake (1981), impress the theoretical
point that human beings (including policy-makers) are largely products of their
87
environment; that they do not act in a vacuum; that whatever it is they do, they
do so always in response to the necessities of the situation in which they find
themselves; that the environment, in other words, shapes their values,
preferences, attitudes and behaviour.
What, then, are the necessities of the conditions under which policy-makers
operate in developing countries? This question calls for the stipulation of the
objective realities which confront policy-makers as they seek to make policy
choices.
But how is political power acquired? What, in other words, is the nature of
politics or the form of struggle or competition to control the commanding
heights of the state where the main decisions about public policy are made and
enforced? Political competition of Nigeria is very intense largely because of the
pervasiveness of state power. The state is everywhere and its might appears
boundless. Control of state power assures the total dominance of the holders
while all others remain losers. The state subserves the interests of those who
control it, runs by rules of the dominant class and is, by implication, incapable
of mediating political competition, as speculated in liberal political theory.
The linkage between the economy and policy behaviour is very instructive. A
dependent economy coheres with a dependent state. Together they breed a
category of policymakers who are materially weak and who crave political
power in order to amass wealth.
The implication of this linkage is that public policies are made on the basis of
political considerations. Major economic policies in Nigeria are replete with
economic irrationalities and have, therefore, been limited in their developmental
impacts. Political considerations govern the utilization of manpower so much so
that critical positions where policy decisions are taken about the commanding
88
heights of the economy are filled with those who are politically safe, but who
may have limited and/or inappropriate technical knowhow.
A lot of times, too, we blame our policy-makers for policy failures. This is also
a logical thing to do. We psychologies the problem of policy failures by
perceiving it as something arising from the defective character of our policy
matters whom we judge as incapable of making the correct choices.
But we may very well be dead wrong. Our focus on government as the root of
policy failures may be misplaced by bringing one government down and
installing or supporting a new one we may not have thereby improved on policy
fortunes. Ake’ s argument is premised on the useful distinction he made
between the ruling class and government suggesting, in effect, that the ruling
class is in power (always) while the government is only in office: The import of
Ake’s penetrating analysis is that we concentrate too much energy in reforming
governments and its institutions believing that therein lies the key to a success-
prone policy process and in so doing, we leave virtually untouched our inherited
dependent economic structure and its corresponding state structure.
89
prone policy process of these countries without addressing the problems of the
political context of policymaking.
Public policies can be made to reflect the interests of the vast majority of the
people in developing countries if politics in these countries is democratized. A
crucial aspect of this process is the accommodation rather than the repression of
the political expression of dissent. The capacity of the ruling class in developing
nations to mobilize the vast majority of their people around national purposes
and policies is contingent on this accommodation. That, the ruling class has not
been sufficiently sensitive to this necessity is primarily responsible for the
continuing failure of policy decisions in these countries.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to establish the concepts of public policy and
government, the relationships between the two concepts, the policy cycle,
theories of policy process, and problems and challenges of public policy
making.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss the relationships between
institutional settings and administration. In addition, the concepts of
government and policy were discussed as well as policy cycle, theories of
90
policy process and problems and challenges of public policy making in
developing countries.
91
7.0 References/Further Readings
Gold, Joshua I.; Shadlen, Michael N. (2007). "The neural basis of decision
making". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 30: 535–
574. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.113038. PMID 17600525.
Hall, Crystal C.; Ariss, Lynn; Todorov, Alexander (July 2007). "The illusion of
knowledge: when more information reduces accuracy and increases
confidence" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes. 103 (2): 277–290. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.01.003.
92
Heidenheimer, A. H. Heclo and C. T Adams Comparative Public Policy (3rd
ed.) (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1990).A good discussion of public
policy and the performance of political systems.
Daniel, K. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux. ISBN 9780374275631. OCLC 706020998.
Reyna, Valerie F. (November 2013). "Psychology: Good and bad news on the
adolescent brain". Nature. 503(7474): 48–
49. doi:10.1038/nature12704. PMID 24172899.
Sharot, Tali (2011). The optimism bias: a tour of the irrationally positive
brain (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon
Books. ISBN 9780307378484. OCLC 667609433.
Sharot, Tali; Korn, Christoph W.; Dolan, Raymond J. (October 2011). "How
unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality". Nature
Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1475–
1479. doi:10.1038/nn.2949. PMC 3204264. PMID 21983684.
94
Ulea, Vera (2002). A concept of dramatic genre and the comedy of a new type:
chess, literature, and film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0809324521. OCLC 51301095.
95
Unit 4: Decision Making in Administration
1.0 Introduction
The making of decisions, and specifically of bundles of decisions, is clearly
central to any administrative activities in policy making. Although policy-
making also relates to the acts of initiation and implementation, the making of
decisions and reaching of conclusions is usually seen as its key feature.
However, it may be difficult to establish how and why decisions are made.
Decisions are undoubtedly made in different ways by individuals and by groups,
within small bodies and within large organizations, and within democratic and
authoritarian structures.
The focus of this unit is to identify and operationalise the concept decision
making and its theoretical bases. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the concept of decision making
arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are
therefore, expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0 Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Understand the different definitions of decision making, and
2. Discuss the theories of decision making.
3.0Main Contents
3.1 Decision Making
Decision making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection
of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Every
decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt
action. Decision-making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives
based on the values, preferences and beliefs of the decision makers.
Decision-making can be regarded as a problem-solving activity terminated by a
solution deemed to be optimal, or at least satisfactory. It is therefore a process
which can be more or less rational or irrational and can be based
on explicit or tacit knowledge and beliefs. Tacit knowledge can be obtained by
experience or reflection, for instance. It might be something that you are not
able to put in words, as opposed to explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is often
used to fill the gaps in complex decision making processes. Usually both of
these types of knowledge, tacit and explicit, are used in decision-making
process together. Explicit knowledge is less likely to result in major decisions
than tacit knowledge, which means that the decision-making process usually
relies on knowledge acquired through experience.
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Human performance has been the subject of active research from several
perspectives: Psychological: examining individual decisions in the context of a
set of needs, preferences and values the individual has or seeks. Cognitive: the
decision-making process regarded as a continuous process integrated in the
interaction with the environment. Normative: the analysis of individual
decisions concerned with the logic of decision-making, or communicative
rationality, and the invariant choice it leads to. A major part of decision-making
involves the analysis of a finite set of alternatives described in terms of
evaluative criteria. Then the task might be to rank these alternatives in terms of
how attractive they are to the decision-maker(s) when all the criteria are
considered simultaneously. Another task might be to find the best alternative or
to determine the relative total priority of each alternative (for instance, if
alternatives represent projects competing for funds) when all the criteria are
considered simultaneously. Solving such problems is the focus of multiple-
criteria decision analysis (MCDA). This area of decision-making, although very
old, has attracted the interest of many researchers and practitioners and is still
highly debated as there are many MCDA methods which may yield very
different results when they are applied on exactly the same data. This leads to
the formulation of a decision-making paradox.
Logical decision-making is an important part of all science-based professions,
where specialists apply their knowledge in a given area to make informed
decisions. For example, medical decision-making often involves a diagnosis and
the selection of appropriate treatment. But naturalistic decision-making research
shows that in situations with higher time pressure, higher stakes, or increased
ambiguities, experts may use intuitive decision-making rather than structured
approaches. They may follow a recognition primed decision that fits their
experience and arrive at a course of action without weighing alternatives.
The decision-makers environment can play a part in the decision-making
process. For example, environmental complexity is a factor that influences
cognitive function. A complex environment is an environment with a large
number of different possible states which come and go over time. Studies done
at the University of Colorado have shown that more complex environments
correlate with higher cognitive function, which means that a decision can be
influenced by the location. One experiment measured complexity in a room by
the number of small objects and appliances present; a simple room had less of
those things. Cognitive function was greatly affected by the higher measure of
environmental complexity making it easier to think about the situation and
make a better decision.
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3.2 Decision Making Theories
This body of theories is concerned with how decision makers go about choosing
the alterative(s) for achieving defined goals. There are two polar theories of
decision making. This polarity is reflected in “the debate between writers who
analyse decision making by reference to rational models and writers who
portray decision making as an incremental process”. Somehow, the point of
contrast between the two theoretical poles is established by reference to rational
theories as the ideal which could only have been intended to be prescriptive,
while incremental theories are paraded as descriptive of how decisions makers
act in the real world. As polar views of the same phenomenon, rational and
incremental theories harbour other theoretical approaches to decision making
which attempt to overcome the unrealism of the ideal type rational model as
well as the ‘incompleteness’ of incremental approaches. We shall examine the
two polar theories in some detail below. In addition, we shall highlight the
contributions of the middle way theories especially in overcoming the
deficiencies of rational and incremental theories of decision making.
This type of process assumes that clear-cut objectives exist, and that human
beings are able to pursue them in a rational and consistent manner. For this to
utility must be homogeneous: it must be possible to compare the amount of
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action (pleasure or happiness) that each action would bring with that which
results from any other action. The best example of such an approach to decision
is found in the use of cost-benefit analysis in the making of business decisions.
The rational actor model is attractive, in part, because it reflects how most
people believe decisions should be made. Certainly, politicians and others are
inclined to portray their actions as both goal-orientated and the product of
thought and deliberation. When examined more closely, however, rational
action may not appear to be a particularly convincing model of decision
making. First place, the model is more easily applied to individuals, who may
have and or set of preferences, than it is to groups, within which there are likely
to be of conflicting objectives. Organizations may therefore be said to make
rational decisions only if they are highly centralized and possess a strict
command structure.
A second problem is that, in practice, decisions are often made on the basis of
inadequate and sometimes inaccurate information and the benefits of such
actions may in any case not be comparable. Is it possible, for instance, to know
the ‘costs’ of raising taxes with those of reducing healthcare provision? Such
difficulty encouraged Simon (1983) to develop the notion of ‘bounded rational
acknowledges that, as it is impossible to analyse and select all possible action.
Decision-making is essentially an act of compromising between different valued
and imprecisely calculated outcomes. Simon described this process as rational.
The final drawback of rational actor models is that they ignore the perception:
that is, the degree to which actions are shaped by belief and assumed about
reality, rather than by reality itself. Little or no importance is thus attractive to
the values and ideological leanings of decision-makers
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From the foregoing, it is clear that rational decision making involves the
selection of alternatives which will maximize the decision maker’s values, the
selection being made following a comprehensive analysis of alternatives and
their consequences.
A second basis of criticism of the rational model is over the issue of values. The
question is often raised as to whose values are used as a basis for making
decisions. There are two issues here: first, a decision situation is a situation of
value conflict rather than value consensus and “conflicting values, do not permit
comparison or weighing.” Second, there is the problem of the decision-maker
confusing his personal values with the larger organisational value. There is, of
course, the larger issue of separating facts from values, a problem that comes to
the fore in a means-end model such as the rational model of decision making.
The rational model stipulates the prior specification of means of reaching ends,
but the means a decision maker chooses for achieving specified ends (goals) are
hardly devoid of values.
100
his values but to be satisfactory or good enough. A significant implication of the
concept of bounded rationality is that decision makers use the most convenient
and least expensive information, not necessarily the information that will result
in the maximum amount of knowledge about the outcomes, alternatives, values
and probabilities involved in the decision. Put differently, decision-makers
rarely maximise goal attainment in their decisions. Rather, they sacrifice, that is,
they tend to evaluate decision alternatives against standards that set minimally
acceptable levels of attainment on each objective rather than maximum
standards. By so doing, decision-makers are able to overcome the rigorous
demands imposed by the ideal rational-comprehensive model.
Does the rational-comprehensive theory describe the way decisions are made in
the real world? Obviously, not as we noted earlier, decision making rarely
proceeds in the manner prescribed by the theory. There is a paradox, however.
This is that because rationality is taken as a virtue, decision-makers talk and
behave as though they conform to the dictates of the rational-comprehensive
theory in the decisions they make. They, in other words, imply that the rational
comprehensive theory is descriptive of how they act. This observation,
notwithstanding, it is safe to conclude that rational comprehensive theory is a
prescriptive theory which points in the direction of how perfect decisions can be
made.
Incremental models
Incrementalism is usually portrayed as the principal alternative to rational
decision making. David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom (1963) termed this
‘disjointed incrementalism, neatly summed up by Lindblom (1959) as the
‘theory of muddling through’. This position holds that, in practice, decisions are
made on the basis of inadequate information and low levels of understanding
this discourages decision-makers from pursuing bold and innovative courses of
Policy-making is therefore a continuous, exploratory process: lacking over goals
and clear-cut ends, policy-makers tend to operate within an existing framework,
adjusting their position in the light of feedback in the form of intention about
the impact of earlier decisions. Indeed, incrementalism may sustain strategy of
avoidance or evasion, policy-makers being inclined to move away from
problems, rather than trying to solve them.
101
justifies a bias against innovation and in favour of inertia. Policy makers who
embrace incrementalism are more likely to be concerned with day-to-day
problems than with indulging in long term visionary thinking. Their energy is
channeled into keeping the ship on course, not on reflecting on where that
course is leading.
102
and that the comparisons they make between the current state of affairs and the
small adjustments to be made in current behaviour are within manageable
proportions. Decisions are, in other words, made “step-by-step” and by small
degrees.
The prescriptive import of the incremental approach is that it helps to avoid the
calamity of embarking on fundamental changes while leaving sufficient room
for the decision maker to test the wisdom of the course of action he had chosen.
It is also argued that incrementalism is a natural approach because it is
consistent with the nature of decision makers as human beings who rarely act to
maximise their values; who are hardly in search of the ‘one best way’ but who
would rather be content with what works. In short, incrementalism is presented
as a prescriptive model of how decision makers ought to act because it is the
rational thing to do.
103
reinforcement of the pro-inertia and anti-innovation forces”. Incremental
decisions tend to reflect the values and preferences of dominant interests in
society while neglecting the interests of the underclass.
Mixed scanning
Rational comprehensive model and incrementalism have been presented as
polar views on decision behaviour. Although both theories would like to make
descriptive and prescriptive claims, it is fairly obvious that the strength of the
rational model lies in its prescriptive import. While the incremental approach is
essentially descriptive, it is equally obvious that the rational model suffers from
‘unrealism’ while the incremental approach is incomplete in its neglect of
fundamental decisions.
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capacities (e.g. “seeding” cloud formations that could develop into hurricanes or
bring rain to arid areas). Incrementalism would focus on those areas in which
similar patterns developed in the recent past and, perhaps, on a few nearby
regions; it would thus ignore all formations which might deserve attention if
they arose in unexpected areas.
By so doing, Etzioni (1967) reasons that, each of the two elements in mixed
scanning helps to reduce the effects of the particular shortcomings of other;
incrementalism reduces the unrealistic aspects of rationalism by limiting the
details required in fundamental decisions, and contextuating rationalism helps to
overcome the conservative slant of incrementalism by exploring longer-run
alterative.
The mixed scanning model is a pointer to the fact that decisions come in
varying magnitude thus necessitating the need for either comprehensive or
incremental considerations. There are, however, no clear specifications as to the
criteria for delimiting the boundary between fundamental and incremental
decisions. It has, for example, been argued that the weight we assign to
decisions is contextually defined suggesting, in effect, that what is fundamental
rational in one context may be incremental in another.
105
highlighting the degree to which process influences product. This approach was
pioneered by Allison (1971) in his examination of US and USSR decision-
making during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.Two contrasting, but related,
models emerged from this study. The first, usually called the organizational
process model, highlights the impact on decisions of the values, assumptions
and regular patterns of behaviour that are found in any large organization.
Rather than corresponding to rational analysis and objective evaluation,
decisions are seen to reflect the entrenched culture of the government
department or agency that makes them. The second theory, the ‘bureaucratic
politics’ model, emphasizes the impact on decisions of bargaining between
personnel and agencies each pursuing different perceived interests. This
approach dismisses the idea of the state as a monolith united around a single
view or a single interest, and suggests that decisions arise from an arena of
contest in which the balance of advantage is constantly shifting.
Models of decision making that place an emphasize on the role of beliefs and
ideologies highlight the degree to which behaviour structured by perception.
