What is Public Administration ?

- Meaning and its Definition

Public administration is like any other administration which is carried out in public
interest. Before we dwell deeper into understanding public administration it would be
beneficial to try and see how different authors have tried to define what administration
is.

Marx defines administration as - Administration is determined action taken in

pursuit of a conscious purpose. It is the systematic ordering of affairs and the
calculated use of resources aimed at making those happen which one wants to
happen.

Frederic k Lane defines administration as organizing and maintaining human and fiscal
resources to attain a group’s goals.

A complete definition for public administration however is difficult to arrive at due to the
sheer number of tasks that fall under it. Some academicians argue that all the
government related work falls into this category while other choose to argue that only
the executive aspect of government functioning comprises of public administration.

We can also see how different authors have defined public administration:

According to L D White, Public administration consists of all those operations

having for their purpose the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy. On the
other hand as per Woodrow Wilson public administration is a detailed and systematic
application of law. One can also say that public administration is nothing but the
policies, practices, rules and regulation etc, in action.

Now can public administration be divorced from social and political systems; certainly
not and therefore emerged another definition provided by F A Nigro who argues that
public administration is essentially a cooperative group effort in public setting. Secondly,
it covers all the three branches of government machinery, the executive, the legislative
and the judicial. He further added that since public administration plays a crucial role
in formulation of policies therefore it is a part of the political process as well (for
e.g. Bills and Acts). Negro also said that public administration is different from private
administration in numerous ways and that it interacts with various private groups and
individuals in providing services to the community.

Also, on the nature of public administration there have been two popular views, one
being the Integral view and the other one is the Managerial view. The Integral view is all
encompassing and consists of sum total of all managerial, clerical, technical and
manual activities and employees form all levels. This view was endorsed by L D White
and Dimock. It may differ from one agency to another depending on their sphere of
work.

On the other hand the Managerial view, as the name suggests says that the public
administration involves only the managerial activities. This view was supported by
Simon, Smithburg, Thompson and Luther Gulick.
After having said that; the word administration itself is highly contextual, and may vary in
meaning and definition from one organization to another.

So if you want to understand it from the context and setting of an organization, it can be
roughly explained that; the top leadership or the Board decides the vision, mission,
short and long term goals and the business unit heads then draw out action plans and
create or reform processes, allot responsibilities, direct planning, get people on board
and start working towards achieving those set goals as per defined guidelines. So, the
Board can be the Government and the Business Unit Heads and their teams can be the
public administrators who are the implementers and actually the people who run the
show.

In the next section we shall make an effort to understand whether public and private
administrations are similar, different or are there any overlaps between the two.

ature and Scope of Public Administration

Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

The above quote by Schumpeter can call for a heated debate on its relevance and
credence. However there is no denying that bureaucracy; since a couple of centuries or
so; has been an integral part of the Government, the State the people and the way they
function with each other.

Public administration is the single most important aspect of bureaucracies

across the world; be it a democratic, socialist or a capitalist state, more so in a
socialist state, as all aspects of the citizen life are influenced and decided by the
government.

There has been considerable shift in the way the public administration was carried out
in ancient and medieval times when the initiatives were nothing more than sporadic
administrative functions like maintaining law and order and collecting revenues with little
or no welfare activities. The people who carried out those activities were selected by the
monarchs and were no better than their personal servants.

With changing times, the objective of public administration also underwent a change
and by the nineteenth century; an organized approach to public servants and public
administration was adopted. This approach was based on an exhaustive legal
framework replacing the patriarchal and hereditary function with bureaucracy.

The advent of this new approach to public administration happened due to many
reasons. The foremost being the Industrial revolution. With Industrial Revolution, the
Government forayed into trade and commerce; which was followed by Imperialism,
Nationalism and Internationalism which added on to the widening avenues of
Government duties and responsibilities.

The times today are again vastly different from what existed a century ago and
once again the scope of public administration has also undergone a shift, it’s
difficult to decide whether it is paradigm or not. However, the increasing awareness
amongst people especially in the developing countries [for e.g. The Right to Information
Act or RTI act in India] and an acquired knowledge of rights, privileges and laws
amongst the people of developed countries[for e.g. the debates on The Health Care and
Education Reconciliation Act of 2010] have thrown new challenges for the public
administrators and policy makers.

The demand for unified national services, the conflicting interests between the various
economic sections of the society and with global migration and subsequently
globalization; the protection of the interests of the multi-ethnic groups of the society
have kept the public administrators occupied.

Administration matters so much because it is not enough to make policies and laws on
paper. The interpretation and translation of those policies and laws into actions and
carrying them out is the difficult part. The public administrators therefore have to play an
important role in running the government as machinery. Bureaucracy has often been
sneered and ridiculed at but if the administrative work is stopped, nothing really would
be happening.

In almost all the countries the number of people employed in public administration work
is appalling like in USA the figure roughly stands at 2036000 civilians excluding the
employees of Congress and Federal courts, in England the figure runs into several
thousands and in India the civil services exam itself draws lakhs and lakhs of applicants
while the selection percentage is meager [for e.g the 2006 numbers for selection in the
UPSC was 383983 applicants and 474 actually recommended for posts.]

The various important roles that public administration plays, the most important one are
implementing laws and policies and acting as their adjudicators. It is therefore important
that the reader approaches the study of public administration with an open mind and
without prejudices to appreciate the full nature, role, importance and relevance of the
bureaucracy.

Public Administration: An Art or a Science

At a first glance it seems easier to accept public administration as an art. It is just the
administration of Government affairs and for most part it does not follow the laws of
Science like absence of normative value, predictability of behavior and universal
application. So, does that mean we cannot list it into a respectable category of scientific
subjects?
There are many authors who ferociously defended it and argued that public
administration as an area of study is indeed a Science. The earliest of them was Lorenz
von Stein an 1855, a German professor from Vienna who said that public
administration is an integrated Science and viewing it just as administrative laws
was a restrictive definition. In modern times, categorizing public administration as
Science found favor with many, the most important one being the father of American
public administration, President Woodrow Wilson. We shall read more about the
Wilsonian view of public administration in the next article, however he mainly
emphasized that the objective of administrative study is to discover what government
can properly and successfully do and how it can do those things with utmost efficiency
with least possible cost of money or energy.

After Wilson another important argument came from Frederick Taylor who wrote a book
called The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) in which he proposed to discover
one best way of doing things/operation and thus save on cost on time and energy.
Luther Gulick and L Urvick collectively published, Papers on the Science of
Administration which reaffirmed its status as a Science. W F Willoughby stated that
public administration like Science has certain fundamental principles which can
be generally applied and therefore it is a Science.

However, there still remain certain aspects to be established before public

administration can be actually and in real terms, be classified as a Science. The places
of normative values in public administration should be clearly defined. More efforts
should be put in to understanding the human nature and dynamics at play in public
administration. Lastly, the principles of public administration should derive references
from across the worlds, cultures, type of states etc to make them more universal and
free of cultural, religious and political biases.

The advent of the modern welfare state itself has added, to the changing approach to
public administration. The kind of activities and sphere of works have never been more
varied and dynamic and there has been a never before interest in actually improving the
efficiency of the government.

Subject matter experts like Frederick Taylor have opened ways to exploration,
experimentation, observation, collection of data and analysis based on which principles
and laws can be made. There are increasing number of authors like Metcalfe, Fayol,
Emerson, Follett, Mooney, and more recently Drucker etc who have written on the
subjects of administration. In-fact Drucker wrote a book called “The Age of
Discontinuity” and one of the chapters of the book called The Sickness of Government
became the basis of the New Public Management theory popular in 1980s which
emphasized the market oriented management of the public sector.

So, one can safely say that with the changing times and more and more studies carried
out in the field of social sciences, administration and human relations, the subject of
public administration can no longer take the shelter of art and would have to emerge
stronger with relevant and fundamental principles like that of Science.
Public and Private Administration
The expansion of public sector into industrial enterprises has been into practice for quite
some time, a little over half a century now. The public sector organizations in order to
function efficiently are borrowing heavily from the business knowledge, administration
and process orientation of the private organizations. However, there still remains a
considerable difference between these two administrative practices.