When people see and understand to an extent, what their concepts and values all
them, or encourage them, to see and understand. This tendency is particularly
entrenched because, in most cases, it is largely unconscious. Although decision
makers may believe that they are being rational, rigorous and strictly impartial,
that social and political values may act as a powerful filter, defining for them
what is thinkable, what is possible, and what is desirable. Certain information
and particular options are therefore not appreciated or even considered, while
106
other pieces of information and other courses of action feature prominently in
the calculus of decision-making. Indeed, Boulding (1956) underlined the vital
importance of process by pointing out that, without a mechanism to filter
information, decision makers would simply be overwhelmed by the sheer
volume of data confronting them.
However, there are different views about the origin and nature of this filter
process. Jervis (1968), for instance, drew attention to evidence of consistence
perception on the part of decision –makers. In international affairs, this
stemmed largely from ethnocentrism. The inclination of Anthony Eden and UK
government to view General Nasser as a second Hitler during the 1956 crisis,
and the tendency of the USA in 1959 to regard Fidel Castro a Marxist
revolutionary, may be examples of this phenomenon. Irving (1972), On the
other hand, suggested that many decisions in the field of international relations
could be explained in terms of what he called ‘groupthink’. This is the
phenomenon in which psychological and professional pressures conspire to
encourage a group of decision-makers to adopt a unified and coherent position,
with contrary or inconvenient views being squeezed out of consideration.
The importance of such beliefs is that they provide what-Sabatier called the glue
politics, binding people together on the basis of shared values and preferences.
However, while core beliefs are highly resistant to change, a greater measure of
disagreement and flexibility is usually found at the near-core and secondary
levels. Using framework, Sabatier proposed that policy change could be
understood in large terms of the shifting balance of forces within a policy
subsystem, in particular through the dominance of one advocacy coalition over
others. This process may nevertheless be seen to be rational insofar as debate
within a belief system, and rivalry between belief systems, promotes ‘policy-
orientated learning.
107
In the hands of Marxists and feminists, however, such ideas can be used to draw
a very different conclusions (Hann, 1995). Marxists have argued that the core
beliefs within any policy subsystem, or indeed amongst policymakers and
opinion formers at large, are structured by ruling-class ideology and so favour
the interests of dominant economic interests. Feminists,-for their part, may
argue that a preponderance of men amongst policy-makers ensures that the
‘glue’ of politics is provided by patriarchal ideas and values. This results in
policy biases that help to sustain a system of male power.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to establish the concepts of decision making
and theories of decision making.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss the various definitions of decision
making. In addition, the following theories of decision making were extensively
perused; rational comprehensive, incremental, mixed scanning, bureaucratic
organization and belief system.
108
7.0 References/Further Reading
Barbey, Aron K.; Colom, Roberto; Grafman, Jordan (March 2014). "Distributed
neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping". Social
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 9 (3): 265–
272. doi:10.1093/scan/nss124. PMC 3980800. PMID 23171618.
Gold, Joshua I.; Shadlen, Michael N. (2007). "The neural basis of decision
making". Annual Review of Neuroscience. 30: 535–
574. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.113038. PMID 17600525.
Hall, Crystal C.; Ariss, Lynn; Todorov, Alexander (July 2007). "The illusion of
knowledge: when more information reduces accuracy and increases
confidence" (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes. 103 (2): 277–290. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.01.003.
109
Heidenheimer, A. H. Heclo and C. T Adams Comparative Public Policy (3rd
ed.) (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1990).A good discussion of public
policy and the performance of political systems.
Kahneman, Daniel (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux. ISBN 9780374275631. OCLC 706020998.
Kennerley, Steven W.; Walton, Mark E.; Behrens, Timothy E. J.; Buckley,
Mark J.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S. (July 2006). "Optimal decision making and
the anterior cingulate cortex". Nature Neuroscience. 9 (7): 940–
947. doi:10.1038/nn1724. PMID 16783368.
Reyna, Valerie F. (November 2013). "Psychology: Good and bad news on the
adolescent brain". Nature. 503(7474): 48–
49. doi:10.1038/nature12704. PMID 24172899.
Sharot, Tali (2011). The optimism bias: a tour of the irrationally positive
brain (1st ed.). New York: Pantheon
Books. ISBN 9780307378484. OCLC 667609433.
Sharot, Tali; Korn, Christoph W.; Dolan, Raymond J. (October 2011). "How
unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality". Nature
Neuroscience. 14 (11): 1475–
1479. doi:10.1038/nn.2949. PMC 3204264. PMID 21983684.
111
Ulea, Vera (2002). A concept of dramatic genre and the comedy of a new type:
chess, literature, and film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0809324521. OCLC 51301095.
112
Unit 5: Personnel Administration
1.0 Introduction
Managing human resources effectively has become vital to organization of the
twenty-first century. The heightened level of global competitiveness has alerted
all organizations to the fact that all their resources must be utilized well than
ever before and that much more could be gained from a better handling of the
personnel. Academics and human resources or personnel management
professionals have identified several human resources activities that are critical
for organizational survival. Survival of an organisation is enhanced by the
ability to effectively manage human resources in order to attract, motivate and
retain employees. Human resources activities need to be performed effectively,
but also the human resources or personnel department of any organization need
to play several roles and have a broader and deeper range of competencies in
order to bring this about. Thus, Personnel management is the use of several
activities to ensure that human resources are managed effectively for the benefit
of the individual, society and the organization. It is based on this premise that
this unit on personnel management treated the topic under the following
headings;
2.0 Objectives
113
Acquisition and utilization of labour may be broken down into the particular
tasks of recruiting, selecting, deploying, using, assessing, developing and
rewarding the labour services necessary to achieving the goals of the
organization and its management.
The advantages of filling the vacancies internally rather than externally are:
Many vacancies are filled from external sources; even when an internal
candidate is transferred or promoted the final result is usually a vacancy else-
where in the organization which has to be filled from outside. External
114
recruitment can be time- consuming, expensive and uncertain, though it is
possible to reduce these disadvantages to some extent by fore thought and
planning. External sources may be divided into two classes; those which are
comparatively inexpensive but offer a limited choice (i.e. a-f below) and those
which are comparatively expensive but give the employer access to a wider
range of candidates (i.e. g and h below).
115
Selection
The application form: Whatever method of recruitment is used, the candidate
should be asked to fill up an application form and to ensure that no important
details are omitted. According to Dale (1978: 259) the layout of application
forms varies, but most of them contain the following headings, usually in this
order:
The application form is not the only basis of selection, but it is the fundamental
document in an employee's personnel record and has legal importance in the
contract of employment.
Selection methods: Choosing the right person for the job is critical to the
organization's success and a poor or inappropriate choice cannot only be costly
to the organization, but demoralizing to the employee (who finds him/himself in
the wrong job) and not motivating to the rest of the work force.
The manager's next step is to compare the application form with the personnel
specification, looking for attributes, which show the candidates to be apparently
suitable for the job and shortcomings, which may either rule out the candidate
from consideration or necessitate special training if he were engaged. The
manager will have decided what type of interview should be given to
individuals, successive or panel and what test should be used e.g. an intelligent
test, or aptitude test.
Offer of the job: Assuming that a suitable candidate has emerged from the
selection process, she/he would then receive an offer. It is usual for her/him to
116
be made an oral offer, and if he accepts it he is given a written offer. The initial
offer of a job needs special care, particularly as regards the following points:
i. The wage or salary offered must not only be appropriate to the job and
attractive to the candidate but consistent with the earning of present
employees;
ii. The job must be named and any special conditions stated;
iii. The candidate must know the essential conditions of employment;
iv. Any provision must be clearly stated; and
v. The next stage must be clearly defined: if the candidate asks for time for
consideration, it must be agreed when he will get in touch.
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2) Foreign Service premium: Beside cost of living differential,
multinationals pay a Foreign Service premium to induce an employee to a
foreign assignment.
3) Relocation allowances: Some multinationals pay a lump sum outright to
offset nonrecurring incidental cost necessitated by relocation.
4) Hardship and danger premium: Danger pay applies to specific
emergency situations, such as war, or political unrest, and it is
discontinued once the emergency situation ceases. Hardship premium on
the hand represents an on going allowance for assignment to countries
with hardship living conditions, such as climate, or inadequate amenities.
Besides monetary incentives many multinationals adopt other measures to
make assignments to hardship location more bearable, such as shorter
durations of overseas assignment and more frequent relation to seaside
resort or home leave.
Salary Structue
Salary is a fixed periodical payment to a manual employee. It is usually
expressed in annual terms, implying a relatively permanent employment
relationship, though normally paid at monthly intervals. In many ways it
resembles a retaining fee. Salaried workers are usually termed staff. The total
remuneration of employees often consists of many different payment elements.
These elements include:
1. Basic rate;
2. Incentive bonuses;
3. "Dirty money";
4. Shift allowance;
5. Merit allowance, etc.
These elements can be categorized and seen as relating either to the job content
itself, the individual, special circumstances surrounding the job or the
organization’s policy aimed at retaining employees. Wages/salaries have some
components namely:
1. Job rate which relates to the importance of the job;
2. Payments associated with encouraging individuals or group by rewarding
them according to their performance;
3. Special or personal allowances associated with such factors as scarcity of
particular skills or categories of employees or long services; and
4. Fringe benefits such as holiday with pay, pensions, life insurance, car and
so on.
Surely, salary structures differ to the extent in which they incorporate these
components. Generally the job rate is used as a basis for calculating
performance and other bonuses and for determining the job holidays entitlement
to fringe benefits.
118
Wages/salaries are paid to employees on the following purposes:
Characteristics of Salaries
A salary differs from a wage in many respects, reflecting the different attitudes
traditionally held by an employer towards his non-manual employees compared
with his manual employees:
Salary Administration
There are three typical ways in which an organization can administer its
salaries:
a. Ad hoc, in which there is no attempt at any kind of job evaluation to
assess a fair level of salary for a job. Increases in salary are given
erratically, often at the demand of the employee rather than at the
initiative of the company. In a small company this method is workable.
But in a large company it can produce an illogical and unfair salary
structure, which will cause discontent and jealousy. For obvious reasons
salaries paid by this system are intended to be confidential.
119
b. Merit review, usually found in medium and large companies in the
private sector. After job evaluation, a salary range is attached to every
staff job. Employees are appraised and given merit increases each year,
which will move their salaries at varying speeds through the range. In this
way individual effort and merit are rewarded. It is customary for salaries
under this system to be kept confidential: in most cases the employees do
not know the maximum salary it is possible to earn in their job.
c. Incremental scale found above all in the public sector e.g. the civil
service, local government and nationalized companies though its use
appears to be increasing in private sector. All stall jobs are evaluated and
graded, the salary range appearing as, most schemes permit a manager to
award a double increment for exceptional merit or withhold an increment
for unsatisfactory work or conduct, but as a rule the standard increment is
given automatically. In this system long service and loyalty are
encouraged by regular higher grade. It is customary for salaries in the
incremental system to be non-confidential.
Wage Structure
A wage is the payment made to manual workers. It is nearly always expressed
as a rate per hour. The foundation of a manual worker's earnings is his basic
time wage, which is often fixed by job evaluation and is subject in most
industries to minimum rates agreed in national collective bargaining or laid
down by wages councils. He is paid the hourly rate for every hour he attends
work, though he is frequently fixed for lateness by quartering e.g. for being five
minutes late, he will lose a quarter of an hour’s pay. In addition to the basic rate
he will often receive other payments, the most common examples of which are:
i. Overtime: Pay for any work done beyond normal hours. It is usually paid
at premium rates, i.e. at time and a quarter time and a half, double time,
etc, the rate varying according to the time or the day on which the
overtime is worked.
ii. Shift: Pay for employees who work unusual or charging hours to
compensate them for inconveniences and hardship. The amount of shift
pay varies in different industries, but seems to range from about ten to
twenty percent of the basic rate.
iii. Special additions: E.g. danger money, dirty money or wet money that
are paid to the employees during abnormal working conditions. Since the
circumstances that justify these additions are hard to define, many
employers find it preferable to allocate it as contingencies in job
evaluation rather than give special extra payments that is often difficult to
take away again.
iv. Merit or length of service: Additions to employees either on the results
of appraisal or on completion of a certain period of service. Merit
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payments are not very popular with wage earners, who feel they are
influenced by prejudice and subjective judgments. Length of service
payments has an approximate relationship with merit, encourage
employees to stay with the company, and can be precisely defined.
v. Cost of living allowances: Are given quite commonly to employees who
work in the Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt areas, but with that exception
are now consolidated into the basic wage.
vi. Policy allowances: They cover miscellaneous extra payments, like the
addition to the job-evaluated rate for temporarily scarce employee.
vii. Payment by results bonus: This is an extra payment based on the
output of the worker or of the group to which he belongs.
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Organisation Training Needs
Training should not be undertaken for its own sake. It must be seen to relate to
the objectives of the particular organization. This is necessary because
organizations differ in culture and in order to work out a training programme,
the Training Needs
Analysis of each organization will have to be assessed or ascertained.
Types of Training
Training may be specialized or general, internal or external, adhoc or regular
etc. The various types of training which can be used in an organization in
various combinations for maximum impact and effectiveness include:
a. Induction training - general or specialized;
b. Career development;
c. On the job training;
d. Departmental training;
e. Organization development (0D);
f. Occupational training;
g. Organizational training e.g. ASCON, CMD, ARMTI, etc;
h. Learning new techniques and concepts;
i. Remedial training;
j. Aiding displaced employees;
k. Training for advancement;
l. Apprenticeship e.g. construction workers, printers, etc.; and
m. Training the disadvantaged etc.
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Coaching - Trainee is placed under a particular supervisor who act as an
instructor and teaches the job knowledge, skills and attitude;
Counseling - involves a discussion between the boss and his subordinates on
areas concerned with the man's hopes, fears, emotions and aspirations.
Job rotation - transferring of executives to job and from department to
department in a systematic manner.
Off-the-job Techniques
These will include among others:
i. The case study;
ii. Incident study;
iii. Role-playing;
iv. Business games;
v. Sensitivity training;
vi. Simulation; and
vii.Conferences and lectures.
Case Study
Cases are prepared on the basis of actual business situations that happened in
various organizations. Here, the situation is generally described and the trainees
have distinguish the significant facts from the insignificant once, analyze the
facts, identify different alternative solutions, select and suggest the best
solution.
Role Playing
A problem situation is simulated by asking the participants to assume the role of
a particular person in the situation. The particular interacts with others assuming
different role. Roles' playing gives the participants various experiences, which
are of many uses to understand people better. This method teaches human
relation skills through actual practice.
Business Game
Under this method, the trainees are divided into groups or teams. Each has to
discuss and arrive at decisions concerning such subjects as producing, pricing,
research expenditure, advertising etc. assuming itself to be the management of a
stimulated firm. The other teams assume themselves as competitors and react to
the discussions. Any immediate feedback helps to know the relative
performance of each team. The team's co-operative decision promotes greater
interactions among participants and gives them the experience in the co-
operative group process.
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Sensitivity Training (T - Groups)
This is an intervention technique that attempts to give the person more inside
into his or her own behavior as how that behaviour affects others. The main
objective of this is the development of awareness of sensitivity, to behavioural
patterns of oneself and others. Comphell and Dunnete (1968) have listed the
objectives below. This development results in the (i) increased openness with
others, (ii) greater concern for others; (iii) increased tolerance for individual
differences (iv) less prejudice (v) understanding of group progress (vi) enhanced
listening skills and (vii) increased trust and support. Delbeeq (1972:411) has
described the process by which these objectives are attained as follows;
Under this technique, the situation is duplicated in such a way that it carries a
close resemblance to the actual job situation. The trainee experiences a feeling
that he is actually encountering all these conditions. Then, he is asked to assume
a particular role in the circumstances and solve the problems by making
management decision and later, he is given a feedback of his performance.
Selection of Techniques
The success of any management development programme largely depends on
the selection of the technique. The objectives of the programmes should always
form the basis in the selection of techniques. However, it should also be
remembered that no single technique can prove to be sufficient, but sometimes a
combination of the techniques can make any management development
programme effective. This is because all managers at all levels require all kinds
of skills but in varied proportions.
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status and carries improved fringe benefits and more privileges. Its purpose is to
improve both the utilization and motivation of employee. There are two main
ways in which an organisation may promote its employees:
a. By management decision, in which an employee is selected for promotion
on the basis of information already known to the management. This
method is quick and expensive and obviously very suitable for a small
company or for jobs for which the field of possible candidates is small
and well known. In large organizations, it may cause discontent because
the decision is arrived at in secret, possible candidates not having the
opportunity to state their qualifications for the post. In all cases, this
method depends for its success on complete and up-to date employee
records, which can be used to identify all possible candidates for any job.
b. By internal advertisement, employees are told by notices or circulars that
a post is vacant and they are then invited to apply. Some or all of the
candidates are interviewed and finally selected. It is a comparatively
expensive and time-consuming method, but is particularly suitable to a
large organization in which management cannot be expected to have
personal knowledge of possible candidates. It does not rely on accurate
employee records, and, being open rather than secret, appears fairer to the
candidates than the management decision methods. In the public sector
promotions are made almost entirely through internal advertisements.
Transfer:
A transfer is a move to a job within the organization, which has approximately
equal important status and pay. To manage human resources in a constructive
way it is sometimes necessary to transfer employees to other jobs, sometimes
because of changed work requirements and sometimes because an employee is
unhappy or dissatisfied in the present job. In some organisations it is the custom
for the least satisfactory employees to be transferred from one department to
another with the result that a transfer is regarded as discreditable, particularly if
it occurs at short notice and without explanation. An unhappy employee may
125
therefore prefer to leave the organisation rather than seek a transfer. In other
organisations transfers are used as a means of developing promising employees
by giving them experience in several departments. A few companies internally
advertise all vacancies, and consider applicants for whom the new job would be
a transfer rather than a promotion.
Transfers can increase job satisfaction and improve utilization under following
circumstances:
Demotion
A demotion is a move to a job within the company, which is lower in
importance. It is usually, though not always, accompanied by a reduction in pay.
An employee may be demoted for these reasons:
Unless the employees asked for it, demotion will probably have adverse effects
as follows:
Retirement
Social security retirement pensions are at present paid at sixty years for men and
women in Nigeria, providing retirement from work takes place. The retirement
policies of employers are usually based on this age or length of service. An
employer's pension scheme (if one exists) is designed to conform with retire age
when the employee is expected to retire. There are two schools of thought about
126
the age of retirement; one maintains that the age should be minimal while
suitable and fit employees could be allowed to work on after this age. The
others believe in a fixed retirement age.
The advantages of flexible retirement policy are:
1. Many employees are fit and active well beyond the official retirement
age. By working on, they benefit financially and the employer profits
from their knowledge and experience; and
2. The financial burden on the pension scheme may be received.
Moreover, a company, which adopts a fixed retirement age policy, insists on all
its employees retiring from their present jobs at a certain age, although
sometimes they are offered re-employment in a junior capacity for a limited
period.
The advantages of this policy are:
127
defines manpower planning as a rational approach to the recruitment, retention,
utilization, improvement and disposition of an organization’s human resources.
It is concerned with quality as it is with quantity.
Assessment of needs
At this step, relevant questions such as what are the predicted employment
needs of the organization, how many and what type of employees will be
required in the organization in the future. The answers to these questions will
enable the organization to work out the need for manpower. One of the methods
of arriving at correct prediction is through job analysis. The job analysis method
helps the organization to clearly define staffing needs. Areas covered in the
analysis include:
a. Work activities – what needs to be done;
b. What tools and technology – what machines, tools and technology people
will use;
c. Knowledge requirement – what people must do to perform the job;
d. Personnel requirement – what skills and experience people must posses to
perform well;
e. Job context i.e. the work schedules, physical, conditions, social
environment of the job; and
f. Performance standard – expected results.
129
The process and steps in manpower planning
Like other types of planning, manpower planning is made from organizational
objectives. When an organization’s objectives are clearly stated, including
which products to be produced, the methods to be used in production and the
possible markets for the products, the demand for labour can be derived. The
demand for labour is then related to supply to produce the manpower plan. The
manpower planning process can then be described as below:
130
iii. Difficulty in forecasting economic and social changes accurately,
especially in an era of high employment.
iv. The plan may indicate recruitment and training programmes which
although desirable may be impossible to put into practice. A company’s
financial position may find long plans useless; and
v. The rapid growth of new technology.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit effort has been made to establish the concepts of personnel
management and related issues in terms of recruitment of personnel and their
development.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to discuss the various definitions of
personnel management. In addition, isues surrounding personnel recruitment,
selection and placement were discussed. Also personnel compensation in terms
of salary and wages were discussed. Added was discussion on promotion,
transfer, demotion and retirement of personnel. The unit concluded with
discussion on manpower development.
131
7.0 References/Further Readings
Bluny P. and Popoola, O. (1990), Personnel Management in Africa, USA:
Longman Group Inc.
Chrudan, H.J. and Sherman, A.W. (1976), Personnel Management: Cincinnati:
Southwestern Publishing Company.
Compbell, J.P. and Dunnette, M.D. (1968), ‘Effectiveness of T-Group
Experiences in Managerial Training and Development’, Psychological Bulletin,
70:73-144.
Dale, E. (1978), Management: Theory and Practice, Auckland: McGraw –Hill
International Book Company.
Delbeeq, A.L. (1972), ‘Sensitivity Training’ in Luthans (ed.) Contemporary
Readings in Organizational Behaviour, London McGraw-Hill.
Drucker, P. (1962), Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices,
London: Harper and Row.
Dyer, L. (1982), ‘Human Resources Planning’, in Rowland, K. and G. Ferris
(ed.), The Management of Personnel/Human Resources: New Perspectives,
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Graham, H.T. (1989), Human Resources Management, London: Mac Donald
and Evans Ltd.
Herzberg, F. Mausner, B. and Synderman, D.B., The Motivation to Work, in
Dessler, G. (1976), Organization and Management: A Contingency Approach,
Eagle-wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc.
McLelland, C.D. (1961), The Achievement Society, London: D Van Nostrane
Company Inc.
McHehee, H.W. (1979), ‘Training and Development Theory, Policies and
Practices’, in ASPA Handbook of Personnel and Industrial Relations, D.C.:
Bureau of National Affairs.
Mcmahon, A. and Yearger R. (1976), ‘Manpower and Career Planning’, in
Craig, R. Training and Development Handbook, London: McGraw-Hill Inc.
Morrison, J.H. (1976), ‘Determine Training Needs’, in Craig R., Training and
Development Handbook, McGraw-Hill Inc.
Miles, R.E. (1965), ‘Human Relations or Human Resources’ Harvard Business
Review 43, No.4, 148-263.
Warltec, C.L. (1952), Executive Performance and Leadership, Columbus: Ohio
State University Research Foundation.
Stodgill, R.M. (1948), ‘Personnel Factors Associated with Leaders: A Survey of
the Literature’, Journal of Psychology, 25,35-71.
132
MODULE 3: SELECTED THEORIES OF ADMINISTRATION I
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the scientific management theory and trace
its evolution, its philosophy and its relation with mechanization and automation
as well its impact in planned economies. Included are its negative sides and the
reaction of organized labour to it. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the scientific management theory
arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are
therefore, expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe scientific management theory,
2. Narrate its evolution,
3. Explain its philosophy,
4. Its relationship with mechanization,
5. Its impact on planned economy, and
6. Its negative sides.
3.0Main Contents
3.1 Desciption of Scientific Management Theory
Scientific management is a theory of management that analyses and synthesizes
workflows, improving labor productivity. Scientific Management as a modern
management began in the late 19th century. Scientific management also is a
philosophy that sought to increase productivity and makes the work easier by
scientifically studying work method and establishing standards. It is about the
relationships between people and work, not a technique or an efficiency device.
Besides that, scientific management also is based on a concern not only for the
proper design of the job but also for the workers. Scientific Management also is
a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized workflows. It is a term
coined in 1910 to describe the system of industrial management and came to
mean any system of organization that clearly spelled out the functions of
individuals and groups.
133
these four principles of scientific management for managers to follow. It also
known as “Taylorism”:
134
3.2 Evolution of Scientific Theory
Taylor began the theory's development in the United States during the 1880s
and '90s within manufacturing industries, especially steel. Its peak of influence
came in the 1910s. Taylor died in 1915 and by the 1920s, scientific
management was still influential but had entered
into competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas.
135
1. Henry L. Gantt (1861–1919)
2. Carl G. Barth (1860–1939)
3. Horace K. Hathaway (1878–1944)
4. Morris L. Cooke (1872–1960)
5. Sanford E. Thompson (1867–1949)
6. Frank B. Gilbreth (1868–1924).
136
rather than perpetuating established traditions. Thus, it was followed by a
profusion of successors in applied science, including time and motion study,
the Efficiency Movement which was a broader cultural echo of scientific
management's impact on business managers specifically. Fordism, operations
management, operations research, industrial engineering, management
science, manufacturing engineering, logistics, business process
management, business process reengineering, lean manufacturing, and Six
Sigma. There is a fluid continuum linking scientific management with the later
fields, and the different approaches often display a high degree of compatibility.
Taylor rejected the notion, which was universal in his day and still held today,
that the trades, including manufacturing, were resistant to analysis and could
only be performed by craft production methods. In the course of his empirical
studies, Taylor examined various kinds of manual labor. For example, most
bulk materials handling was manual at the time; material handling equipment as
we know it today was mostly not developed yet. He looked at shoveling in the
unloading of railroad cars full of ore; lifting and carrying in the moving of iron
pigs at steel mills; the manual inspection of bearing balls; and others. He
discovered many concepts that were not widely accepted at the time. For
example, by observing workers, he decided that labor should include rest breaks
so that the worker has time to recover from fatigue, either physical (as in
shoveling or lifting) or mental (as in the ball inspection case). Workers were
allowed to take more rests during work, and productivity increased as a result.
Subsequent forms of scientific management were articulated by Taylor's
disciples, such as Henry Gantt; other engineers and managers, such as Benjamin
S. Graham; and other theorists, such as Max Weber. Taylor's work also
contrasts with other efforts, including those of Henri Fayol and those of Frank
Gilbreth, Sr. and Lillian Moller Gilbreth whose views originally shared much
with Taylor's but later diverged in response to Taylorism's inadequate handling
of human relations.
137
the slowest among them does. Taylor describes soldiering as "the greatest evil
with which the working-people ... are now afflicted."
This reflects the idea that workers have a vested interest in their own well-
being, and do not benefit from working above the defined rate of work when it
will not increase their remuneration. He therefore proposed that the work
practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted,
intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution. He
posited that time and motion studies combined with rational analysis and
synthesis could uncover one best method for performing any particular task, and
that prevailing methods were seldom equal to these best methods. Crucially,
Taylor himself prominently acknowledged that if each employee's
compensation was linked to their output, their productivity would go up. Thus,
his compensation plans usually included piece rates. In contrast, some later
adopters of time and motion studies ignored this aspect and tried to get large
productivity gains while passing little or no compensation gains to the
workforce, which contributed to resentment against the system.
138
further thinking, experimenting or suggestion-making. They were forced to
"play dumb" most of the time, which occasionally led to revolts.
The middle ground between the craft production of skilled workers and full
automation is occupied by systems of extensive mechanization and partial
automation operated by semiskilled and unskilled workers. Such systems
depend on algorithmic workflows and knowledge transfer, which require
substantial engineering to succeed. Although Taylor's intention for scientific
management was simply to optimize work methods, the process engineering
that he pioneered also tends to build the skill into the equipment and processes,
removing most need for skill in the workers. Such engineering has governed
most industrial engineering since then. It is also the essence of successful
offshoring. The common theme in all these cases is that businesses engineer
their way out of their need for large concentrations of skilled workers, and the
high-wage environments that sustain them. This creates competitive advantage
on the local level of individual firms, although the pressure it exerts
systemically on employment and employability is an externality.
3.5 Scientific theory and planned economies
Scientific management appealed to managers of planned
economies because central economic planning relies on the idea that the
expenses that go into economic production can be precisely predicted and can
be optimized by design. The opposite theoretical pole would be laissez-
faire thinking in which the invisible hand of free markets is the only possible
"designer". In reality most economies today are somewhere in between. Another
alternative for economic planning is workers' self-management.
Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union, Taylorism was advocated by Aleksei
Gastev and nauchnaia organizatsia truda (the movement for the scientific
organisation of labor). It found support in both Vladimir Lenin and Leon
Trotsky. Gastev continued to promote this system of labor management until his
arrest and execution in 1939. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union
enthusiastically embraced Fordism and Taylorism, importing American experts
in both fields as well as American engineering firms to build parts of its new
industrial infrastructure. The concepts of the Five Year Plan and the centrally
planned economy can be traced directly to the influence of Taylorism on Soviet
thinking. As scientific management was believed to epitomize American
efficiency, Joseph Stalin even claimed that "the combination of the Russian
revolutionary sweep with American efficiency is the essence of Leninism."
139
Sorensen was one of the consultants who brought American know-how to the
USSR during this era, before the Cold War made such exchanges unthinkable.
As the Soviet Union developed and grew in power, both sides, the Soviets and
the Americans, chose to ignore or deny the contribution that American ideas
and expertise had made to the Soviets because they wished to portray
themselves as creators of their own destiny and not indebted to a rival, and the
Americans because they did not wish to acknowledge their part in creating a
powerful communist rival. Anti-communism had always enjoyed widespread
popularity in America, and anti-capitalism in Russia, but after World War II,
they precluded any admission by either side that technologies or ideas might be
either freely shared or clandestinely stolen.
East Germany
By the 1950s, scientific management had grown, but its goals and practices
remained attractive and were also being adopted by the German Democratic
Republic as it sought to increase efficiency in its industrial sectors. In the
accompanying photograph from the German Federal Archives, workers discuss
standards specifying how each task should be done and how long it should take.
The workers are engaged in a state-planned instance of process improvement,
but they are pursuing the same goals that were contemporaneously pursued
in capitalist societies, as in the Toyota Production System.
143
With the division of labor that became commonplace as Taylorism was
implemented in manufacturing, workers lost their sense of connection to the
production of goods. Workers began to feel disenfranchised with the
monotonous and unfulfilling work they were doing in factories. Before
scientific management, workers felt a sense of pride when completing their
good, which went away when workers only completed one part of production.
"The further 'progress' of industrial development... increased the anomic or
forced division of labor," the opposite of what Taylor thought would be the
effect. Partial adoption of Taylor's principles by management seeking to boost
efficiency, while ignoring principles such as fair pay and direct engagement by
managers, led to further tensions and the rise of unions to represent workers
needs.
Taylor had a largely negative view of unions, and believed they only led to
decreased productivity. Although he opposed them, his work with scientific
management led disenfranchised workers to look to unions for support. Under
scientific management, the demands of work intensified. Workers became
dissatisfied with the work environment and became angry. During one of
Taylor's own implementations at the Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts,
a strike led to an investigation of Taylor's methods by a U.S. House of
Representatives committee. The committee reported in 1912, concluding that
scientific management did provide some useful techniques and offered valuable
organizational suggestions, but that it also gave production managers a
dangerously high level of uncontrolled power. After an attitude survey of the
workers revealed a high level of resentment and hostility towards scientific
management, the Senate banned Taylor's methods at the arsenal.
It is often assumed that Fordism derives from Taylor's work. Taylor apparently
made this assumption himself when visiting the Ford Motor Company's
Michigan plants not too long before he died, but it is likely that the methods at
Ford were evolved independently, and that any influence from Taylor's work
was indirect at best. Charles E. Sorensen, a principal of the company during its
first four decades, disclaimed any connection at all. There was a belief at Ford,
which remained dominant until Henry Ford II took over the company in 1945,
that the world's experts were worthless, because if Ford had listened to them, it
would have failed to attain its great successes. Henry Ford felt that he had
succeeded in spite of, not because of, experts, who had tried to stop him in
various ways disagreeing about price points, production methods, car features,
business financing, and other issues. Sorensen thus was dismissive of Taylor
and lumped him into the category of useless experts. Sorensen held the New
England machine tool vendor Walter Flanders in high esteem and credits him
for the efficient floor plan layout at Ford, claiming that Flanders knew nothing
about Taylor. Flanders may have been exposed to the spirit of Taylorism
elsewhere, and may have been influenced by it, but he did not cite it when
developing his production technique. Regardless, the Ford team apparently did
independently invent modern mass production techniques in the period of 1905-
1915, and they themselves were not aware of any borrowing from Taylorism.
Perhaps it is only possible with hindsight to see the zeitgeist that indirectly
connected the budding Fordism to the rest of the efficiency movement during
the decade of 1905-1915.