It would be interesting to learn about both similarities and differences between these
two to arrive at a better understanding. Let us first understand the differences and see
what the authors and subject matter experts have to say about it.

According to Paul H. Appleby the public administration is different from private

administration in three important aspects, the first is the political character,
secondly the breadth of scope, impact and consideration and public
accountability. These differences seem very fundamental and very valid in the Iight of
our own exploration of the subject in previous articles.

Josia Stamp went a step further and identified four aspects of difference of which the
only one similar to that of Appleby’s is that of public accountability or public
responsibility as Stamp identifies it. The other three are:

 Principle of uniformity
 Principle of external financial control
 Principle of service motive

Herbert Simon cited very practical and easy to understand differences based on popular
beliefs and imagination and therefore might seem more appealing. He said that public
administration is bureaucratic while private administration is business like. Public
administration is political while private administration is apolitical. And finally; the aspect
most of us would swear by that public administration is characterized by red tape while
the private administration is free of it.

The management Guru Peter Drucker sums up the difference in more comprehensive
manner. He says that the very intuition which governs both kinds of administration is
different from each other. While the public administration functions on service intuition
the private administration follows the business intuition. They also have different
purposes to serve, with different needs, values and objectives. Both of them make
different kind of contribution to the society as well. The way the performance and results
are measured is different in a public administration than that of private one.

Let us now understand the similarities between the two and see to what extent and in
which areas are they similar. You would be surprised to know thatthere are many
similarities between the ways in which a public and a private administration
functions. The similarities are so much that some subject matter experts and authors
like Henry Fayol, M P Follet, Lyndall Urvick do not treat them as different. Fayol said
that all kinds of administration function on some general principle irrespective of them
being public or private. The planning, organizing, commanding and controlling are
similar for all administrations.

The above arguments and several other points suggested and illustrated by other
authors as well clearly point out that there are more similarities between the two
administrations than what we see and understand.

 The managerial aspects of planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling are

the same for public and private administration
 The accounting aspects like maintenance of accounts, filing, statistics and
stocking are the same
 Both of them have a hierarchical chain of command or reporting as the
organizational structure
 Both get influenced, adopt and reform their own practices in the light of best
practices of the other. They also share the same pool of manpower
 And lastly they share similar kinds of personnel and financial problems

Woodrow Wilson’s Vision on Public Administration

New Public Management Model
The term new public management was coined by scholars from UK and Australia
(Hood 1991 and Hood and Jackson 1991), who were working in the in the areas of
public administration. Now, the origin of this new term was to propose a new point of
view towards the organizational design in the public sector, however after a decade, the
meaning of this term in discussions and debates became many. Some scholars choose
to define it as the introduction of new institutional economics to public management and
some used it to refer to pattern changes in policy making. Before we make an effort to
further understand the various aspects of New Public Management, let us see how it is
different from the traditional public administration.

The new public management which emerged in the 1980s represented an attempt to
make the public sector more businesslike and to improve the efficiency of the
Government borrowed ideas and management models from the private sector. It
emphasized the centrality of citizens who were the recipient of the services or
customers to the public sector.

New public management system also proposed a more decentralized control of

resources and exploring other service delivery models to achieve better results,
including a quasi-market structure where public and private service providers competed
with each other in an attempt to provide better and faster services. [For e.g. In UK the
purchase and provision of healthcare was split up between National Health Services or
NHS and Government funded GP fund holders, this increased efficiency as the
hospitals now needed to provide low cost procedures to win both patients and funds.)
The core themes for the New Public Management were:

 A strong focus on financial control, value for money and increasing efficiency
 A command and control mode of functioning, identifying and setting targets and
continuance monitoring of performance, handing over the power to the senior
management
 Introducing audits at both financial and professional levels, using transparent
means to review performances, setting benchmarks, using protocols to
ameliorate professional behavior
 Greater customer orientation and responsiveness and increasing the scope of
roles played by non public sector providers
 Deregulating the labor market, replacing collective agreements to individual
rewards packages at senior levels combined with short term contracts
 Discouraging the self regulatory power of the professionals and handing over the
power from individuals to management
 Encouraging more entrepreneurial management than beurocracy with high
retrospective accountability requirements upwards
 Introducing new forms of corporate governance, introducing a board model of
functioning and concentrating the power to the strategic core of the organization

With changing times newer aspects were included in the NPM model mentioned above
as well and what the scholars term as NPM model 2 was brought in. The critical aspects
of this new model were:

 Introduction of a more elaborate and evolved quasi-market system

 Creation of more fragmented or loosely contracted public sector organizations at
the local level setting in a change from management of hierarchy to management
of contract
 Distinguishing between the small strategic core and the large organizational
periphery, market testing and contracting out the non strategic functions
 Delayering and downsizing
 Introduction of new managerial concepts like Management by Influence, creating
network for of organizations, creating strategic alliances between the
organizations
 Moving away from standardized service forms to more flexible and varied service
forms

Now, as more and more work was done in the areas of Human Resources and
Relations and popular texts which stressed on the need of excellence, the importance of
organizational culture, values, vision and the concept of Learning Organization
introduced by Peter Senge (1990) influenced the new public management as well and
therefore suitable changed were also suggested in the theory by the scholars.
  In a bottom up form of organization- Organizational development and learning
was gaining importance. Organizational culture was seen as a glue which holds
the organization together, judging the performance by results etc were the new
point of views
 In the top down form of organization- Securing changes in organizational culture
was cited as important, clarifying and projecting the vision and leadership from
top to down was asked for, private sector emerged as a role model for the neo
style public sector, training, corporate logos, communication strategies, assertive
HR and all the other aspects that are characteristic jargon of private sector were
encouraged to be adopted So, basically the new public management was a
radical movement to change not just the way a public sector functions but also
the entire perception about it.

Approaches to Public Administration

We have come across a number of times during our exploration of the topic, that it is
somewhat difficult to define public administration in concrete terms. It has close
association, interaction and influences from several fields of studies like law, political
and social science administrative science and human relations and even behavioral
science for that matter. One can easily infer that the approaches to study this field
would also be as varied and as vast as the subject matter itself. And indeed so,
that there are many approaches to public administration as we shall read about in
consecutive articles. For the moment, we would take a step back and try and
understand the reason behind so many approaches to this field of study and why were
they required.

Public administration as a serious subject which required scientific attention was first
promulgated by Woodrow Wilson and as we read in the Wilsonian vision of Public
Administration he fiercely recommended that there should be more scrutiny and debate
and studies carried out in this area to make it more efficient and robust.

However, it was only during the beginning of the twentieth century that American
Universities introduced Public Administration as a subject of academic study influenced
by L.D White’s important book called Introduction to the Study of Public Administration.
There were also attempts made by scholars to differentiate between politics and
administration, hence comparative study of two to understand Public Administration
better came into existence.

Sometime later the Principles approach to public administration was introduced. This
approach was influenced by W. F. Willoughby’s work called Principles of Public
Administration in 1927. His work emphasized that scientific study and research of
administration can help derive fundamental principles regarding the same. This
approach was championed by other authors and scholars like Fayol, Mooney, Lyndall,
Urwick etc. So, resorting to scientific method of exploring, researching, observing,
recording, classifying etc was used to study Public Administration.
By this time, some important work had started happening in the areas of Human
Relations by the likes of Elton Mayo, his Hawthorne experiment threw interesting light
on social and psychological forces in work situations. So the importance of attitudes,
feeling, sentiments and social relations, work group dynamics etc started influencing the
vey formal structure and way of working; present and preferred by the public
organizations.