Criticism of Taylor's principles of effective workmanship and
the productivity of the workers continues today. Often, his theories are
145
described as man-contemptuous and portrayed as now overhauled. In practice,
however, the principles of Taylor are still being pursued by Kaizen and Six
Sigma and similar methodologies, which are based on the development of
working methods and courses based on systematic analysis rather than relying
on tradition and rule of thumb.
Taylorism is, according to Stephen P. Waring, considered very controversial,
despite its popularity. It is often criticized for turning the worker into an
"automaton" or "machine". Due to techniques employed with scientific
management, employees claim to have become overworked and were hostile to
the process. Criticisms commonly came from workers who were subjected to an
accelerated work pace, lower standards of workmanship, lower product-quality,
and lagging wages. Workers defied being reduced to such machines, and
objected to the practices of Taylorism. Many workers formed unions, demanded
higher pay, and went on strike to be free of control issues. This ignited class
conflict, which Taylorism was initially meant to prevent. Efforts to resolve the
conflicts included methods of scientific collectivism, making agreements with
unions, and the personnel management movement.
146
Frederick Taylor"; Lenin decried it as merely a "'scientific' system of sweating"
more work from laborers. Again in 1914, Lenin derided Taylorism as "man’s
enslavement by the machine." However, after the Russian Revolutions brought
him to power, Lenin wrote in 1918 that the "Russian is a bad worker who must
learn to work. The Taylor system... is a combination of the refined brutality of
bourgeois exploitation and a number of the greatest scientific achievements in
the field of analysing mechanical motions during work, the elimination of
superfluous and awkward motions, the elaboration of correct methods of work,
the introduction of the best system of accounting and control, etc. The Soviet
Republic must at all costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of
science and technology in this field."
The early US history of labor relations with scientific management was
described by Dr Drury thusly: ...for a long time there was thus little or no direct
conflict between scientific management and organized labor... However, one of
the best known experts once spoke to us with satisfaction of the manner in
which, in a certain factory where there had been a number of union men, the
labor organization had, upon the introduction of scientific management,
gradually disintegrated. From 1882 when the system was started until 1911, a
period of approximately thirty years, there was not a single strike under it, and
this in spite of the fact that it was carried on primarily in the steel industry,
which was subject to a great many disturbances. For instance, in the general
strike in Philadelphia, one man only went out at the Tabor plant managed by
Taylor, while at the Locomotive shops across the street two thousand struck.
Serious opposition may be said to have been begun in 1911, immediately after
certain testimony presented before the Interstate Commerce Commission by
Harrington Emerson revealed to the country the strong movement setting
towards scientific management. National labor leaders, wide-awake as to what
might happen in the future, decided that the new movement was a menace to
their organization, and at once inaugurated an attack... centered about the
installation of scientific management in the government arsenal at Watertown.
It intensifies the modern tendency toward specialization of the work and the
task displaces skilled workers and weakens the bargaining strength of the
workers through specialization of the task and the destruction of craft skill
which leads to over-production and the increase of unemployment. It looks
upon the worker as a mere instrument of production and reduces him to a semi-
automatic attachment to the machine or tool and tends to undermine the
worker's health, shortens his period of industrial activity and earning power, and
brings on premature old age.
Owing to application of "scientific management" in part in government arsenals,
and a strike by the union molders against some of its features as they were
introduced in the foundry at the Watertown Arsenal, "scientific management"
147
received much publicity. The House of Representatives appointed a committee,
consisting of William B. Wilson, William C. Redfield and John Q. Tilson to
investigate the system as it had been applied in the Watertown Arsenal. In its
report to Congress this committee sustained Labor's contention that the system
forced abnormally high speed upon workmen, that its disciplinary features were
arbitrary and harsh, and that the use of a stop-watch and the payment of a bonus
were injurious to the worker's manhood and welfare. At a succeeding session of
Congress a measure was passed which prohibited the further use of the stop-
watch and the payment of a premium or bonus to workmen in government
establishments.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe scientific management theory. In
addition, isues surrounding its evolution, its philosophy and legacy were treated.
Also relationship of scientific management theory to mechanization and
automation and its impact on planned economies were discussed. Added was
discussion on the negative sides of scientific management theory and the
reaction of organized labour to it.
148
6.0 Tutor –marked Assignment
1. What is Taylorism?
2. Describe the evolution of scientific management theory.
3. What are the impacts of Taylorism on planned economies?
4. What are the legacies of scientific management theory?
149
7.0 References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum
Books.
150
Hartness, James (1912), The human factor in works management, New York
and London: McGraw-Hill, OCLC 1065709. Republished by Hive Publishing
Company as Hive management history series no. 46, ISBN 978-0-87960-047-1.
Head, Simon (2005), The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the
Digital Age, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517983-5.
Hebeisen, W. (1999). F.W. Taylor und der Taylorismus. Über das Wirken und
die Lehre Taylors und die Kritik am Taylorismus. Zürich: vdf Hochschulverlag
AG.
Kanigel, Robert (1997), The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the
Enigma of Efficiency, New York, NY, USA: Penguin-Viking, ISBN 978-0-670-
86402-7. A detailed biography of Taylor and a historian's look at his ideas.
151
Merril. A. F. (ed.) (1960), Classics in Management, New York: American
Management Association.
Sorensen, Charles E.; with Williamson, Samuel T. (1956), My Forty Years with
Ford, New York, New York, USA: Norton, LCCN 56010854. Various
republications, including ISBN 9780814332795.
152
teilautonomer Arbeitsgruppen. Seminararbeit an der Georg-August Universität:
Göttingen.
153
Unit 2: Bureaucratic Management Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe bureaucratic management theory and trace
its evolution, its philosophy and its criticisms. This is to enable the learner
overcome some misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding bureaucratic
management theory arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary
approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the unit maximum
attention it deserves.
1.0 Objectives
The central issues examined in this chapter are as follows:
1. What is bureaucracy?
2. What are the major theories of bureaucracy?
3. What are the functions of bureaucracies?
4. How are bureaucracies organized? How should they be organized?
5. Why are bureaucrats so powerful, and why has bureaucratic power
expanded?
6. How, and how successfully, are bureaucracies controlled?
2.0Main Contents
3.1 Description of Bureaucratic Management Theory
The first writer to closely devote his time to inputs of bureaucracy to
administration and management was Max Weber. A German sociologist who
developed the principles of bureaucracy to help his country (Germany) manage
its growing industrial enterprises at a time when it was striving to become a
world power (Ashiru, 2001).
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1. In a bureaucracy, formal-authority is derived from positions held in
organization. Authority is the power to hold people accountable for their
actions and to make decisions concerning the use of organizational
resources. Authority empowers the superiors to direct and control their
subordinates' behaviours to achieve organisational goals. In a
bureaucratic system of administration a manager compels obedience not
by personal qualities she/he possesses, but because of the position she/he
occupies which is associated with certain level of authority and
responsibility.
2. That in bureaucracy, people should occupy positions based on
performance and merit. But not based on cheap social advantage or
personal contacts. Most organizations in today’s Nigeria crumble because
managers fail to take this point into cognizance. Appointments are based
on personal contacts and relations and not on job related skill or merit.
3. The extent of each position's formal authority and task responsibilities
and its relationship to other positions in an organization should be clearly
specified.
4. A hierarchical arrangement of positions in an organization, so that
employers will know whom to report to, and who reports to them.
Managers must create an organizational hierarchy of authority that makes
it clear who reports to whom and to whom managers should go if conflict
arises. This principle is especially more useful in the armed forces.
5. A well-defined system of rules, standard, operating procedures and norms
must be created, so that behaviours can effectively be controlled in an
organization.
To many, the term bureaucracy suggests inefficiency and pointless and time-
consuming formalities: in short, ‘red tape’. In the field of politics, bureaucracy
refers to the administrative machinery of the state: that is, the massed ranks of
civil servants and public officials who are charged with the execution of
government business. Others follow Max Weber in seeing bureaucracy as a
distinctive form of organization found not just in government but in all spheres
of modern society. What cannot be doubted, however, is that, as government
has grown and the breadth of its responsibilities has expanded, bureaucracy has
come to play an increasingly important role in political life. No longer can civil
servants be dismissed as mere administrators or policy implementers; instead,
they are key figures in the policy process, and even sometimes run their
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countries. A reality of ‘rule by the officials’ may lie behind the façade of
representation and democratic accountability. The organization and control of
bureaucratic power is therefore one of the most pressing problems in modern
politics, and one that no political system has found easy to solve.
All state bureaucracies are in some way organized on the basis of purpose or
function. This is achieved through the construction of departments, ministries
and agencies charged with responsibility for particular policy areas; education,
housing, defence, drug control, taxation and so forth. Of course, the number of
such departments and agencies varies over time and from state to state, as do the
ways in which functional responsibilities are divided or combined. For example,
the broadening responsibilities of the US government were reflected in the
creation of the Department of Health and Human Services in 1953, and the
Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1965. In the UK, the
changing concerns of government led to the creation of the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport in 1997, and the replacement of the Department of
Employment by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2001.
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Despite the formal ‘leadership’ of the CPSU, the Soviet bureaucracy, for
example, functioned as a labyrinthine mechanism for interest articulation and
aggregation amounting to a form of institutional pluralism’ (Hough, 1927). The
UK civil service has traditionally been centralized. It has a common recruitment
and promotion policy, and a single career and salary structure. In some ways,
the Fulton Report of 1966 furthered the ideal of a unified civil service by
abolishing the division between the clerical, executive and administrative
grades, which had amounted to a form of class system. However, by shifting
emphasis away from generalists in senior positions, it placed greater stress on
subject expertise and specialist knowledge, so strengthening ‘departmentalism’.
Moreover, in establishing the Civil Service Department (subsequently
abolished) to take responsibility for recruitment, promotions and conditions of
work it also facilitated bureaucratic autonomy.
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third reason is that there is tension between permanent civil servants, who are
appointed through competitive public examination and placed on one of the
General Schedule grades, and the much smaller number of political appointees
in so-called Schedule C posts. While the latter can be expected to make loyalty
to the administration their priority, the former may be more committed to the
growth of their bureaux or the continuance of their services and programmes.
These ideas have been influential in the USA and a number of other western
countries. The construction of an enabling state, even a ‘skeletal state, has been
taken furthest in New Zealand but they have also affected the UK, through the
civil service reforms introduced by Thatcher and Major, and further developed
by Blair. These ideas have provided the basis for the ‘new public management’.
A significant step down this road was taken in 1988 with the launching of the
Next Steps initiative, which began dismantling a unified national administration
by restricting ministries to their ‘core’ policy functions and handing over
responsibility for implementation to executive agencies, as occurs in Sweden.
By 1996, 70 per cent of the UK’s civil servants were working in these Next
Steps agencies, with a growing body of work being contracted out to private
bodies.
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per cent of total public Spending) and employing 60000 staff. However, the
most radical attempt to ‘roll back the state’ in the UK has been made through
the policy of privatisation, which, from the 1980s onwards, saw industries such
as telecommunications, electricity, gas, water and local transport transferred
from public to private ownership. Public private partnerships have also given
private bodies a greater role in public-service funding and delivery.
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3. articulating and aggregating interests, and
4. maintaining political stability.
Administration
The core function of the bureaucracy is to implement or execute law and policy.
It is thus charged with administering government business. This is why the
bureaucracy is sometimes referred to as ‘the administration’, while the political
executive is termed ‘the government’. This distinction implies that a clear line
can be drawn between the policy-making role of politicians and the policy-
implementing role of bureaucrats. Certainly, the vast majority of the world’s
civil servants are engaged almost exclusively in administrative responsibilities
that range from the implementation of welfare and social-security programmes
to the regulation of the economy, the granting of licenses and the provision of
information and advice to citizens at home and abroad. The sizes of
bureaucracies are therefore closely linked to the broader responsibilities of
government. Civil service employment in the UK expanded in proportion to the
role of government throughout the twentieth century.
It reached a peak of 735 000 in the 1970s, but then contracted to 499 000 by
1996 owing to the pursuit of neoliberal policies from the 1980s onwards. The
federal bureaucracy in the USA expanded significantly as a result of the New
Deal and has now grown to over 2.5 million strong; and the USSR’s central
planning system eventually required 20 million state officials to administer it.
Policy advice
The political significance of the bureaucracy stems largely from its role as the
chief source of the policy information and advice available to government. This
policy role helps to distinguish top-level civil servants, who have daily contact
with politicians and are expected to act as policy advisers, from middle-ranking
and junior-ranking civil servants, who deal with more routine administrative
matters. Debate about the political significance of bureaucracies therefore tends
to concentrate on this elite group of senior officials. In theory, a strict
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distinction can be drawn between the policy responsibilities of bureaucrats and
those of politicians. Policy is supposedly made by politicians; bureaucrats
simply offer advice. The policy role of civil servants therefore boils down to
two functions: outlining the policy options available to ministers, and reviewing
policy proposals in terms of their likely impact and consequences. The policy
influence of senior officials is further restricted by the fact that they are either
required to be politically neutral, as in the UK, Japan and Australia, or are
subject to a system of political appointment, as in the USA.
However, there are reasons to believe that the policy role of civil servants is
politically more significant than is suggested above. For instance, there is no
clear distinction between making policy and offering policy advice. Quite
simply, decisions are made on the basis of the information available, and this
means that the content of decisions is invariably structured by the advice
offered. Moreover, as the principal source of the advice available to politicians,
bureaucrats effectively control the flow of information. Information can thus be
concealed or at least ‘shaped’ to reflect the preferences of the civil service. The
principal source of bureaucratic power is nevertheless the expertise and
specialist knowledge that accumulates within the bureaucracy. As the
responsibilities of government expand and policy becomes more complex,
‘amateur’ politicians almost inevitably come to depend on their ‘professional’
bureaucratic advisers.
Articulating interests
Although by no means one of their formal functions, bureaucracies often help to
articulate and sometimes aggregate interests. Bureaucracies are brought into
contact with interest groups through their task of policy implementation and
their involvement in policy formulation and advice. This has increased as a
result of corporatist tendencies that have blurred the divisions between
organized interests and government agencies. Groups such as doctors, teachers,
farmers and business corporations thus become ‘client groups’, serviced by their
respective agencies, and also serve as an invaluable source of information and
advice. This clientelism may benefit the political system insofar as it helps to
maintain consensus. By virtue of having access to policy formulation, it is more
likely that organized interests will cooperate with government policy. On the
other hand, clientelism may also interfere with the public responsibilities and
duties of civil servants. This, for instance, occurs when US regulatory agencies
end up being controlled by the industries they supposedly regulate. When group
interests coincide with those of the bureaucracy, a policy nexus may develop
that democratic politicians find impossible to break down.
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Political stability
The final function of bureaucracies is to provide a focus of stability and
continuity within political systems. This is sometimes seen as particularly
important in developing states, where the existence of a body of trained career
officials may provide the only guarantee that government is conducted in an
orderly and reliable fashion. This stability depends very largely on the status of
bureaucrats as permanent and professional public servants: while ministers and
governments come and go, the bureaucracy is always there. The Northcote-
Trevelyan reforms of 1870 that created the modern UK civil service were based
on the principles of impartial selection political neutrality, permanence and
anonymity. Even in the USA, where senior officials are appointed politically
through a so-called ‘spoils system’, the mass of federal bureaucrats are career
civil servants.
However, continuity can also have its disadvantages. In the absence, of effective
public scrutiny and accountability, it can undoubtedly lead to corruption, a
problem that is found in many developing states, where it is compounded by
widespread poverty and other disadvantages. In other cases, permanence may
breed in civil servants either a tendency towards arrogance and insularity, or a
bias in favour of conservatism. Career civil servants can come to believe that
they are more capable of defining the common good or general will than are
elected politicians. They may therefore feel justified in resisting radical or
reformist political tendencies, seeing themselves as custodians of the state’s
interest.
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g. Bureaucracy as modern society.
To some extent, these contrasting concepts and usages reflect the fact that
bureaucracy has been viewed differently by different academic disciplines.
Students of government, for example, traditionally understood bureaucracy in a
literal sense to mean ‘rule by the bureau’: that is, rule by appointed officials. In
considerations on Representative Government ([1861] 1951), J. S. Mill
therefore contrasted bureaucracy with representative forms of government – in
other words, rule by elected and accountable politicians. In the field of
sociology, bureaucracy has typically been understood as a particular type of
organization, as a system of administration rather than a system of government.