After the Second World War, behavioral sciences were quite a hot debate in the
academics with a lot of research and work carried out in the field. Herbert Simon’s
Administrative Behavior and Robert Dahl’s, The Science of Public Administration: Three
Problems; critically questioned the inadequacies and limitations of the orthodox public
administration of the pre war days. Simon focused on the aspect of decision making in
Public Administration and stressed on the need to develop a robust and relevant
administrative theory based on precise and logical study of human behavior.

And recently with the advent of technology in every walk of life and a common
consensus amongst authors and scholars that both public and private administration are
similar in many manner, the management science approach to public management
came into existence.

The newest approach is that of policy analysis approach since the Government is
venturing into new areas and different activities with increased involvement in welfare
programs, the process of making public policies and its analysis, the measurement of
the output etc became the new areas of study for the scholars and subject matter
experts.

In the subsequent articles we shall dwell deeper into some of these approaches
described above and see how they shaped and influenced the study of Public
Administration.

Historical and Legal Approach to the Study of Public Administration

The study of History is often cited as important to understand the present as well as the
future. The study of public administration also cannot be complete without
understanding the evolution and progress of civilizations.

The Historical approach to public administration focuses on the administrative

systems, process and policies practiced in the past and then try to interpret them
relevantly in the context of present times. There are two sides of the coin which the
scholars have argued, while this approach may provide rich details regarding what
worked and what not in the past but authors like John Pierre and B Guy Peters say that
the study of history cannot provide any usable information which can be used now and
the students of public administration should not have such misconceived notions. The
important point to note is that scholars should know when to revisit the past and when to
disassociate from it to draw pertinent theories and conclusions.

The study of history of administration does not become any lesser important even in the
light of above contrasting argument. It remains important because developments in
society over time and ages have a lasting effect on the quality and quantity of public
services delivered.

This approach helps the scholars and students to understand that how the Government
adjusted its administration and functioning with changing times and what ramifications it
had. The study of the past also provides crucial information regarding why some
methods, policies, systems etc were adopted and which needs did they address.

With the importance of historical approach established in studies of public

administration, we shall now see what the legal approach to public administration was.
Taking the legal route to public administration would venture into the formidable legal
structure and organization of public bodies. As the name suggests, this approach
associated itself with laws, rules, regulations, codes, official duties etc. It also described
the power, limitations and discretionary powers of the authority and judicial decisions.
Many countries especially in Europe like Germany, France, Belgium and others have
adopted the legal route to study public administration.

It works well for these countries as they have two distinct divisions of laws, the
constitutional and the other administrative. The constitutional law mainly dealt with the
interrelation of power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the
Government while the administrative part concerns itself with the functioning of the
public organizations.

The legal approach throws light on the legal framework in which the public
administration operates but excludes other important and informal aspects like
sociological and psychological dynamics at play and therefore is considered an
incomplete approach by many scholars. However there were many other takers for it
and in USA, Frank J Goodnow, was an important advocate of this legal approach. In his
book Politics and Administration he challenges Montesquieu’s theory of separation of
power in the book Esprit De Lois which proposed three branches of power; legislative,
executive and judiciary but highlighted the independence of judiciary from administrative
as the sole recognition of judicial power. According to Goodnow, this in itself was not
sufficient and that extreme form of this theory was incapable of application to any
concrete political organization. Goodnow and his further work have greatly influenced
the way the American Public Administration shaped up in the later years.

Institutional Approach to Public Administration

The instructional approach to the study of public administration concerns itself
with the institutions and organizations of the State. The core area of this method
lies in detailed study of the structure, the functioning, rules, and regulations of the
executives, legislatures and the departments of the Government. The scholars who
practice this approach consider administration to be an apolitical and technical function
which lies only in the aspect of policy implementation.

Now, there were many authors like L D White and Luther Gulick who concentrated their
effort in describing what an institutional structure was and did little to build any theory
actually. The reader may be intrigued as to why this special attention was paid to define
institutions. The present day definition of institution encompassing all kinds of rules,
regulations and organizations is argued as inaccurate by many authors like B Guy
Peters and Jon Pierre. Institutionalization of an organization takes time.

An organization keeps getting complex by adding informal norms and practices which
happens through its interaction with the external environment and they are in a sense
independent of the individuals who make an organization at a given point of time.
However, according to Selznick (1957), any organization which is complex needs to be
infused with value which is beyond the technical requirement of the tasks that are
performed by that organization. This means that an organization has a distinctive sense
of self and identity and its way and its beliefs become important for the society as well. It
also starts representing the aspiration of the community and in turn influences the
community with their own values and beliefs. A real institution becomes a symbol for the
community in many ways, like the very building in which it is housed. It can be
interestingly explained and seen all through the History that the revolting group often
occupy the presidential palace or offices or the parliamentary buildings or pose a threat
to the powerful and symbolic structures like the terrorist threat on the Pentagon during
9/11 and the 26/11 Taj Hotel attack in India.

The above discussion becomes relevant with respect to the study of public
administration because Government organizations are institutional in many ways
and represent the needs and aspirations of the community. Therefore, studying and
understanding their administration becomes important to make them more efficient and
result oriented.

The traditional study of public administration emphasized on the knowledge of History

and Law but this institutional approach focuses on the organizational structure, goals
and principles as primary. So, a lot of attention was given to the problems related to the
functioning of an organization like delegation, coordination & control and bureaucratic
structure.

The main drawback to this approach was that little or no attention was given to the
external sociological and psychological factors. These factors affect the organization in
ways which are not always subtle, but have strong ramifications on the health and well
being of an organization.

With this new approach the older approach and theories to the study of public
administration also underwent a few changes. There were serious questions raised on
the politics- administration bifurcation. The premise that the basic principles of
administration can be applied universally was also challenged with the emergence of
diverse administrative environments. The administrative goals of economy and
efficiency were supplemented with social and economic progress. And also, a lot of
management principles came into the field of public administration. We shall explore a
couple of more approaches to the study of administration in subsequent articles.

Behavioral Systems Approach to Public Administration

The behavioral approach to public administration owes its genesis to the Human
Relations Movement of the 1930s. The movement started off as a protest to the
traditional approaches to public administration that focused on organizations,
institutionalization, rules, and code of conducts etc with absolutely no mention of people
who are the center of all these activities.

The pioneering work done by Taylor and the emergence of Scientific Management
created quite stir not just in the industrial sector but also in management and study of
public administration. Henry Fayol worked on his Fayolism at around the same time as
Taylor and came up with different set of functions and principles for the management
bringing in terms like discipline, unity of command, equity and team spirit.

Herbort Sumon was one of the torch bearers of this moment and stated that
administrative behavior is part of behavioral sciences and the study of public
administration cannot be complete without the study of individual and collective
human behavior in administrative situations. The behavioral approach has certain
salient features like:

 The literature that has been written on the topic stays away from being
prescriptive. It follows a descriptive course with an exception to the studies
carried out in the areas of motivation
 Individuals were paid attention to and aspects like motivation, decision making,
authority and control were brought into focus
 The informal aspects of an organization and communication patterns amongst
the members were emphasized
 The effort was to identify operational definition of terms and a lot of empirical
study like field study, laboratory study and statistical methods were conducted
 It borrows a lot from other social sciences, social psychology and cultural
anthropology

This approach made more sense and had greater relevance than earlier approaches as
it took into consideration the fact that the political, social, economical and psychological
environments have an effect on human motivation and which ultimately has an effect on
the work output of an individual. It also helped to develop an understanding of what,
how and why of the way the public administrators act. It showed that the way
administration is conducted is influenced by human sentiments, presumptions biases
and perception, which many of us may have experienced firsthand during our
interaction with government organizations and public administrators.

Behavioral approach has contributed to the study of public administration in

many ways like the scholars started studying cross-structural and cross-cultural
administrative behaviors and which further paved the way for the comparative
study of public administration.

Like all new things, this approach too has its fair share of criticism and the critics have
ruthlessly questioned the utility of this approach in the analysis of administrative
problems. They find it limited in scope and of little use. The study of public
administration goes beyond small social groups and deals with large communities and
therefore the behavioral approach falls short.

The modern behavioral approach is leaning towards becoming more action oriented and
prescription format nevertheless. Roscoe Martin and his Craft Perspective define the
shift better. It concerns itself with the decisions, outcomes and the political skill needed
to perform a particular managerial job.

The Closed and Open Models of Public Administration

The closed and open model approach to the study of public administration focuses on
the organization itself. One way to study complex organizations is to view them as an
open or a closed system. Before we try to understand the open and close system with
respect to the study of public administration in general and organizations in specific, let
us make an effort to know what an open and a closed system are.

An open system is a system which interacts and exchanges matter with its environment,
imagine a pond while a closed system remains isolated from its environment; think an
aquarium. While studying complex organizations American sociologist James D
Thompson published a book in 1967 called Organization in Action in which he analyzed
the behaviors of the complex organization as entities in action. He studied the
organization in the light of their technologies and environment and thus he came to
identify the meaning of a closed and open system within organizational context.

According to Thompson, an organization is called a close system when:

 The resources of an organization are employed in a functional manner

 Each component of the organization contributes to the logic of the system where
controlled mechanisms are employed to diminish uncertainties

The examples he gave of a closed system were Taylor and his Scientific Management,
Weber’s concept of beurocracy and Gulick and Urwick’s Administrative Management.

Thompson also defined an open system with respect to organizations, he said that: The
complex organization is a set of interdependent parts which together make up a
whole because each contributes something and receives something from the
whole which in turn is interdependent with some larger environment. So an open
system is dynamic, full of surprises as well as uncertainties. Systems keep evolving
through a continuous process of development and strive to attain homeostasis or the
state of equilibrium.

An important case study was carried out by Philip Selznick in 1940s to study the open
system approach to organizational analysis. He conducted his research on the
emerging Tennessee Valley Authority entitled TVA and Grass Roots (1949). He focused
his research on the aspects of decentralization and involvement of already existing local
and state agencies, with a view, to practice democratic planning. It was during this case
study that he defined an open system also known as the institutional approach, about
which we know from the previous chapter. According to Selznick, an organization is
understood to be a means to achieve goals but the members of the organization act
more than just means; they participate whole heartedly with each individual equipped
with different skills, expertise, motivations and desires. An organization also needs to
interact with parties, interest groups and other agencies, which communicate and
influence the organization; and each other.

From the managerial context, an organization cannot take only one strict approach that
is, either of an open or a closed system, it needs to keep switching positions as and
when need arises to achieve the stability and certainty required to perform jobs and
deliver goals.

Structural Functional Approach to Public Administration

The structural functional approach to public administration is a term adapted from
sociology and anthropology which interprets society as a structure with interrelated
parts. This approach was developed by the celebrated anthropologist Malinowski and
Radcliff Brown. So, according to them, a society has a structure and functions. These
functions are norms, customs, traditions and institutions and can be analogized as
organs of a body, as explained by Herbert Spencer. All these functions need to work
together to make the body function as a whole.

Having explained the broader meaning of the term; it makes more sense for us to
understand it from the perspective of public administration which would guide our further
analysis of the topic. During his stint as a Researcher at the Foreign Policy Association
in USA, Fred Riggs came across an interesting phenomenon regarding the American
Public Administration. He found them to be extremely narcissistic in their approach
which believed that the American way of administration was unique without any
counterparts elsewhere in the world and that it was capable of answering all the
administrative problems emerging in the new developing countries.

To explore the consequences of intermingling of contrasting systems in the developing

countries, he looked at the structural functional approach of the social sciences. This
approach provides a mechanism to understand social processes. The function is the
consequence of patterns of actions while the structure is the resultant institution
and the pattern of action itself. It reads complicated but the theory in itself is not that
difficult to understand. Social structures can be concrete (like Government department
and Bureaus or even specific societies held together by shared beliefs, customs and
morals) and also analytic like structure of power or authority.

These structures perform certain functions and in terms of structural functional

approach, these functions have an interdependent pattern between structures. So as a
public administration student, if one would want to study bureaucracy, the first step
would be to view beurocracy as a structure which has administrative system with
characteristics like hierarchy, specialization, rules and roles. The behavioral
characteristics can be rationality, neutrality, professionalism and rule orientation.
Subsequently, one can proceed to analyze the functions of bureaucracy.
Now, we come to an interesting and relevant question pertaining to the above
explanation. Do the similar kinds of structures perform the same functions? The
structural functionalists say a big Nay to that, which means that a structure can perform
multiple functions and vice versa i.e. one function can be performed by multiple
structures.

According to Riggs, there are five functional requisites of a society:

 Economic
 Socio-communicational
 Symbolic
 Political

While talking about Riggs explanation of the concept and contribution to this
approach, we cannot proceed further without mentioning his Prismatic Model.
This model uses a common phenomenon as an analogy, when white light passes
through a prism it breaks into seven colors of different wavelength. As per Riggs,
the white light is the fused structure of traditional society. The rainbow represents the
diffracted (or refracted) structures of an industrialized society. Inside the prism the
society was in transition.

Riggs challenged the traditional approaches of public administration implying that basic
principles of administration have universal application. It also contributed to the
comparative study of public administration by providing a more relevant perspective;
that not all systems work the same in all places, so one can take what one likes and
leave the rest.

Public Policy Approach to Public Administration

We remember reading about the Wilsonian philosophy of public administration and the
famous dichotomy of politics and administration. After Wilson, there were many authors
like Frank J Goodnow, L D White and F. W. Willoughby who elaborated on the topic and
reaffirmed the need to separate the political functions and administrative functions of the
government. Willoughby went to the extent of calling public administration as the fourth
branch of Government after legislative, executive and judiciary.

However, this politic-administration dichotomy theory lost it relevance after the Second
World War. The writers, authors, academicians and subject matter experts finally
awakened to the fact that administration of a government can never be free of political
elements. They started protesting and writing against the separation of politics and
administration as they could clearly see that both were horribly intertwined with one
another and impossible to separate both in spirit and action.

After the Second World War, there was a renewed interest in the aspects of
administration because of the practical encounters and alliances formed during
the war, creation of international organizations and emergence of the developing
countries. Also, after the war, the Government reinvented itself from a peace keeper
and provider of services to become a Welfare State. The public expenditure in most
parts of the world increased greatly after 1945 as the Governments started taking more
and more initiatives for the welfare of the society. A lot of reforms were carried out in
areas not just regarding the content of public policy but also the ways in which they
were formulated.

This new approach gained momentum after 1970s when a lot of analysis started
happening around the way the government policies affected the people. The Vietnam
War and Watergate scandal in US, the Administrative Reforms Commission established
in India in 1966, the initiative to reduce public expenditure in order to reduce direct
taxation under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the creation of the Malaysian Administrative
and Management Planning Unit in 1977 in Malaysia were to name a few.

With changing times, the needs of the society have also changed and so has the role of
the government and nature of its policies. The increase in the average age of the
population has made the Government to look into the pension policies in the developed
countries while the young illiterate population of the developing countries has forced
their governments to come up with policies like Right to Education in India.

The irony of this public policy approach is that it encompasses many aspects of
government functioning. The spectrum has become so broad that; to a student of
public administration, it appears confused and spread all over. The other approaches
that have clear segregation between the politics and administration were clearly
distinguishable and easy to understand.

Many readers may also get dissuaded to realize that politics influence the policy making
as well as the administration aspects of the way a Government functions. However with
increasing number of stakeholders and pressure groups, the politics can be kept in
check and the role of politician comes under scanner to dissuade any kind of strategic
policy making to benefit only a few.

Political Economy Approach to Public Administration

We have read about the famous Wilsonian dichotomy of politics and administration and
after the Second World War the diminishing relevance of this dichotomy. The above
reference is vital to be kept in mind to understand this topic which brings together the
science of politics and economic together to gain a detailed understanding of the
administration of the state and its resources.
After the New Public Administration theory of 1968, there was a new approach
proposed in the 1970s which talked about economic approaches to analyze public
administration called the Public Choice Theory. We shall take a step back to understand
a few concepts and developments of that time to better analyze the Public Choice
Theory.