Bureaucracy in this sense can be found not only in democratic and authoritarian
states but also in business corporations, trade unions, political parties and so on.
Economists, on the other hand, sometimes view bureaucracies as specifically
‘public’ organizations. They are thus characterized by the fact that being funded
through the tax system they are neither discipline by neither profit motive nor
responsive to market pressures. In order to make sense of these various usages,
here contrasting theories of bureaucracy will be examined:
i. Bureaucracy as a rational-administrative machine;
ii. Bureaucracy as a conservative power bloc; and
iii. Bureaucracy as a source of government oversupply.
Rational-administrative model
The academic study of bureaucracy has been dominated by the work of Max
Weber. For Weber, bureaucracy was an ‘ideal type’ of rule based on a system of
rational rules, as opposed to either tradition or charisma. He identified a set of
principles that supposedly characterize bureaucratic organization. The most
important of these are the following:
1. Jurisdictional areas are fixed and official, and ordered by laws or rules;
2. There is a firmly ordered hierarchy, which ensures that lower offices are
supervised by specified higher ones within a chain of command;
3. Business is managed on the basis of written documents and a filling
system;
4. The authority of officials is impersonal and stems entirely from the post
they hold, not from personal status;
5. Bureaucratic rules are strict enough to minimize the scope of personal
discretion; and
6. Appointment and advancement within a bureaucracy are based on
professional criteria, such as training, expertise and administrative
competence.
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predictable and, above all, efficient means of social organization. For Weber,
bureaucracy was nothing less than the characteristic form of organization found
in modern society, and, in his view, its expansion was irreversible. Not only was
this a result of the technical superiority of bureaucracy over other forms of
administration, but it was also a consequence of significant economic, political
and cultural developments. The development of bureaucratization was closely
linked to the emergence of capitalist economies - in particular, to the greater
pressure for economic efficiency and the emergence of larger-scale business
units. The development of the modern state, and the extension of its
responsibilities into the social and economic spheres, also led to the growth of
powerful government bureaucracies.
Weber was nevertheless aware that bureaucracy was a mixed blessing. In the
first place, organizational efficiency would be purchased at the expense of
democratic participation. Bureaucratization would strengthen hierarchical
tendencies, albeit ones based on merit, meaning that command would be
exercised from above by senior officials rather than from below by the masses.
This would destroy the socialist dream of a dictatorship of the proletariat,
which, Weber accurately, as it turned out predicted, would develop into a
‘dictatorship of the official’. In this respect, Weber drew conclusions similar to
those of his friend Robert Michels (1878-1936), who developed the iron law of
oligarchy on the basis of his study of political parties.
However, Weber was less pessimistic than Michels about the prospects for
liberal democracy. Although he recognized the tendency of bureaucrats to seek
the perpetuation of bureaucracy and to exceed its administrative function, he
believed that this could at least be resisted through the use of liberal devices
such as electoral highlight which was that the domination of the bureaucratic
ideal could bring about a ‘pigeon-holing of the spirit’ as the social environment
became increasingly depersonalized and mechanical. Reason and bureaucracy
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could therefore become an ‘iron cage’ confining human passions and individual
freedom.
Power-bloc model
The view of bureaucracy as a power bloc stems largely from socialist analysis,
and particularly from Marxism. Although Marx developed no systematic theory
of bureaucracy in the manner of Weber, the outlines of a theory are discernible
in his writings. Rather than seeing bureaucracy as a consequence of the
emergence of an emergence of a complex industrial society, Marx linked it to
the specific requirements of capitalism. He was thus concerned less with
bureaucratization as a broader social phenomenon, and more with the class role
played by the state bureaucracy. In particular, he saw the bureaucracy as a
mechanism through which bourgeois interests are upheld and the capitalist
system defended.
The analysis of class biases running through the state bureaucracy has been
extended by neo-Marxists such as Ralph Miliband (1969). Particular attention
has been paid to the capacity of senior civil servants to act as a conservative
veto group that dilutes, even blocks, the radical initiatives of socialist ministers
and socialist governments. As Miliband put it, top civil servants’ are
conservative in the sense that they are, within their allotted spheres, the
conscious or unconscious allies of existing economic and social elites’. This
happens for a number of reasons. Most obviously, despite the formal
requirements of political neutrality, top civil servants share the same educational
and social background as industrialists and business managers, and are therefore
likely to share their ideas, prejudices and general outlook. The possibility that
rising civil servants may harbor radical or socialist sympathies is also countered
by recruitment and promotion procedures designed to ensure their ideological
‘soundness’.
Miliband believed that the most important factor reinforcing the conservative
outlook of higher civil servants is their ever-increasing closeness to the world of
corporate capitalism. This has been a consequence of growing state intervention
in economic life, ensuring an ongoing relationship between business groups and
civil servants, who invariably come to define the ‘national interest’ in terms of
the long-term interests of private capitalism. In turn, this relationship is
reinforced by the interchange of personnel between government and business,
often seen as a ‘revolving door’, through which the state bureaucracy recruits
from the private sector and civil servants are offered lucrative employment
opportunities when they retire. The implication of this analysis is that, if senior
bureaucrats are wedded to the interests of capitalism, a major obstacle stands in
the way of any attempt to achieve socialism through constitutional means.
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One of the flaws of the Marxist theory of bureaucracy is that it pays little
attention to the problem of bureaucratization in socialist systems. For Marx and
Engels, this problem was effectively discounted by the assumption that the
bureaucracy, with the state, would wither away as a classless, communist
society came into existence. This left Marxism open to criticism by social
scientists such as Weber and Michels, who argued that bureaucracy is a broader
social phenomenon, and one that the socialist emphasis on common ownership
and planning could only strengthen. The experience of twentieth-century
communism made it impossible for Marxist thinkers to continue ignoring this
problem.
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the same assumptions about human nature as those in neoclassical economics.
That is, that individuals are rationally self-seeking creatures or utility
maximizers. Public choice theory, particularly prominent in the USA and
associated with the Virginia school of political analysis, applies this economic
model of decision-making to the public sector.
This New Right critique also focuses attention on the non-market character of
state bureaucracies, and draws an unflattering comparison between private
sector and public sector bodies. In this view, private-sector bodies such as
business corporations are structured by a combination of internal and external
factors. The principal internal influence on a business is the quest for profit
maximization, which impels the firm towards greater efficiency through the
exertion of a constant downward pressure on costs. Externally, businesses
operate in a competitive market environment, which forces them to respond to
consumer pressures through product innovation and price adjustments.
167
Critics of public choice theory usually argue that it is flawed because it abstracts
the individual from his or her social environment. A conservative value bias, so
the arguments go; is built into the theory by the assumption that human beings
are always rationally self-interested. Others, however, have used a public choice
approach but reached very different conclusions. Dunleavy (1991), for example,
argued that, if individual bureaucrats are rational actors, they are more likely to
favour bureau-shaping strategies than, as conventional public-choice theory
suggests, budget maximizing ones.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe bureaucracy, its organization,
function and theories.
5.0 Summary
The term bureaucracy has been used in a number of ways. Originally, it meant
rule by officials as opposed to elected politicians. In the social sciences, it is
usually understood as a mode of organization. Modern political analysts,
however, use the term bureaucracy to mean the administrative machinery of the
state, bureaucrats being nonelected state officials or civil servants, who may or
may not be subject to political control.
Three major theories of bureaucracy have been advanced. The Weberian mode
suggests that bureaucracy is a rational-administrative machine, the characteristic
form of organization in modern society. The conservative power-bloc model
emphasizes the degree to which the bureaucracy reflects broader class interests
and can resist political control. The bureaucratic oversupply model emphasizes
a tendency towards ‘big’ government caused by the pursuit of career self-
interest on the part of civil servants.
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The core function of the bureaucracy is to implement or execute law and policy
through the administration of government business. However, civil servants also
play a significant role in offering policy advice to ministers, in articulating and
aggregating interests (especially through links to client groups), and in
maintaining political stability and continuity when there is a change of
government or administration.
169
7.0 References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum
Books.
170
and Brothers.
171
Unit 3: Functional Management Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the functional management theory and trace
its evolution, its philosophy and its criticisms. This is to enable the learner
overcome some misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the functional
management theory arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary
approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the unit maximum
attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe functional management theory,
2. Narrate its categories and
3. Explain its principles.
3.0Main Contents
3.1 Description of Functional Management Theory
During the 20th century a body of literature emerged which considered the
problem of designing the structure of organization as a major managerial task.
The objective of this literature was to define principles, which could guide
managers in the performance of their tasks. Prominent among the architects of
this literature was Henry Fayol, who proposed a number of principles found
useful in the management of a large coal mining company in France. Henry
Fayol, a French engineer, was the author of "Administration Industrial et
generale" meaning "General and industrial administration". Although Fayol’s
work first appeared in 1961 in French it was not translated in English until 1929
by the International Institute of Management at Geneva.
Fayol observed that the first five categories were relatively well known;
consequently, he concentrated most of his work on the analysis of the
managerial category. He devoted his attention to what a manager does, thereby
giving rise to the "functional" management thought (Ashiru, 2001).
172
Functional management is the most common type of
organizational management. The organization is grouped by areas of speciality
within different functional areas (e.g., finance, marketing, and engineering).
Some refer to a functional area as a "silo". Besides the heads of a firm's product
and/or geographic units the company's top management team typically consists
of several functional heads such as the chief financial officer, the chief
operating officer, and the chief strategy officer. Communication generally
occurs within a single department. If information or project work is needed
from another department, a request is transmitted up to the department head,
who communicates the request to the other department head. Otherwise,
communication stays within the department. Team members complete project
work in addition to normal department work.
The main advantage of this type of organization is that each employee has only
one manager, thus simplifying the chain of command.
173
fashion.
Fayol however, caution that these principles on their own may not be exhaustive
as there may be others which he did not either recognize or could not implement
in his career.
Keep in mind the limitations of Fayol's management theory. Since its
publication in the early 1900s, Fayol's theory of management has come
under criticism. Fayol never conducted research; instead he based his theory
on personal experience.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe functional management theory, its
categories and principles.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe functional management theory.
In addition, isues surrounding its evolution, its philosophy and criticisms were
treated.
175
Unit 4: Human Relations Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the human relations theory and trace its
evolution, its philosophy and its criticisms. This is to enable the learner
overcome some misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the human relations
theory arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You
are therefore, expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe human relations theory, functional management theory,
2. Narrate its evolution, and
3. Discuss its criticism.
3.0Main Contents
3.1Description of Human Relations Theory
Human Relations Theory is a management theory, included in the Behavioral
School founded by Elton Mayo following the conclusions obtained in several
studies performed in several North American companies.
From these studies stands out one, accomplished between 1924 and 1932, in a
factory of the Western Electric Company in Hawthorne (near Chicago), place
which came to give the name to the study: Hawthorne Experiments. The initial
goal of these experiments was to determine how the changes in the payment and
work conditions (illumination, temperature, rest times, work accidents, fatigue,
personnel rotation, etc.) influence people and their work productivity. For that is
performed the subdivision of a rewinding workshop in two parts: in one are
made changes in the schedules, brightness level, rest times, etc., while the other
is kept as control group.
Such as expected, the suppositions that productivity increased with the
improvement of the work conditions were confirmed in these experiments, The
great surprise occurred when the investigators observed that productivity also
increased when the work conditions were deteriorated.
It was, so, concluded that the human relations and the work environment that
results from there and the creation of bonds among the workers who felt
observed by an administration worried with their wellbeing are much more
important for the increase of productivity then simple physical conditions and
work materials. It was, so, given an end to the assumption of “economic men”
in which based the Classic School, giving place to the assumption of “social
men”.
176
Human Relations Theory base principle that men have social needs desires
rewarding relationships in the work place and answers more to the peer pressure
then to the superiors’ authority and administrative control forms its main
contribution for management. It’s from here that emerges a new type of
management more concerned in knowing the workers individual and group
needs and seek for efficiency and productivity through leadership, motivation
and communication. On the other hand, it’s also from the Human Relations
Theory that emerges the informal organization concept.
177
1. Individual attention and recognition aligns with the human relatios
theory,
2. Many theorists supported the motivational theory, and
3. Studies supported the importance of human relations in business.
Using industrial Psychology set forth by Taylor, Mayo and Roethlisberg started
the Hawthorn experiments. Initially, they assumed that each worker was an
isolated unit, in essence, a "human machine" whose action and performance
could be measured and factors governing a worker's low productivity were
wrong physical environment, such as inadequate heating, excessive humidity,
bad lighting, too much noise, fatigue caused by the incorrect proportions and
timing of work periods and rest periods, wasted motions, resulting in lost times
in doing the work; inadequate wage incentives caused by the method of
178
determining the incentive and other physical factors inherent in individual and
his physical environment. As they made progress in the experiment, these
researchers found that their basic assumptions were not producing result.
Unforeseen and uncontrolled factors were interacting with the controlled
environmental factors.
There were Psychological factors that turned out to be of far greater importance
than physical working conditions, hours of work and wages. Thus, everything
had not been controlled in the experiment; the human mind was free to do as it
pleased. Mayo and associates followed up their experiments and investigated
the myriads of informal groupings, informal relationships, social cliques,
patterns of communication, and patterns of informal leadership. From these
investigations, it was established that various group were operating in the work
environment. Furthermore, these groups have evolved their own set of norms or
codes of conduct. Most times, groups' norms were in conflict with management
aims. In fact, many new factors were discovered and identified by Mayo and
associates. About the same time Mayo and associates were making these
discoveries other developments related to human relation movement were
emerging in industrial organization among them were a strong trend toward
Unionization and a high level of conflict between labour and management
(Ashiru, 2001). While supervision in the 1920s, could be described as primarily
authoritarian, during the 1930s, there was a new trend toward "being nice to
people", with resultant "keep them happy" philosophy. This trend was merged
into Human Relation Movement. This later approach was first as ineffective as
the former. Nevertheless, it can rightly be concluded that the findings of the
Hawthorne studies has helped in bringing about a dramatic change in
management and administrative studies.
The Human Relations function with its origin firmly rooted in the field of
personnel administration was to attract strong negative responses from
practicing administrators and managers in the middle of 1940s.
The results of Professor Elton Mayo's Hawthorne studies proved that the factor
most influencing productivity is relationships. The researchers realized
productivity increased due to relationships and being part of a supportive group
where each employee's work had a significant effect on the team output. As a
side result, the researchers noticed that the increased attention the workers
received by the researchers increased motivation and productivity, which
resulted in what is the Hawthorne Effect.
179
actualization) were motivating factors when viewing an employee's work
values, because the employee is motivated to ensure the most important of these
individual needs are met. McGregor supported motivation beliefs by realizing
that employees contribute more to the organization if they feel responsible and
valued.
The result of the studies regarding human relations in the workplace show that
people want to have a sense of belonging and significance while being treated
with value and respect. Treat an employee with respect and value, and their
individual productivity and quality increases to support the organizational team.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe human relations theory. In
addition, issues surrounding its evolution, its philosophy and criticisms were
treated.
182
7.0 References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum
Books.
Bruce, Kyle. 2006, "Henry S. Dennison, Elton Mayo, and Human Relations
historiography." Management & Organizational History, 1: 177–199.
Bruce, K & Nylan, C 2011, ‘Elton Mayo and the Deification of Human
Relations’, Organization Studies, Vol 32, No 3, pp 383-405.
183
Taneja, S, Pryor, M G, Humpheries J H & Toombs, L A (2011). "Where Are the
New Organization Theories? Evolution, Development and Theoretical
Debate". International Journal of Management. 28 (3): 959–978.
Wren D & Greenwood R 1998, Management innovators: The people and ideas
that have shaped modern business, Oxford University Press, New York.
184
MODULE 4: SELECTED ADMINISTRATIVE THEORIES II
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe administrative management theory,
2. Narrate its evolution, and
3. Discuss its philosophy
3.0Main Contents
3.1Description of Administrative Management Theory
According to Julian Paul Sidin, administrative management examines an
organization from the perspective of the managers and executives responsible
for coordinating the activities of diverse groups and units across the entire
organization. Administrative management focus on how and what managers
should do in their jobs. Administrative management also seeks to create an
organization that leads to both efficiency and effectiveness.
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2. Lack of Importance to Informal Organization: The administrative
management theory gives importance only to the formal organization
structure. It does not give any importance to informal organization or
groups.
3. Concept Borrowed From Military Science: Administrative management
theories were borrowed from military science. They tried to apply these
concepts to the social and business organization.