By the middle of the last century, the Pigouvian social welfare system was adopted by
many economies. British economist Arthur C Pigou wrote a book called The Economic
of Welfare in 1920 and also tried defining what welfare is in economic terms. According
to him economic welfare can be measured like monetary welfare by means of using
money as a yardstick.

Thus economic welfare, in the Pigouvian sense is the utility satisfaction that a
person derives from the use of goods and services which can be exchanged
amongst each other. The important aspect of this theory was that to maximize the
welfare through the means of distribution of national income. Now, we also need to
understand a term called externality. It comes into action when an individual X affects Y
in a reckless manner without taking Y’s gains or losses into account. This leads to a
situation called externality. Therefore, in an economy, the Government intervention
becomes important to address these externalities.

Consider this example given by Pigou himself: If a person is running the business of
manufacturing alcohol, there is a specific and substantial social impact of this product.
This can be, increase in crimes, increased cost of police staff and prisons, the long time
and resources investment of the judiciary etc, which exceeds the net private product,
the alcohol. To counter this, the alcohol production will have to be increased by the
manufacturer. To deal with this overproduction the Government would have to impose a
tax on the manufacturers. This tax would be to equate the private cost (of the
manufacturer) and the social cost.

The above explanation was necessary to understand the Public Choice theory in a
rather detailed manner. Before this theory was proposed, economists and other subject
matter experts considered State or the Government to be an agent beyond the realms
of economic theories. The state functioned on different drivers than economy and it was
an accepted fact. However, the Public Choice theory challenged this very fact and
proposed the use of economic yardstick to evaluate the resource allocation in the public
sector and economic analysis to identify the inefficiencies in the Government policy and
decision making processes. It also makes a premise that the bureaucrats and politicians
work on a model to increase their own power and influence and end up formulating
policies which may be against the larger public interest. Not, that we needed a theory to
prove that however, it got a thumbs up from many authors and subject matter
experts. This theory also brought in a more consumer centric approach in the
formulation of policies and the manner in which the government machinery
should function. There was a clear inclination towards democratic administration from
bureaucracy and an important aspect was emphasized that the government action
needs to be in sync with the values, needs and wants of the citizens.
Marxian Traditions and their Approach to Public Administration
Karl Marx has often been cited as the most powerful personality in the history of human
civilization. He was a philosopher while being an economist, a socialist who was also a
journalist and a historian who proposed the materialist conception of history. His views
regarding his areas of work and interests are collectively termed as Marxian.

Karl Marx was a rebel in many ways which also contributed to his abilities to look
and understand beyond the obvious. He firmly believed that the world cannot be
changed just by generating ideas; changes can be brought in, only by real,
physical activity. Even as s student Marx was deeply influenced by the work of
German philosopher G.W.F.Hegel. It was Hegel who inspired Marx to switch from legal
studies to philosophy; a fact Marx admitted in a letter to his father, justifying his
decision. What is interesting is that, Hegel and his inspiration did not prevent Marx from
comprehending the lacunae between the rational and the real in the philosophies of
Hegel. One of his important works was his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right. It
is advisable to the reader to do a little background study about the philosophy and
works of G.W.F. Hegel, to understand the above discussion in a better light.

It would only make sense to point out to the readers at this stage is that Marx wrote very
little about bureaucracy as such, and mostly after 1843. However whatever little he
wrote gives a clear understanding of his stand regarding the need and relevance of
bureaucracy in a modern State. Marx believed that understanding the functionalism and
structuralism of bureaucracy was critical because it is the political expression of the
division of labor.

In his The Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx calls France as the abode to bureaucracy as
opposed to Germany which in his opinion, up until then was the supreme example of
oppressive bureaucratic conditions in the states. He suggests that bureaucracy create
conditions which subjects people to gross manipulations.

Another important deviation from the Hegel influence can be viewed in the manner Marx
and Hegel understood bureaucracy. According to Hegel public administration was a
bridge between the State and civil societies. The state through bureaucracy joined
various particular interest to arrive at one general interest.

On the other hand Marx viewed that the State did not represent the general interest but
the interests of the ruling or the dominant class. And obvious enough, this class was a
part of the civil society. He went on to say that in a capitalist economy, the bureaucracy
is aligned with the dominant class and it masquerades the interests of this dominant
class as the general interest which is subsequently forced on the society.

While reading Marx on bureaucracy one can visualize it as an oppressive, mysterious

system beyond the understanding or control of common people. It has certain symbols
and secret ways of working and staunch traditions which makes it inherently
incompetent in so many ways. Lenin was a follower of Marxian approach on
bureaucracy and had ruled out any scope of it when the capitalism would be thrown out
of Russian. But, after 1917, when he came into power, he could not help but rely on
bureaucracy to help him run the State.

Marx was never oblivious to the growing popularity of bureaucracy and the need of
public administration as an aspect of Government functioning, around the world.
Nevertheless, this promulgation of bureaucracy did not prevent him to see the
dangerous loopholes it carried.

Political Science and Public Administration

We have read about the dichotomy between the politics and administration.
Subsequently, we also read about how the later authors and subject matter experts
opposed the earlier dichotomy and insisted that politics and administration cannot be
viewed in isolation. In this section let us try to understand the relationship between the
politics and administration.

According to the political scientist James Pfiffner, the politics and administration are
so closely knit together that it becomes difficult to draw the line where one ends
and the other begins. Politics is the study of power which is the latest definition of the
term. According to Raymond Aron, politics is the study of authority relations between
the individual and groups and the hierarchy power which establishes itself within all
numerous and complex communities. As per this definition, since, power is kind of
omnipresent, it is safe to assume that it has an important say in the matters of public
administration as well.

Another important figure in the field was Dwight Waldo, an American political scientist
and a prominent figure in the area of modern public administration. In his book: The
administrative state: a study of the political theory of American public administration, he
explains an interesting phenomenon regarding the evolution of reforms in civil services
in USA. The principal concern of early civil service reformers was not greater
administrative efficiency but was cleansing and promoting democracy. The primary
issue was not increasing efficiency but was protecting and building moral.

There is no argument regarding the fact that public administration emerged as a

discipline of political science, the former deals with the output of the Government
machinery and the latter with the input. It can also be put as such that, political science
provides the framework within which public administration functions. From the academic
perspective, both these subjects share a number of common areas of study like
constitutional law, administrative law, delegated legislation, government budgeting and
local governments amongst many other. So, a comprehensive understanding of both
the subjects is mutually inclusive to each other, to learn one, the other has to be
mastered as well.

Another important academic field from which public administration heavily borrows and
is deeply influenced is the Sociology. It is a branch of study which deals with social
order, change, class, conflict, problems, associations and institutions. According to
Marshal Edward Dimock, administration takes place in a social setting and it is the
society which determines the pattern of administration. He goes ahead and adds that
through an administrative leadership however, the society itself can be changed for
good. He says that the job of a public administrator is not mere administration but that of
a social engineer who can bring about desirable changes in the society.

In the modern times, the various activities which the society governed and administered
itself like community welfare, health, security etc have been taken over by the
Government and public administration departments. The social control has been
replaced by administrative controls and hence, it makes sense for the public
administrators to be in sync with societal goals.

We have constantly been referring to diverse subjects to understand public

administration better; the reader is now in a position to understand the relevance,
importance and vastness of this subject which has an immediate and direct interaction
with us in our everyday lives.

Role of Public Administration in the Modern State

The critical role of public administration as defined by John Rohr (a leading scholar of
the US Constitution and its relation to public administration and civil servants) is
governing the society. The authors have also argued that a government can exist
without a legislature, even without a judiciary but never without administration. The
government will become as dysfunctional as a lame horse in a derby race. Public
administration as a part of Government has existed since the time of the monarchies,
ancient India’s most prominent political scientist and economist Chanakya (373-283
BCE) in his treatise Arthashashtra; dedicates substantial chapters to Statecraft or the
public administration of a state.

Public administration provides numerous services to the public and serves their
interests in many ways. As explained by Felix A Negro, the real core of administration is
the basic service which is performed for the public. It is the administration which
ensures the security and protection of life and property of the members of the society by
maintaining proper law and order.

The economical, cultural and even spiritual progress for that matter; of a society
depends on the public administration. The day to day functioning of the Government
machinery, external affairs and the most important of all, the national defense are the
other important functions performed by the public administration of the country.

In the modern state, the role and scope of public administration is ever expanding
and all encompassing. We are way past the laissez-fare state which was responsible
for maintaining law and order only. The modern state which expects government to
provide much more has seen the role of public administration change dramatically,
since those times.

The current role and functions adopted by public administration owes its origin to
the changes which the human history has witnessed in the last couple of
centuries. The first important change was the industrial revolution which resulted in the
urbanization of the large cities of the world. Secondly, there was a change in the
political philosophy from minimalist state intervention (or laissez-fare) and individualism
to social welfare. The two World Wars combined with the changing international
scenarios with new countries, alliances and organizations like the formation of United
Nations, generated a need to reform the goals of administration in the society; not just
of within a nation but also with respect to the world.

Lastly, the increasing population of the world means tremendous pressure on the
available resources. The role of providing for basic amenities like food and shelter has
therefore fallen into the lap of the Government.

According to E N Gladden, there are three characteristics of an efficient public

administration:

 It needs to meet the functional aims for which it has been created
 It must be able to meet the long term needs which might arise due to change in
administrative techniques or the changes in social environment which are more
important and influential
 It needs to conform to a centralized plan but also accommodate the specific and
special demand of particular department units

There is an increasing awareness amongst the citizens of a country regarding their

rights and the duties of the Government. Thus, the role and functions of public
administration has also become quite dynamic in nature and is constantly evolving in
response to the changing needs and demands of the society. Technological
intervention, incorporation of new management principles, taking into accounts the
needs and aspirations of the end customer are some of the new trends in the areas of
public administration.

Democratic and Socialist Goals of Public Administration

The role and functions of the Government and the bureaucracy is that which keeps
constantly evolving in the wake of developments and changes in and around the world.
During our discourse we have seen how the academic discipline of public administration
has evolved. It has undergone reforms and has been influenced by developments in
other sciences like social and behavioral.

Democracy is a representative form of Government chosen by the people. The entire

idea of public administration in a democracy is contradictory. Public administration as
described by Frederick Camp Mosher is three steps removed from the people.
According to Berkeley and Rouse public service and democracy are both opposing in
nature yet complement each other.

In a democratic state, the spirit of democracy needs to be maintained in the manner in

which the public services are administered. The public administration of a democratic
state needs to be transparent, efficient and most importantly should be open for public
scrutiny and criticism. It should ensure scope for incorporation of public opinions and
ideas for improvement and delivering better services. It needs to be representing the
general interest of a large section of people rather than personal interests of specific
few.

In a diverse country like India where the social denominators like caste, religion,
language etc pose barriers at so many levels, the public administration should be such
that it rises above and transverses all differences.

According to Richard C Box in his book Democracy and Public Administration,

there are several important roles that public administration plays in a Democracy,
like:

 Preserving and upholding democratic values and delivering democracy by

ensuring the access to the fundamental and other rights of the citizens
 Ensuring that the general interest of the public is addressed through the routes of
public services
 Administering all government institutions as per the democratic values
 Following the instructions of the legislative bodies carefully while implementing
policies, laws, rules and regulations
 Acting as a role model of reliability, morality while being ethical and professional

We have read Karl Marx slamming bureaucracy as a government tool created and
controlled by the dominant class to cater to their interests. Antonio Gramsci Italian
socialist theorists states that bureaucracy is a narrow minded and conservative force
and it becomes dangerous when it detaches itself from the mass of members that
constitute it and starts functioning as an independent entity.

So if the resources and the power of their distribution lie with the state, the role that
bureaucracy has to play can be:

 Ensuring equitable distribution of goods and services

 Improving the quality of living standards of people
 Expanding the scope of administrative function to include all
 Associating with people in more ways to make them a part of the administrative
process

A reader may find these goals to be quite similar to that of a democratic set up and
indeed it is. The only difference in a socialist set up is that the government tends to
have more and centralized power. Critics have argues that democracy involves planning
which means that the freedom and liberties of some will have to be given up for the
greater good. However, in the long run, even to achieve socialism, certain level of
democracy becomes essential.

Public Administration - Challenges in a Developed Society

The developed countries are identified by certain parameters like highly
developed economy, greater technical infrastructure, high GDP and net income
per capita, level of industrialization and also the standard of living of the people.
Development and modernization of a state has an obvious and significant impact on its
politics, culture and society. Subsequently, these changes find their ways in several
other important institutions like judiciary, executive and legislative. USA has been one of
the nations, which have witnessed vast changes and reforms in its administrative history
owing to the industrialization, two world wars and the various academic and
experimental studies carried out in the areas of social and behavioral sciences.

Let us also look at the general features of the public administration in developed
countries before we proceed to study about the challenges they face.

 The government organizations are significantly differentiated and functionally

specific. The bureaucracies are large and perform a myriad of specialized
functions and are of the Weberian type
 There is a lot of internal specialization within the roles and the selection of people
is based on merit
 The decision and law making process is largely rational
 The government institutions are present in all spheres of the life of the citizens
 Since there is popular interest in public affairs, there is a direct relationship
between political power and legitimacy

Now, the problems that the public administration of developed countries faces are also
complex. The first problem which is kind of basic is the lack of coherence between
numerous service providing agencies and regulatory bodies. The problem especially
surfaces at the local levels where the authorities design their own programs and also
run the programs funded by the national authorities. The other example can be
dominance of politicians in the matters of specialized domains of bureaucracy.

Most of the developed states, especially of Europe are called Administrative States and
their bureaucracies perform certain specific functions. Rumki Basu in her book Public
Administration: Concepts and Theories explains these functions. According to her, the
public administration in these countries performs regulatory functions while ensuring the
enforcement of law and order, collection of revenues and the national defense against
aggression.

The public administration provides a range of services like education, health, cultural,
insurance, housing, unemployment benefits and communication and transport. They
also play an important role in bringing about the economic growth of the country by
operating industries, giving loans etc.

The present day challenges in the developed countries are primarily economic. The
economic depression has put immense pressures on the services provided by the
government. A lot of reforms have been proposed in which the state resources are
being closely administered. The withdrawal of certain benefits has left the public
administration of the countries exposed to a lot of criticism and flag from the common
people. The regulatory role of public bodies has also come under scrutiny for their
failure to prevent major upheavals from taking place. As things improve, the role and
challenges of public administration shall change once again.

Importance and Challenges in a Developing Society

The developing countries of the world are concentrated in the regions of Asia,
Africa and Latin America. The developing nations are characterized by an economy
which is transitioning from agrarian to industrial. You may recall Fred Riggs and his
famous Prismatic Model from the earlier article, according to Riggs, the developing
nations are the prismatic societies. There are a few characteristic features of these
developing economies:

 They have all been an Imperial nation’s colony at some point in their history
 The subsequent exploitation by these colonial masters has driven their
economies into a state of deep national debts
 The national income as well as the per capita income is very low
 The social development in these countries are in early stages
 The main problems are poverty, population explosion, illiteracy, poor sanitation,
insufficient infrastructure and in a rapidly developing economy like India, the
problem of inequitable distribution of this economic prosperity between rural
Bharat and urban India
 The conflicting interests and diversities based on caste, creed, language, regions
etc
 There are constant conflicts between the traditional and the modern
 The public administration plays a crucial role in achieving inclusive
developmental goals

Now, having understood the general scenario prevalent in these developing countries,
we can take a step forward and try to understand the nature of public administration in
these economies.