4. Mechanical Approach: Administrative management theory has a
mechanical approach. It does not deal to the important aspects of
management such as motivation, communication and leading.
5. Henri Fayol identified five major functions of management: Planning,
Organizing, Commanding (directing), Coordinating, Controlling.
6. Besides that, Fayol prefaced his famous definition of management by
starting what he considered to be the key activities of any industrial
undertaking. He outlines six such key activities: technical activities,
commercial activities, financial activities, security activities, accounting
activities, managerial activities. Example for technical activities is
production, example for commercial activities is buying and selling,
example of financial activities is securing capital, example of security
activities is safeguarding property, example of accounting activities is
providing financial information, and example of managerial activities is
planning and organizing.
7. Furthermore, Henri Fayol also classified 14 principles of management:
Division of work, Authority, Discipline, subordination of individual
interest to General interest, Remuneration, Centralization, Equity,
Initiative, Esprit De Corps, stability of Tenure of personnel, Unity of
Direction, Scalar Chain, and Unity of command. According to Henri
Fayol, a manager should require the following qualities and skills: Work
experience, mental qualities, Moral qualities, General education, Special
Knowledge, Physical Quality.
The first expert of Administrative management theory was Henri Fayol (1841-
1925). Fayol is called the “Father of modern management”. Henri Fayol was a
French industrialist and a management consultant. He started the functional
approach to management. In 1916, he wrote a book titled “Administration
Industrialle et Generalle” (Principles and Practices of Management) (Julian Paul
Sidin, 2011). Administrative management also can be seen as managing
information through people. The administrative function is that section in an
organization that is responsible for the orderly collection, processing, storing,
and distributing of information to decision makers and managers within the
186
organization to enable them to execute their tasks as well as other role players
outside the organization.
This school of thought was initially popular among American writers. In 1937,
Luther Gullick and Lyndall Urwick published papers on the Science of
Administration in which they joined the acronym POSDCORB that stands for
Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and
Budgeting. These seven principles are fast becoming professional watchwords.
This line of thought is under the contention that the main functions of a public
administrator are:
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe administrative management theory,
its evolution and philosophy.
5.0 Summary
187
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe administrative management
theory. In addition, issues surrounding its evolution and philosophy were
treated.
188
7.0 References/Further Readings
Ademolekun, L. (ed) (2002), Public Administration in Africa, Ibadan: Spectrum
Books.
189
Unit 2: Behavioural Science Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the behavioural science theory and trace its
evolution and philosophy. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the behavioural science theory
arising from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are
therefore, expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe behavioural science theory,
2. Narrate the evolution of behavioural science
3. Discuss its philosophy
3.0Main Contents
3.1Description of Behavioural Science Theory
Behavioural sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the
behavioural interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the
systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through the
study of the past, controlled and naturalistic observation of the present, and
disciplined scientific experimentation and modeling. It attempts to accomplish
legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and
observation. Examples of behavioral sciences
include psychology, psychobiology, anthropology, and cognitive science.
Generally, behavioral science deals primarily with human action and often seeks
to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.
The term behavioural science is often confused with the term social sciences.
Though these two broad areas are interrelated and study systematic processes of
behaviour, they differ in their level of scientific analysis of various dimensions
of behaviour. Behavioural science abstract empirical data to investigate the
decision processes and communication strategies within and between organisms
in a social system. This involves fields like psychology, social
neuroscience ethology, and cognitive science. In contrast, social sciences
provide a perceptive framework to study the processes of a social system
through impacts of social organization on structural adjustment of the individual
and of groups. They typically include fields like sociology, economics, public
health, anthropology, demography and political science.
Many subfields of these disciplines cross the boundaries between behavioral
and social sciences. For example, political psychology and behavioral
190
economics use behavioural approaches, despite the predominant focus on
systemic and institutional factors in the broader fields of political science and
economics.
What can be deduced from Maslow's contention is the assumption that a person
attempts to satisfy basic needs (food, shelter, etc.) before directing behaviour
towards satisfying upper-level needs. A crucial point in Maslow's thinking is
that a satisfied need ceases to motivate. When a person decides that she/he is
earning enough pay for contributing to the organization, money loses its ability
to motivate. This theory is anchored on the belief that people have a desire for
growth and development. This contention may be to the affirmative for some
employees, but not exact for others.
The inherent problem with Maslow's hierarchy was that it was not subjected to
scientific tests by its propounders. While Maslow recognizes that man is never
completely satisfied on any need level, he contends that decreasing percentage
of satisfaction are encountered as lower-level need is replaced in predominance
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by a higher-level one. Maslow recommended a hypothetical example for an
average citizen who is 85 percent satisfied in his basic physiological needs, 70
percent in his security needs, 50 percent in his social needs, 40 percent in the
self-esteem category and 10 percent in his self-actualization needs. The
implication of the high degree of need deficiency in the self-actualization need
and esteem categories is that; managers should focus attention on strategies to
correct these deficiencies.
This logic assumes that attempts to satisfy these deficiencies have a higher
probability of succeeding than directing attention to the already fulfilled lower-
order needs. In addition, the highly deficient needs are a potential danger for
managers. An unsatisfied need can cause frustration, conflict and stress in an
organisation. For example, a skilled Secretary in an organisation who is given a
clerical responsibility instead of more appealing Secretarial assignment may feel
being deprived of satisfying self-actualization need. This type of denial in the
fulfillment of need can lead to frustration that may eventually amount to poor
performance.
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7. Teach self-monitoring skills so participants can chart their own progress.
Psychological factors, notably beliefs and values, influence how people behave.
A key contribution of behavioral science theories to practice is the specification
of beliefs and values relevant to understanding or trying to change behaviors.
An important corollary to the second principle is to know the conceptual and
practical differences between beliefs and values. Beliefs involve consequential
or probabilistic thinking about the relationships between objects or events. For
example, individuals make attributions about the causes of specific events; they
have expectations about the likelihood of certain outcomes. Values are
evaluative judgments about outcomes or events. Individuals may perceive
events as good or bad, as desirable or undesirable. These constructs, which
constitute the cognitive and affective components of attitudes, are the principal
explanatory variables of many behavioral science theories.
In the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Ajzen, 1985), for
example, the attitudinal component is determined by beliefs that a behavior
leads to certain outcomes, and evaluative judgments regarding the outcomes.
Understanding the relationships between beliefs and values, as well as their
relationships with behavioral variables, is key to understanding some of the
important differences between behavioral science theories. Moreover, it is easier
to develop programs to change relevant beliefs and values when one is clear on
the distinctions between them. Implications for practice of this principle
include;
a. Develop program components that target beliefs such as perceived personal
risk, self-efficacy, response efficacy and perceived social norms,
b. Develop program components that target values, such as perceived personal
benefits, perceived costs and perceived social relevance,
c. Instilling new beliefs or values is but one of several strategies; programs
may aim to modify existing beliefs or values, or they may aim to enhance
the salience and perceived relevance of existing beliefs or values, and
d. Recognize that multiple beliefs and values generally underlie each belief
and value of primary interest; develop program elements to modify these
underlying beliefs and values.
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Conducting theory-informed practice often requires measuring such factors, and
designing evaluations that will determine whether programs are effective in
changing them. Practitioners therefore need to utilize research and evaluation
methods to correctly apply behavioral science theory in practical situations. If,
for example, a practitioner wants to assess the existing levels of self-efficacy
and response-efficacy in a target population, research methods are needed to
obtain reliable, valid assessments of these concepts. Similarly, if a program is
intended to change social norms regarding use, a research design is needed that
will determine whether any change in norms has occurred and whether such
change can be attributed to the program. In brief, research and evaluation
methods are critical tools for linking theory and practice. The general
implications of Principles for practice are;
194
For example, the second principle describes the link between beliefs and
behavior.
One would need knowledge of the Belief Model (Janz and Becker, 1984), the
Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985) and other theories to determine what
specific beliefs to address in a program or to determine how to measure beliefs
in a program evaluation. Second, practitioners must determine which principles
to apply in a given practical situation. Application of the first principle assumes,
for example, that practitioners know where members of their target group are as
regards the phases of behavior change and what behavioral skills might
facilitate progress to the next phase. Similarly, practice situations vary with
regard to the viability of using direct involvement as a change strategy or using
normative influence factors to achieve behavior change. A third challenge is
that resources are needed to collect information pertinent to the application of
the principles. For example, application of the second principle requires
information about participants' current beliefs and values; application of the
third principle requires information on participants' perceptions of rewards and
incentives, and application of the sixth principle requires information on social
group members whom participants hold in high regard. Practitioners may use
focus groups, small group surveys or other brief measures to obtain such
information. In sum, the challenges of applying the principles are to link the
principles with the set of theories one finds relevant to practice, determine
which principles one can apply in a given practice situation and obtain the
information necessary to take advantage of the relevant principles. The notion
that behavioral science and other disciplines can inform education practice does
not exclude or discount the equally important role of experience in informing
practical decisions. Experience engenders knowledge of the people, knowledge
of the problem, and knowledge of the social system in which the problem
occurs. Experience engenders trust, familiarity, cultural sensitivity and political
awareness—all essential to successful intervention.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe behavioural science theory, its
evolution and philosophy.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe behavioural science theory. In
addition, isues surrounding its evolution and philosophy were treated.
195
7.0 References/Further Readings
Becker, M. H. (ed.) (1974) Special issue: the health belief model and personal
health behavior. Health Education Monographs, 2, 324—473.
196
Jones, G. R. et. al. (1998), Contemporary Management, Boston: Irwin McGraw
Hill.
197
Unit 3: Systems Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the systems theory and trace its evolution
and philosophy. This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions
and ambiguity surrounding the systems theory arising from the multicultural
and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the
unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe systems theory,
2. Narrate its evolution, and
3. Discuss its philosophy
3.0Main Contents
Systems theory portrays public policy as an output of the political system. But
systems theory is also a process theory of public policy. Certain key concepts
are central to the understanding of public policy from the systems theoretic
framework. First, is the concept of system ‘which implies an identifiable set of
institutions and activities in society that functions to transform demands into
authoritative decisions requiring the support of the whole society. A crucial
property of a system is the interrelatedness of its parts or elements. Furthermore,
it is assumed that a system will respond to its environment and will seek to
preserve itself. Second, is the concept of inputs which refer to the forces
generated in the environment that affect the political system inputs can take the
form of demand and support. Demands involve actions by individuals and
groups seeking authoritative allocations of values from the authorities. Support
comprises of actions rendered in favour of government such as obedience to the
law and payment of taxes. Inputs are generated from the environment. “The
environment is any condition or circumstance defined as external to the
boundaries of the political system”. Inputs are fed into the black box of decision
198
making, otherwise called the conversion box, to produce outputs. Outputs are
the decisions and policies of the authorities. Within the systems framework,
allowance is made for feedback. This is the mechanism through 'which the
outputs of the political system influence future inputs into the system.
According to Anderson, the concept of feedback indicates that public policies
(or outputs) may subsequently alter the environment and the demands generated
therein, as well as the character of the political System itself.
There are, however, problems with the use of systems theory in policy analysis.
Much of these problems derive from the processual assumptions of the theory.
The impression that is conveyed to the effect that policy making proceeds in a
systematic way, beginning with input through ‘output’ and on to output, can
hardly be substantiated in the real world of policy making. While not denying
the relevance of the environment for the generation of inputs, the fact remains
that demands and support as basic raw materials of policy are sometimes
initiated within the political system.
199
temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described
by its structure and purpose or nature and expressed in its functioning. In terms
of its effects, a system can be more than the sum of its parts if it
expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Changing one part of the system
usually affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of
behavior. For systems that are self-learning and self-adapting, the positive
growth and adaptation depend upon how well the system is adjusted with its
environment. Some systems function mainly to support other systems by aiding
in the maintenance of the other system to prevent failure. The goal of systems
theory is systematically discovering a system's dynamics, constraints, conditions
and elucidating principles (purpose, measure, methods, tools, etc.) that can be
discerned and applied to systems at every level of nesting, and in every field for
achieving optimized equifinality.
General systems theory is about broadly applicable concepts and principles, as
opposed to concepts and principles applicable to one domain of knowledge. It
distinguishes dynamic or active systems from static or passive systems. Active
systems are activity structures or components that interact in behaviours and
processes. Passive systems are structures and components that are being
processed. E.g. a program is passive when it is a disc file and active when it
runs in memory. The field is related to systems thinking and systems
engineering.
200
11.Microsystem: A larger system that influences clients, such as policies,
administration of entitlement programs, and culture.
12.Chronosystem: A system composed of significant life events that can
affect adaptation.
Contemporary ideas from systems theory have grown with diverse areas,
exemplified by the work of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, linguist Béla H.
Bánáthy, sociologist Talcott Parsons, ecological systems with Howard T.
Odum, Eugene Odum and Fritjof Capra, organizational
theory and management with individuals such as Peter Senge, interdisciplinary
study with areas like Human Resource Development from the work of Richard
A. Swanson, and insights from educators such as Debora Hammond and
Alfonso Montuori. As a trans disciplinary, interdisciplinary and multi-
perspectival domain, the area brings together principles and concepts
from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, computer
science, biology and engineering as well as geography, sociology, political
science, psychotherapy (within family systems therapy) and economics among
others. Systems theory thus serves as a bridge for interdisciplinary dialogue
between autonomous areas of study as well as within the area of systems
science itself.
In this respect, with the possibility of misinterpretations, von
Bertalanffy believed a general theory of systems "should be an important
regulative device in science", to guard against superficial analogies that "are
useless in science and harmful in their practical consequences". Others remain
closer to the direct systems concepts developed by the original theorists. For
example, Ilya Prigogine, of the Center for Complex Quantum Systems at the
University of Texas, Austin, has studied emergent properties, suggesting that
they offer analogues for living systems. The theories of autopoiesis of Francisco
Varela and Humberto Maturana represent further developments in this field.
Important names in contemporary systems science include Russell
201
Ackoff, Ruzena Bajcsy, Béla H. Bánáthy, Gregory Bateson, Anthony Stafford
Beer, Peter Checkland, Barbara Grosz, Brian Wilson, Robert L. Flood, Allenna
Leonard, Radhika Nagpal, Fritjof Capra, Warren McCulloch, Kathleen
Carley, Michael C. Jackson, Katia Sycara, and Edgar Morin among others. With
the modern foundations for a general theory of systems following World War
I, Ervin Laszlo, in the preface for Bertalanffy's book: Perspectives on General
System Theory, points out that the translation of "general system theory" from
German into English has "wrought a certain amount of havoc".
202
The systems view is a world-view that is based on the discipline of SYSTEM
INQUIRY. Central to systems inquiry is the concept of SYSTEM. In the most
general sense, system means a configuration of parts connected and joined
together by a web of relationships. The Primer Group defines system as a family
of relationships among the members acting as a whole. Von Bertalanffy defined
system as "elements in standing relationship." Similar ideas are found in
learning theories that developed from the same fundamental concepts,
emphasizing how understanding results from knowing concepts both in part and
as a whole. In fact, Bertalanffy's organismic psychology paralleled the learning
theory of Jean Piaget. Some consider interdisciplinary perspectives critical in
breaking away from industrial age models and thinking, wherein history
represents history and math represents math, while the arts and
sciences specialization remain separate and many treat teaching
as behaviorist conditioning. The contemporary work of Peter Senge provides
detailed discussion of the commonplace critique of educational systems
grounded in conventional assumptions about learning, including the problems
with fragmented knowledge and lack of holistic learning from the "machine-age
thinking" that became a "model of school separated from daily life". In this way
some systems theorists attempt to provide alternatives to, and evolved ideation
from orthodox theories which have grounds in classical assumptions, including
individuals such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim in sociology and Frederick
Winslow Taylor in scientific management. The theorists sought holistic
methods by developing systems concepts that could integrate with different
areas.
203
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe systems theory, its evolution and
philosophy.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe systems theory. In addition, isues
surrounding its evolution and philosophy were treated.
204
7.0 References/Further Readings
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy: ... aber vom Menschen wissen wir nichts,
(English title: Robots, Men and Minds), translated by Dr. Hans-Joachim
Flechtner. page 115. Econ Verlag GmbH (1970), Düsseldorf, Wien. 1st edition.