 The public administration system of these nations are often than not an imitation
of that of their colonial masters
 The imitative system seems divorced and distant from the people and their
problems
 There is an acute shortage of skilled manpower with technical and managerial
competencies
 Also, there is a kind of monopoly of bureaucracies in these nations because of
which they enjoy vast amount of autonomy however the goals intended to
achieve by them often gets lost amidst all this
 An interesting phenomenon coined by Riggs called Formalism is common place
in these economies. According to it, the bureaucratic officers and public servants
insist on following law, rules etc and tenaciously hold on to them while providing
 services to the people however their own professional behavior is far removed
from the laid down laws, rules and regulations

The problems plaguing the bureaucracies of these countries are that they are ill
equipped to carry out developmental goals. Since, they came into existence to serve the
goals and objectives of their colonial masters; they seem to be in disharmony with the
changing needs and aspirations of the natives. For e.g. the Indian Police still follows the
1865 Police Commission guidelines which was laid out to address the law and order
situation in the era of British Raj.

In developing countries the major challenge is development and modernization. The

public institutions have the enormous developmental tasks in their hands; combined
with rapid economic development due to the growth in the private sector and the
economically wealthy young population, the demand for delivery of services is
increasing. Finally, the rural areas have not kept up with the rapidly growing urban
areas, whether in Brazil or in India, they look upon Government, public administration
and public servants as their only hope.

Classical Theory of Public Administration

There have been several discussions and arguments regarding whether public
administration can be categorized as a Science or as an Art. During our discussion of
the topic earlier, we had come across authors and social scientists who vehemently
supported the cause that public administration was a science indeed and amongst the
most notable supporters of this theory where Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urvick.

Gulick and Urvick were born in faraway lands from each other, Gulick in Japan while
Urvick in Britain. Gulick completed his studies from the Columbia University, served on
the National Defense Council during the First World War. He served as the
administrator of the New York City for 2 years during 1954-56 and was also the
president of the Institute of Public Administration, New York from 1962-82. He was also
the author of several books like Administrative Reflections of World War II, Metropolitan
Problems and American Ideas, Modern Management of the City of New York and
Papers on the Science of Administration.

Urwick completed his education from Oxford University and like Gulick served in the
First World War as the Lt. Col of the British army. Urwick was also associated with
several international management institutes and published several books like The
Management of Tomorrow: The Making of Scientific Management, Leadership in XX
Century Organizations, The Patterns of Management and also worked as an editor of
several papers on science of administration. He was also a well reputed and renowned
industrial consultant who worked extensively for introducing the management education
in UK.

Urwick edited the most important work, Papers on the Science of Administration
presented by Gulick in 1937. Both of these thinkers were greatly influenced by Fayol
and Taylor and the idea of machine model of the man. All this combined with their
respective military and industrial background led them to propose the Classical Theory
of Management or the Administrative Management Theory. The classical theory
projects public administration as a science. Both these authors argued that like the
stream of engineering became science through methods of empirical observation,
systematic finding and recordings over a period of time similarly, public administrators
can create the science of administration.

Both the authors also stressed on the importance of the structure of the organization.
Urwick wrote that lack of structure can lead to a lot of inefficiencies and confusion within
an organization and Gulick went ahead to identify 10 principles on which the
organizational structure can be designed. Below are the 10 principles as listed by
Gulick:

 Division of labor or what we call specialization

 Departmental Organization
 Hierarchical coordination
 Deliberate coordination
 Creating coordination committees
 Decentralization
 Unity of command
 Staff and Line
 Delegation and Span of Control

The last principle regarding the span of control of a senior executive or a leader, acted
as a stimulant for other authors on writing about leadership. According to this last
principle, the executive should have less number of people directly reporting to him to
increase his efficiency.

Urwick believed that there are 8 principles on which an organization can function, the
important points being:

 The objective of the organization

 Authority and responsibility
 The principle of span of control
 Coordination
 The principle of definition amongst other principles

And lastly, we can end the discussion without writing about Gulick’s POSDCORB, each
word signifying the various executive functions:

 P - Planning
 P - Organizing
 S - Staffing
 D - Directing
 CO - Coordination
  R - Reporting
 B - Budgeting

Management students shall find the above terms quite familiar, relevant and of
everyday use. In the next section, we shall be talking about the Human Relations
Theory. The reader is now getting a chance to understand in individuality and detail that
how the progresses made in other streams had an influence on the thinkers of public
administration.

Human Relations Theory of Public Administration

The Human Relations Theory has human beings at its center as can be
understood by the name, but it also had more to it. It viewed human beings not as
machine models but as individuals with differing psychological motivations and with
distinct and dynamic group behavior affecting performances.

There was an experiment conducted on the workers of the Hawthorne Works of the
Western Electricals in the spring of 1927 in Chicago. The experiment was being
conducted by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, the former being an Australian
organizational theorist and the latter was his employee. The experiment was later
known as the Hawthorne experiment and the findings were called the Hawthorne effect.
Elton Mayo is often coveted as the father of the Human Relations Movement and his
experiment and studies are the most referenced piece of work not just in public
administration but also in people management in organizations.

The Hawthorne experiment set out to find the relationship between the work conditions,
the general fatigue and resulting monotony in the employees. It was believed that the
relationship can be gauged by studying the effect of temperature, humidity lighting and
hours of sleep.

The findings of the Hawthorne experiment shocked the social scientists in many ways.
The experiment was carried out on a piece rate wage system for the participant
workers. It was seen that the workers were motivated to work for money only till the time
when they would ensure an adequate income and refused to work more than that. This
simple but startling revelation created quite a shakeup for the scientists as it clearly
challenged the Taylorian principle of scientific management. At the next level, some
female workers were separated from the rest of the workers and were put under
observation. It was observed that with time and changed in the working conditions like
lighting, humidity etc, their productivity kept raising. This puzzled the scientists even
more, it was later discovered that the girls were aware of the experiment being
conducted on them and therefore displayed their best performance.

The experiment conducted for over a year ended in some new understanding regarding
people and performance. It was understood that human beings are motivated by several
factors and not alone economic. They are greatly influenced by their social environment,
form groups, have goals, beliefs, conducts and ethics which might not be in sync with
that of the organization. So, for all practical purposes they were thinking, acting,
conscious individuals who needed to be treated like one.

This was a theory which made the thinkers move away from the earlier popular classical
theory which proposed and emphasized on the structure, organizational planning etc as
its core. It became very clear after the Hawthorne experiments that the informal
relationships, the group dynamics and day to day functions of an organization are no
less complex than the study of the mechanism of the organization. At the end of the
day, it becomes important that the employees perform and their performance is
sometimes far removed from the parameters and motivators understood by the
organization.

Bureaucratic Theory of Public Administration

The bureaucratic theory of public administration owes its existence to Max Weber
and his magnum opus Economy and Society published in 1922. It was Weber who
popularized the term and in his book gave a glimpse of the extensive research he had
carried out by studying ancient and modern states to understand the working of the
bureaucracies in different eras. Before we dive into the details regarding Weber’s ideas
of bureaucracy, it would be interesting to understand his background and education to
appreciate his philosophy and thoughts that run like a common thread all through his
work.

Max Weber was a German political economist, philosopher and a social scientist who
along with Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx is considered to be one of the three founding
pillars of sociology. Weber was a student of law and history throughout his career and
later joined the Berlin University as a faculty and lectured and consulted for the
Government. Weber was greatly influenced by the Neo-Kantianism wave that swept
Germany during the 1860s. Heinrich Rickert the foremost scholars of Neo-Kantianism in
Germany was a professional colleague of Weber in the University of Freiburg.

The Neo-Kantianism or the Back to Kant movement of 1860s was to revisit the theories
of Immanual Kant the most important and influential of German philosophers and
scholars of the 18th century. The scope of this article is limited to throw light on Kant
and his philosophies however it is advisable to the readers to read a little about Kant
and his work to get a better understanding regarding Neo-Kantianism.