205
Unit 4: Group Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the group theory and trace its evolution and
philosophy. This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions and
ambiguity surrounding the group theory arising from the multicultural and
multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the unit
maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe systems theory,
2. Narrate its evolution, and
3. Discuss its philosophy
1.0Main Contents
3.1 Description of Group theory
Group theory developed within the context of the pluralist paradigm of politics.
Pluralism argues essentially that power in western industrialised societies is
widely distributed among different groups. According to this paradigm, no
group is without power to influence decision-making and equally no group is
dominant. It is a major premise of pluralism that any group can ensure that its
political preferences and wishes are adopted and reflected in governmental
action with sufficient determination and the deployment of appropriate
resources.
206
According to group theory, politics is the struggle among groups to reflect their
interests in public policy. Conflict often results from this interplay of group
forces. Consequently, “The task of the political system” according to Dye, is to
manage group conflict by;
1. Establishing the rules of the game in the group struggle,
2. Arranging compromises and balancing interests,
3. Enacting compromises in the form of public policy, and
4. Enforcing these compromises.
Public policy will reflect the equilibrium reached in the group struggle, that is,
the “balance which the contending factions or groups constantly strive to tip in
their favour.” Public policy will, however, reflect the interests of dominant
groups defined as those groups gaining in influence, those, in other words who
have the requisite resources such as size, money, information expertise etc.
First, is the obvious uni-causal explanation of politics and public policy from
the perspective of group struggle alone. This is an exaggerated claim which
overlooks the independent role of individual actors in the policy process.
Second, it is an empirical question whether, indeed power is as widely
distributed in society as group theory claims and more important, whether the
voice of the least powerful ‘is ever audible as to make it significant in the
decision making process. Third, the market place paradigm on which group
theory is anchored raises the significant question about parity in the process of
competition since we are told that the sources of power available to groups may
not be equal. The advantage, which some groups enjoy on account of superior
resource endowment, might be a factor in the dominance of their interests in
public policy. This is more so as they are able to deploy their advantaged
position to secure their interests through for example, the manipulation of the
rules of competition. Fourth, the assumed neutrality of government in the clash
of partisan groups in the value allocation process is questionable if not doubtful,
a point to which we shall return shortly.
207
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe group theory, its evolution and
philosophy.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe group theory. In addition, issues
surrounding its evolution and philosophy were treated.
208
7.0References/Further Readings
Gonzalez, G. A. (2012) Energy and Empire: The Politics of Nuclear and Solar
Power in the United States. Albany: State University of New York Press
Lerner, R., A. K. Nagai, S. Rothman (1996) American Elites. New Haven CT:
Yale University Press
Milch, Jan, (1992) . C.Wright Mills och hans sociologiska vision Om hans syn
på makt och metod och vetenskap,. Sociologiska Institution Göteborgs
Universit-("C.Wright Mills and his sociological vision About his views on
power and methodology and science. Department of Sociology Gothenburg
University")
210
MODULE 5: SELECTED ADMINISTRATIVE THEORIES III
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the elite theory and trace its evolution and
philosophy. This is to enable the learner overcome some misconceptions and
ambiguity surrounding the elite theory arising from the multicultural and
multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore, expected to give the unit
maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe elite theory,
2. Narrate its evolution, and
3. Discuss its philosophy
Even when entire groups are ostensibly completely excluded from the state's
traditional networks of power historically, on the basis of arbitrary criteria such
as nobility, race, gender, or religion, elite theory recognizes that "counter-elites"
frequently develop within such excluded groups. Negotiations between such
disenfranchised groups and the state can be analyzed as negotiations between
211
elites and counter-elites. A major problem, in turn, is the ability of elites to opt
counter-elites.
Elite theory developed as an alternative paradigm to pluralism. Elite theory
rejects the pluralist view concerning the distribution of power in society. In the
alternative, elite theory points to the concentration of political power in the
hands of a minority group which, according to Mosca, forms all political
functions, monopolises power and enjoys the advantages that power brings.
From the perspective of elite theory, public policy may be viewed as the values
and preferences of governing elite. Elite theory opposes pluralism, a tradition
that assumes that all individuals, or at least the multitude of social groups, have
equal power and balance each other out in contributing to democratic political
outcomes representing the emergent, aggregate will of society. Elite theory
argues either that democracy is a utopian folly, as it is traditionally viewed in
the conservative Italian tradition, or that democracy is not realizable within
capitalism, as is the view of the more Marxist-compatible contemporary elite
theory permutation.
Put this way, elite theory assumes a conspiratorial character and is to that extent
a provocative theory of public policy. It is conspiratorial because of the
underlying premise about elite consensus on fundamental norms of the social
system which limits the choice of policy alternatives to only those which fall
within the shared consensus. The theory is provocative because of the implied
characterisation of the masses as passive, apathetic and ill-informed and the
consequential relegation of their role in policy making.
There are two other issues that should be raised concerning the relevance of
elite theory for policy analysis. Even if we concede the leadership role of elites
in policy formulation, strategic placement in elite position as a source of power
is hardly a scientific conclusion. In addition, we know little or nothing about the
specific form which the participation of the masses in the policy process takes.
To recap, Systems, Group and Elite theories are orthodox theories which have
dominated thinking concerning the way authorities make policy decisions.
Central to the analysis which these theories offer is the role assigned to
government in policy making. All three theories gave a pivotal role to
government in the value allocation process. In systems theory, for example,
government is located inthe black box where inputs are-converted into outputs.
Group theory, on the other hand, assigns to government the role of an umpire in
the struggle among societal groups to reflect their interests in public policy.
Elite theory favours government with the crucial role of carrying into effect,
through its officials and agencies, the values and preferences which the
dominant few want reflected in public policy. The underlying assumption about
government in these theories is that government is an impartial mediator of
conflict in society and, impliedly, a preserver of the social order.
213
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe elite theory, its evolution and
philosophy.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe elite theory. In addition, isues
surrounding its evolution and philosophy were treated.
214
7.0 References/Further Readings
Gonzalez, G. A. (2012) Energy and Empire: The Politics of Nuclear and Solar
Power in the United States. Albany: State University of New York Press
Lerner, R., A. K. Nagai, S. Rothman (1996) American Elites. New Haven CT:
Yale University Press
Milch, Jan, (1992) . C.Wright Mills och hans sociologiska vision Om hans syn
på makt och metod och vetenskap,. Sociologiska Institution Göteborgs
Universit-("C.Wright Mills and his sociological vision About his views on
power and methodology and science. Department of Sociology Gothenburg
University")
215
Putnam, R. D. (1977) ‘Elite Transformation in Advance Industrial Societies: An
Empirical Assessment of the Theory of Technocracy’ in Comparative Political
Studies Vol. 10, No. 3, pp383–411.
216
Unit 2: Radical Marxist Theory
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the radical Marxist theory and trace its
evolution, impact and philosophy. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the radical Marxist theory arising
from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe radical Marxist theory,
2. Narrate its evolution,
3. Discuss its philosophy, and
4. Explain its impact on social history
217
From the Marxist perspective, the state is viewed as an instrument which one
class uses to dominate and exploit other classes. This view is encapsulated in
Marx’s oft-quoted saying that “the executive of the modern state is but a
committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie”. Far from
being the neutral actor which the orthodox theories promoted, the state, in
Marxist analysis is viewed as partisan in favour of the interests of the dominant
class. Miliband has offered three reasons why the state is an ' instrument of
bourgeois domination in capitalist society:
1. The similarity in the social background of the bourgeoisie and the state
officials located in government, the civil service bureaucracy, the
military, the judiciary etc.
2. The power of the bourgeoisie to pressure for political action through a
network of personal contacts and associations with those in business and
industry;
3. The constraint placed on the state by the objective power of capital, that
is to say, the limits placed on the freedom of state officials by their need
to assist the process of capital accumulation, a need which stems from the
requirements of a strong economy based for political survival.
Marxist theory is open to charges of determinism even though there are explicit
indications in the work of Marx that the relationship between economic power
and political power is hardly deterministic. As some Marxist scholars, such as
Miliband have argued, the room for autonomous action by the state in capitalist
society is not a remote possibility since the state sometimes carry out reforms
favourable to the underclass. Marxist analysis provides a radically different
approach to the understanding of the policy making process which comes across
the orthodox theorising of that process. If, as Claude has pointed out ‘politics' is
the competition among groups to make public policy conducive to the
realisation of their interests and ideologies" then the role of the ruling class is
determinant in what the state does and what the state chooses not to do in the
value allocation process.
218
motor of historical process. Its movement was impossible to understand outside
of the necessary frictions and periodic clashes of a society divided into
irreconcilable classes, primarily the new social strata, the bourgeois and the
proletarian. From the time of its birth Marxism was inexplicable outside of the
transformations associated with the rise of capitalism, a social
formation defined by an accumulative regime driven forward by the extraction
of surplus associated with the wage system and production for profit. Capitalism
and its histories of class formation and struggle figured centrally in Marxist
histories, although the materialist concept of history also was applied fruitfully
to pre-capitalist modes of production.
These and many other writings formed the theoretical foundation on which
Marxist histories rested for the next century and more. Within what might be
called "the classical tradition," Marxist histories were produced by intellectuals
whose primary commitment was to the revolutionary movement. Their
historical writing, seldom far removed from theoretical questions, was often a
direct attempt to explore historical themes originally addressed by Marx or
Engels. Thus Karl Kautsky, one of a small contingent developing the materialist
concept of history in the late nineteenth century, produced a study of
religion, The Origin of Christianity (1923), a staple of Marxist critique in this
period. Kautsky attempted to situate European and American agriculture in an
219
1899 publication, The Agrarian Question. His Communism in Central Europe in
the Time of the Reformation (1897) returned directly to Engels's concern with
the German peasant uprisings of the sixteenth century, as did Belfort
Bax's The Peasants War in Germany, 1525–1526 (1899). Early writing on the
Paris Commune included Lissagaray'sHistory of the Commune of 1871(1886),
translated from the French by Marx's daughter Eleanor Marx Aveling.
The revolutionary movement stimulated Marxist research and bore rich fruit in
the pre–World War I period. Subjects barely touched upon by the founders of
historical materialism emerged out of the new global capitalism orchestrated by
monopoly and threateningly powerful imperialist rivalries. Rudolf
Hilferding's Finance Capital (1910) and Otto Bauer's The Nationalities
Question and Social Democracy (1907) were both published, like Lenin's book,
before their authors reached the age of thirty. They prefigured the concerns
of Rosa Luxemburg, whose writings addressed the new regime of capital
accumulation and accentuated the role of colonies. Luxemburg's politics
breathed a vibrant internationalism and a particular resistance to national
parochialism.
But troubling signs as well showed up on the Marxist horizon in 1914. The
fracturing of the Second International, the working-class organization of
marxism at the time of World War I, suggested the powerful challenges to
orthodoxy that emerged in this period, detailed in the French marxist Georges
Haupt's Socialism and the Great War: The Collapse of the Second
International (1972) and in Carl Schorske's German Social Democracy, 1905–
1917: The Development of the Great Schism(1955). The Russian
220
Revolution failed to spread to the advanced capitalist economies of the West,
and the ground receptive to Stalinist containments was being tilled. One seed
was the rise of the international Left Opposition, grouped around Trotsky and
later organized in the Fourth International. The scant serious historical self-
reflection on Marxist theory and history produced in these years, such as
Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It
Going? (1937), emanated from this dissident quarter. The Stalinist Comintern of
the interwar years was notable for its mechanical practices and routinization of
theory. As Perry Anderson argued in Considerations on Western
Marxism (1976), the interwar years and beyond largely saw the relinquishment
of historical, economic, and political themes in Marxist intellectual production
and the replacement of Marxist activists at the writing center of historical
materialism by university-based scholars of the left. The center of gravity of
continental European Marxism, in Anderson's metaphor, turned toward
philosophy. Certainly the major Marxist thought in this period was cultivated
among a layer of what Luxemburg and Kautsky
dubbed Kathedersozialisten, professorial socialists. From György Lukács
to Jean-Paul Sartre, class consciousness was written about more as an aesthetic
possibility than as a combative historical process.
221
3.5 Impact of Marxism on Social History
Marxism's intersection with social history thus has been wide-ranging and
highly influential, if at times constricting in what it seemed able to address. It
has nevertheless actually charted particular spheres of study, such as important
realms of the debate over the nature and meaning of the transition from
feudalism to capitalism. In other areas, most obviously labor history but also
particular chronological periods and topics, such as the English revolutions of
the seventeenth century or the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century,
Marxist histories achieved, for a time at least, interpretive hegemony. The
concerns of Marxist histories always have been a fusion of the economic, the
political, and the sociocultural. Hill, for example, believed that all history was
intellectual history, but this did not prevent him from writing on matters that
blurred distinctions between the material and the cultural, a crossover that
produced or at least illuminated the social. It is inconceivable that European
social history from the Renaissance to the modern period could have developed
historiographically without the insights of Marxist perspectives.
Equally important, Marxist approaches highlighted for all historians—
conservatives, radicals, feminists, and liberals—significant themes in the
historical process. Those themes include the relationships of economic life and
social being; the appreciation of large-scale socioeconomic transformation and
the making of class, gender, and national-ethnic identities; and the importance
of "totality" in historical process and the reciprocity of mercantile, landed,
protoindustrial, and capitalist relations in the emergence of the modern world.
Indeed Marxist histories stimulated and enlivened social history, assuring it a
measure of intellectual tenacity by forcing reconsiderations and new
appreciations of large issues. State formation, the subject of a stimulating
synthetic statement by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer that bridged the
medieval and the modern, is one such area that Marxist approaches have
reinvigorated. It is impossible to think of social history in the 1990s, for
instance, without acknowledging the weight of Thompson's The Making of the
English Working Class, not so much because of the persuasiveness of its
research and argument, which have been contested, but rather because of its
tone, vision, and sensibilities. This feel for a new kind of history, which became
the enduring attraction of "the social," was not the monopoly of the Marxists,
but they contributed mightily toward it. Consequently Marxist histories affected
the changing balance of historical thought as much as they grew out of the
material circumstances and internal debates, polemics, and ruptures of the
Marxist movement itself.
The Marxist movement was never a monolith, and sociopolitical and intellectual
histories of Marxism in the European past mark an evolution of uncommon
222
diversity. The major early political studies of the marxist First and Second
Internationals, including A. Müller Lehning's The International Association,
1855–1859: A Contribution to the Preliminary History of the First
International(1938) and James Joll's The Second International, 1889–
1914(1974), were later complemented by national surveys and specific accounts
of particular countries in restricted chronological periods, many written by
nonmarxists. Among these Tony Judt's Marxism and the French Left: Studies in
Labour and Politics in France, 1830–1981 (1986) is notable for its breadth, and
Gerald H. Meaker's The Revolutionary Left in Spain, 1914–1923 (1974) sets the
stage well for an appreciation of the momentous conflicts of the civil war of the
1930s. The Italian communist experience proved fertile ground for a Marxist
engagement with the national question, especially acute in a country
economically, socially, culturally, and politically fractured. The "southern
question" preoccupied major Marxist thinkers, such as Antonio Labriola
and Antonio Gramsci.
No unity congeals this ongoing relation of social change and the dissenting
tradition, but it is impossible to consider European history without addressing
the Marxist presence. No sooner had communism fallen in 1989, with Marxism
proclaimed dead and history and ideology supposedly at their end, than Marxist
ideas and movements began to reemerge out of the seeming wasteland of
Stalinist decay. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Marxist thought
and communist political organizations were down but certainly not out. The ills
of capitalism—increasing economic inequality and its manifold oppressions and
destabilizing violence—remained very much in evidence, especially in the new,
223
wildly erratic, and war torn frontier of acquisitive individualism's market
economies, Russia and its former eastern European satellites.
Marxist histories, as the site of new understandings of the social and as the lived
experience of mobilizations attempting to transform society and politics, have
greatly influenced European history. Their intellectual, cultural, economic, and
social meanings have been profound, and, although their future at the turn of the
century was perhaps more clouded than at any time in the previous hundred
years, they have remained a force to reckon with.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe radical Marxist theory, its evolution
and philosophy.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe radical Marxist theory. In
addition, issues surrounding its evolution and philosophy were treated.
224
7.0 References/Further Readings
Aston, T. H., and C. H. E. Philpin, eds. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class
Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge,
U.K., 1985.
Corrigan, Philip, and Derek Sayer. The Great Arch: English State Formation
as Cultural Revolution. Oxford, 1985.
De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca,
N.Y., 1981.
Judt, Tony. Marxism and the French Left: Studies in Labour and Politics in
France, 1830–1981. Oxford, 1986.
Mason, Tim. Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class. Edited by Jane Caplan.
Cambridge, U.K., 1995.
225
Merriman, John M. The Red City: Limoges and the French Nineteenth
Century. New York, 1985.
Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in
the Twentieth Century. New York, 1996.
Taylor, Barbara. Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the
Nineteenth Century. London, 1983.
Thompson, E. P. Witness against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral
Law. New York, 1993.
226
Unit 3: New Public Management
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the New Public Management and trace its
history, theory and criticism. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the New Public Management arising
from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Describe New Public Management,
2. Narrate its history,
3. Discuss its principles, and
4. Explain its theory.
3.0Main Contents
3.1 Description of New Public Management
New Public Management (NPM) is an approach to running public
service organizations that is used in government and public service institutions
and agencies, at both sub-national and national levels. The term was first
introduced by academics in the UK and Australia to describe approaches that
were developed during the 1980s as part of an effort to make the public service
more "businesslike" and to improve its efficiency by using private sector
management models. As with the private sector, which focuses on "customer
service", NPM reforms often focused on the "...centrality of citizens who were
the recipient of the services or customers to the public sector." NPM reformers
experimented with using decentralized service delivery models, to give local
agencies more freedom in how they delivered programs or services. In some
cases, NPM reforms that used e-government consolidated a program or service
to a central location to reduce costs. Some governments tried using quasi-
market structures, so that the public sector would have to compete against the
private sector notably in the UK, in health care. Key themes in NPM are;
1. financial control,
2. value for money,
3. increasing efficiency,
4. identifying and setting targets,
5. continuance monitoring of performance, and
6. handing over power to the senior management executives.
Performance was assessed with audits, benchmarks and performance
evaluations. Some NPM reforms used private sector companies to deliver what
227
were formerly public services. NPM advocates in some countries worked to
remove collective agreements in favour of individual rewards packages at senior
levels combined with short term contracts and introduce private sector-
style corporate governance, including using a Board of Directors approach to
strategic guidance for public organizations. While NPM approaches have been
used in many countries around the world, NPM is particularly associated with
the most industrialized OECD nations such as the United
Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America. NPM advocates focus on
using approaches from the private sector–the corporate or business world–
which can be successfully applied in the public sector and in a public
administration context. NPM approaches have been used to reform the public
sector, its policies and its programs. NPM advocates claim that it is a more
efficient and effective means of attaining the same outcome.
In NPM, citizens are viewed as "customers" and public servants are viewed as
public managers. NPM tries to realign the relationship between public service
managers and their political superiors by making a parallel relationship between
the two. Under NPM, public managers have incentive-based motivation such as
pay-for-performance, and clear performance targets are often set, which are
assessed by using performance evaluations. As well, managers in an NPM
paradigm may have greater discretion and freedom as to how they go about
achieving the goals set for them. This NPM approach is contrasted with the
traditional public administration model, in which institutional decision-making,
policy-making and public service delivery is guided by regulations, legislation
and administrative procedures.
228
federal government, the changes being trumpeted as reinvention would not even
be announced, except perhaps on hallway bulletin boards.
229
Improve timing Stability
The term New Public Management (NPM) expresses the idea that the
cumulative flow of policy decisions over the past twenty years has amounted to
a substantial shift in the governance and management of the “state sector” in
230
the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavia, and North America.
A benign interpretation is that these decisions have been a defensible, if
imperfect, response to policy problems. Those problems as well as their
solutions were formulated within the policy-making process. The agenda-setting
process has been heavily influenced by electoral commitments to improve
macro- economic performance and to contain growth in the public sector, as
well as by a growing perception of public bureaucracies as being inefficient.
The alternative-generation process has been heavily influenced by ideas coming
from economics and from various quarters within the field of management.
NPM was accepted as the "gold standard for administrative reform"in the
1990s. The idea for using this method for government reform was that if the
government guided private-sector principles were used rather than rigid
hierarchical bureaucracy, it would work more efficiently. NPM promotes a shift
from bureaucratic administration to business-like professional management.
NPM was cited as the solution for management ills in various organizational
context and policy making in education and health care reform.
231
It’s important to maintain explicit standards and measures of performance in a
workforce. Using this method promotes clarification of goals/intent, targets, and
indicators for progression.
Output controls
The third point acknowledges the shift from the use of input controls and
bureaucratic procedures to rules relying on output controls measured by
quantitative performance indicators. This aspect requires using performance
based assessments when looking to outsource work to private
companies/groups.
Decentralization
NPM advocates often shifted from a unified management system to a
decentralized system in which managers gain flexibility and are not limited to
agency restrictions.
Competition
This characteristic focuses on how NPM can promote competition in the public
sector which could in turn lower cost, eliminate debate and possibly achieve a
higher quality of progress/work through the term contacts. Competition can also
be found when the government offers contracts to the private sectors and the
contract is given in terms of the ability to deliver the service effectively, quality
of the goods provided, hence this will increase competition because the other
private sector which did not get the contract will make strides to improve the
quality and ability thereby facilitating competition.
Private-sector management
This aspect focuses on the necessity to establish short-term labor contracts,
develop corporate plans or business plans, performance agreements and mission
statements. It also focuses on establishing a workplace in which public
employees or contractors are aware of the goals and intention that agencies are
trying to reach.
Cost reduction
The most effective one which has led to its ascent into global popularity focuses
on keeping cost low and efficiency high. Doing more with less moreover cost
reduction stimulates efficiency and is one way which makes it different from the
traditional approach of management.
232
development of the behavioral-administrative sciences and their relation to
NPM. A descriptive model of the behavioral-administrative sciences is
developed that pits three internally consistent scientific worldviews that are
incommensurable to each other. From this, the theoretical origins of NPM can
be traced to a variety of theoretical perspectives. Although the special mix of
characteristics of NPM is new, it does not represent a paradigm change. Indeed,
it is improbable that there will ever be one paradigm for the behavioral–
administrative sciences; and without an accepted paradigm, a paradigm change
is not really possible.
The conventional wisdom holds that NPM has its origins in public-choice
theory and managerialism (Aucoin, 1990, pp. 115; Dunsire, 1995, pp. 21–29;
Lueder, 1996, pp. 93; Naschold et al., 1995, pp. 1–8; Reichard, 1996, p. 245f;
Schedler, 1995, p. 155). Does this formula fit, and is it exhaustive? Moreover, is
NPM really new? Finally, does NPM represent a paradigm change, as some
writers claim (Aucoin, 1995, p. 3; Borins, 1994, p. 2; Kamensky, 1996, p. 250;
OECD, 1995, pp. 8, 25; Osborne and Gaebler, 1993, p. 321; Reinermann, 1995,
p. 6)? To answer these questions, describe the development of administrative
thought in the U.S., the home of public-choice theory and managerialism, focus
on the U.S. because it dominates theoretical developments in the behavioral-
administrative sciences, owing in part to the sheer size of its academic
establishment, its diversity, and the richness of its approaches. On the
presumption that the attempts of practitioners, consultants, and scientists is to
reform administrative organizations and delivery systems are influenced by their
disciplinary socialization and training, this survey will examine whether
theoretical concepts other than public choice and managerialism have
influenced NPM.
In the Progressive movement, the New York Bureau for Municipal Research
was a key player. Influenced by Frederick Taylor’s scientific management, the
New York Bureau believed that efficiency was the best solution to the problem
of corruption and incompetence. These progressive reformers imported
techniques and studies from scientific management (e.g., on efficient street
paving and snow removal). They were the first to use performance indicators to
benchmark the efficiency of public organizations, one purpose of which was to
identify corruption (Schachter, 1989). In the 1920s, some practitioners and
academics created the science of public administration on the fundamentals of
the progressive reform successes—particularly the presupposition of loyal
bureaucrats, honest politicians, and the politics-administration dichotomy.
These reformers—the new scientists of public administration—built a theory of
organization that they supplemented with the concept of management. These
principles were:
233
a. The principle of division of work and specialization.
b. The principle of homogeneity.
c. The principle of unity of command.
d. The principle of hierarchy with respect to the delegation of
authority.
e. The principle of accountability.
f. The principle of span of control.
g. The staff principle (Gulick, 1937; Urwick, 1937; Mooney, 1937;
Graicunas, 1937).
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe New Public Management. In
addition, issues surrounding its history, principles, theory and criticisms were
treated.
235
7.0 References/Further Readings
Barzelay (2001). The New Public Management: Improving Research and Policy
Dialogue. Russell Sage Foundation.
236
Unit 4: Chinese Developing Bureaucracy
1.0Introduction
The focus of this unit is to describe the Chinese Developing Bureaucracy trace
its history, theory and criticism. This is to enable the learner overcome some
misconceptions and ambiguity surrounding the New Public Management arising
from the multicultural and multidisciplinary approaches to it. You are therefore,
expected to give the unit maximum attention it deserves.
2.0Objectives
At the end of this unit, students should be able to;
1. Descibe Chinese Developing Bureaucracy,
2. Narrate Chinese central organization department, and
3. Explain communist bureaucracy and officials.
3.0Main Contents
Name chop mark is used instead of signature in China. The powerful State
Council is China's highest administrative body. It makes proposals to the
Standing Committee of the Politburo and takes care of the day-to-day
operations of the country. It is a huge bureaucracy controlled by the Communist
Party and headed by the Prime Minister. Through its hierarchy of ministries and
agencies, the State Council carries out the directives of the Politburo. Among
the agencies are the Ministry of Truth and a Department of Propaganda. The
bureaucracy is led by the party elite. Participation is limited to members of the
Communist Party. The Central Party School is the top training ground for
Communist Party bureaucrats. All the top leaders attended it.
During the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618--907), there was one official for every
2,927 people. During the more recent Qin Dynasty (1644--1911), there was one
official for every 299 people. But in modern China, there are up to 50 million
officials, amounting to about one official for every 27 people. Its bureaucracy
certainly cannot complain about being understaffed.
John Lee wrote in Newsweek, while modern China is the most over governed
land in Asia, it is also one of the worst governed. Even as China has
decentralized and officials have multiplied, the country is not building the
institutions needed for better transparency and accountability. CCP's influence
over courts, bureaucracies, media, research institutions, and state-controlled
enterprises are well known. It's difficult to make CCP's local officials
accountable when Beijing relies on them to maintain the party's hold on power
in far-flung places. There are roughly 300 million government employees in
237
China. In recent years the central government has vowed to shrink the bloated
bureaucracy. They have laid off some people and reduced salaries yet many
people continue drawing substantial salaries at the taxpayers’ expense.
The Chinese government elite, which includes about 2,800 people at or above
director or vice minister level, in the government and military, is intensely
loyal.
The Central Organization Department is the party's vast and opaque human
resources agency. Andrew Higgins (2010): It has no public phone number, and
there is no sign on the huge building it occupies near Tiananmen Square.
Guardian of the party's personnel files, the department handles key personnel
decisions not only in the government bureaucracy but also in business, media,
the judiciary and even academia. Its deliberations are all secret.
If such a body existed in the United States, Richard McGregor (2010) wrote in
his book The Party it would oversee the appointment of the entire US cabinet,
state governors and their deputies, the mayors of major cities, the heads of all
federal regulatory agencies, the chief executives of GE, Exxon-Mobil, Wal-
Mart and about fifty of the remaining largest US companies, the justices of the
Supreme Court, the editors of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and
the Washington Post, the bosses of the TV networks and cable stations, the
presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities, and the heads of
think-tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.
Economic policy and other important policies are still largely shaped by the
government's central planning agency, the National Development and Reform
Commission. Many think that policy could be shaped more effectively and
efficiently if the agency was stripped of some of its responsibilities. Foreign
238
policy is ultimately crafted not by the foreign ministry but the party's Central
Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, and that military matters are decided not by
the defense ministry but by the party's Central Military Commission. These and
other party groups meet in secret.
The state institutions below the national level were local people's congresses--
the NPC's local counterparts--whose functions and powers were exercised by
their standing committees at and above the county level when the congresses
were not in session. The standing committee was composed of a chairman, vice
chairmen, and members. The people's congresses also had permanent
committees that became involved in governmental policy affecting their areas
and their standing committees and the people's congresses held meetings every
other month to supervise provincial-level government activities. Peng Zhen
239
described the relationship between the NPC Standing Committee and the
standing committees at lower levels as "one of liaison, not of leadership."
Further, he stressed that the institution of standing committees was aimed at
transferring power to lower levels so as to tap the initiative of the localities for
the modernization drive.
The administrative arm of these people's congresses was the local people's
government. Its local organs were established at three levels: the provinces,
autonomous regions, and special municipalities; autonomous prefectures,
counties, autonomous counties (called banners in Nei Monggol Autonomous
Region (Inner Mongolia)), cities, and municipal districts; and, at the base of the
administrative hierarchy, administrative towns (xiang). The administrative
towns replaced people's communes as the basic level of administration.
Reform programs have brought the devolution of considerable decision-making
authority to the provincial and lower levels. Nevertheless, because of the
continued predominance of the fundamental principle of democratic centralism,
which is at the base of China's State Constitution, these lower levels are always
vulnerable to changes in direction and decisions originated at the central level of
government. In this respect, all local organs are essentially extensions of central
government authorities and thus are responsible to the "unified leadership" of
the central organs.
240
Smithsonian, "Bright, confident, well-spoken but still bearing that indefinable
air of defensiveness when...encountering Westerners. Milling, ironical,
circumlocution with practiced rhetorical skill, prodding, rebutting when there
was no call for rebuttal, answering questions with questions, he fenced more
than he participated in an interview." The work load of some senior officials is
quite high. They have a responsibility to keep friends, colleagues, and investors
entertained in a punishing round of restaurants, karaoke bars and massage
parlors. [Sexton, 2010]
Bureaucrats have traditionally gone through great lengths to make sure they
didn't make any mistake or anger a superior. High-level officials make the
decisions behind the scenes and mid-level cadres carry out the
decisions. Chinese government official, according to the Times of London, fear
being sacked or jailed if they said anything deemed inappropriate to U.S.
241
officials. One civil servant told the Times, “The security people will study these
documents word by word, After all, that's their job, They already make a record
of anyone who meets with a U.S. diplomat and so they will be able to put
together the date in the cable with the date of the meeting and from the content
can easily identify anyone." One official was sent to jail for 10 years in 1992 for
revealing in advance the text of a speech by President Jiang Zemin to Hong
Kong reporters.
Many low-level Communist officials drive black Volkswagen Santanas. Often
they are among the worst drivers on the roads, in some cases producing gridlock
traffic jams with their impatience. High-level officials like to travel around
China with an entourage. In 2009, state media warned that growing competition
for government jobs appeared to have encouraged cheating in the civil service
entrance exam, with about 1,000 cheaters caught over a four month period.
Wang Yang, a Communist Party leader of Guangdong Province and a member
of the Politburo, is major proponent of what he calls “mind liberation”---the
process of opening of the bureaucracy to new ways of thinking.
242
difficult to trace, as are artwork and stock, paid “study” trips, prostitutes or
paying overseas tuition of officials’ children."
Once in Nanjing, a 1,000-ton shipment of steel passed through 83 different
government work units and companies before it was delivered. The steel was
bought and sold 232 times over several months, increasing the price by 300
percent.
Foreign companies are often restricted from hiring and firing who they want
and often they are forced to hire Chinese employees on the basis of their
connection not their skills. Simple things such as getting a land-line telephone
installed and renting some property can be incredible hassles. Patience is helpful
but probably the most important thing to have to get things done
is guanxi (connections).
Former Shanghai mayor and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has been nicknamed
Mr. One Chop because of efforts to reduce the number of chops or signatures on
permits and bureaucratic documents. In a speech in March 2004, Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao promised to cut red tape for entrepreneurs.
4.0Conclusion
In this unit, attempt was made to describe Chinese Developing Bureaucracy, its
central organization, its administration and the impact of communist party.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, attempt has been made to describe Chinese Developing
Bureaucracy. In addition, issues surrounding its central organization
department, its administration and communist bureaucracy and officials.
Barzelay (2001). The New Public Management: Improving Research and Policy
Dialogue. Russell Sage Foundation.
243
Dunleavy (2005). New Public Management Is Dead--Long Live Digital-Era
Governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
244