Influenced by Heinrich Rickert and Kant, Weber came to a central core of his theories
and that was Rationalization. Weber promulgated rationalization in all areas of life like
economy, politics, society, culture and even religion. He went on further to say that
Rationalization was the basis of the modern western society. Having said that, let us
now make an effort to understand Weber’s work in the areas of social sciences.

In his seminal work Economy and Society, Weber goes to extreme lengths to trace the
evolution of bureaucracy and the State and their relations with each other. He cites the
Chinese and the African empires that degenerated because of the lack of bureaucracy
and methods of administration and the ancient Roam Empire which disintegrated
because of increasing bureaucratization.
According to Weber, the need for bureaucratization in the ancient empire state
arises from the maintenance of armies, public finances and most importantly
power and politics. In the modern times however, the complexity within the civilization
is ever increasing and therefore the demands from the administration are also getting
complex.

Weber also emphasizes the importance of communication in running the bureaucracy of

a State and adds that they act as pacemakers and are the prerequisites of the
possibility of bureaucratic administration.

Trained bureaucracy is superior to other kinds of administration in many ways like

efficiency, accuracy or precision, unity, discretion, continuation, cost and reducing
overall friction in the government functioning. Weber went on to characterize a
bureaucratic state by certain behavioral and structural features like:

 Division of Labor
 Hierarchy
 Rules and Rationality
 Impersonality
 Rules Orientation
 Neutrality

Weber also came up with the term called Rational-Legal authority which characterizes
the modern liberal states. The tripartite classification of authority proposed by Weber
explains that the states travel from Charismatic Authority to Traditional Authority and
finally arrive at Rational-Legal Authority. The Rational-Legal Authority upholds that an
individual or an institution has powers emanating from the legal offices that they hold.
Once they leave, the power is lost as the power is associated with the office and not the
office holder.

The above Rational-Legal power lies at the core of the modern bureaucracies and is
practiced widely across the world. The writing of constitutions and documents,
establishing offices and institutions and holding elections are all in conformity to this
kind of authority practiced by political systems in mature states.

Post Weberian Models of Public Administration

In the previous section we read about the Weberian Model of Bureaucracy and its
various aspects, however like all models this one too has its share of criticism and
dissection performed by scholars and subject matter experts. The critics of the Weber
model said that his theories of bureaucracy heavily discounted the human aspect in
theories and that it could work only in a controlled and ideal environment and was
removed from reality.

The standard structures and code of ethics which were the characteristic of the public
administration studies carried out in the beginning of the last century underwent major
changes after the Second World War. The Weberian models and the change in attitude
towards the public administration had brought many welcome changes in the
bureaucracy in the early half of the century. The authoritative, corrupt and unresponsive
bureaucracy was made to turn around.

As Warren Bennis the social scientist had emphatically prophesized that every age
evolves its own administration and bureaucratic functions in accordance with its needs,
customs and traditions and which remains relevant for them and for only that time.
When a new age arrives, the systems, traditions, administrations and bureaucracies are
recreated, realigned and reorganized to suit the changes. A very good example was
Riggs approach to the Weber model, he was aware of the fact that the Weber model
shall not work for the developing countries which came up after the Second World War.
The administrative structures in the developing countries did not enjoy the autonomy
assumed in the Weberian model. Also, that in developing country, the realm of the work
of public administration extended much beyond mere administration and involved a lot
of work in the areas of development and upliftment of the society. The Governments
were now working more as the Welfare state which cannot fit within the limitations of the
Weberian model.

In the present times with the advent of technology in all realms of life, it has become a
commodity which can be exchanged for tangible goods. The shrinking time and
distance ensures that the information travels around the globe within seconds and the
organizations both Government and private, across the globe do not live in rigid walls
anymore. The technical and managerial skills and expertise required at various level of
public administration and bureaucracy has changed manifolds. The increasing
education, the internet and the social media, the globalization has ensured that
everything is transparent and under spotlight for all times.

Bureaucracy is becoming more and more efficient with lesser response time
despite of being added with array of responsibilities and duties. The organizations
are restructured to ensure greater autonomy and mobilization within organizations. The
inter-departmental transactions; coordination and cooperation are being improved using
technologies like ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning.

The way the government functions in many modern democracies has also changed.
The structures and roles have become flexible; the democratic administration has found
its way into public institutions and organizations, the inclusion of people and their
opinions and ideas etc are some of the new developments.

Line Staff and Auxiliary Agencies in Public Administration

It is not just difficult but impossible for a single man to carry out all the administrative
responsibility single handedly. Any leader requires a body of people whom he can direct
and lead to achieve the desired goals of the organization. The literal meaning of staff is
learning as it was used in the army and it has been borrowed from there and used in
civil organizations. As Mooney points out that, there are too many functions, too
diversified knowledge and too many things to think about which is difficult for a single
leader to encompass.
The distinction between line and staff agencies is more of degree than of the kind. Staff
personals are involved in involved in planning and thinking. The execution and
implementation of those plans and policies are the jobs of the line agencies. Like,
pointed out earlier, in some cases the staff functions are similar to line functions and line
functions to that of staff. The other way of looking at it is that the staff agencies collect
data for the formulation of policies which can be further executed and complemented by
line agencies.

The main function of the staff agencies as identified by L D White are:

 Keep the Chief Executive and top officials informed and updated with relevant
information
 Assisting the Chief Executive and other officials in foreseeing problems and
planning of the future
 To ensure that the matters which require the final decision making by the Chief
Executive, reach his desk in time and that rational, logical, thoughtful and
informed decisions are taken on those matters
 Evaluate the matters which may be settled elsewhere to be excluded in the Chief
Executive’s list
 Assist him in managing his time well
 Securing compliance by subordinates through the means of established policies
and execution guidelines

The example of such staff agencies are the British Treasury and the Budget and
Economic Affairs Department of the ministry of Finance which helps formulate the
financial policies of the Union Government of India. In USA, the general staff agency is
the President’s Executive office which has two parts, the White House and the Bureau
of Budget.

Ever since the increased scope of the government activities lead to the process of
specialization. Due to which there was a need to separate the primary and secondary
activities of the administrative agencies. The house-keeping activities were segregated
and organized under specialized offices. These activities are known as the auxiliary or
the institutional activities.

As per Willoughby, the primary activities are those activities that a service performs to
accomplish those very purposes for which it exists. Like the primary activity of the Home
Affairs department is maintaining peace and order. The secondary activities are those
which the service needs to keep performing so that it may exist and operate as a
service. Again, for the Home Affairs department, those services may be recruiting
people, buying furniture and stationeries etc. the functions of auxiliary services are:

 Exercising financial controls and collecting revenues for the departments whose
needs they have to meet
 Supplying equipments and arranging Services
  Acting as a record office
 Recruiting personnels

Departments as Fundamental Units of Administrative Organizations

The line agency in its traditional form exists as departments. Departments are the
fundamental unit of administrative organizations and carries out all the functions.
There are different shortcoming and problems associated with this structure as well but
before we dwell into that, we shall make an attempt to understand the basic principles
on which the organization of departments is based.

The organization of departments is based on four principles:

 The Financial Principle: When the administrative business if organized on the

basis of the nature of function or the purpose of the work, then it is known as the
financial principle. A simple example to elaborate that would be the creation of a
Department of Commerce to regulate the trade and commerce within the country.
 The Process Principle: When the organization of business is done on the basis
of the process of the nature of nature of activity. This principle is also called the
Professional Principle, basically the business transactions are carried out based
on the target profession, like the Law Department or the Health Department for
legal and medical activities of the government.
 Clientele or Commodity Principle: In this case the business of organization is
based on the set of people for whom its services are meant for, or its clients. For
e.g. the Department of Scheduled Casts and Tribes.
 Geographical Principle: As the name suggests, it has the geographical area as
its basis to determine the organization of business.

The above mentioned principles are not the sole criteria for the basis of organizations,
aspects like traditions and history also play a role. Generally, the governments look at a
combination of one or more principles and considerations to base the departments on.
The most relevant however has been the functional principle or the Scientific Principle
of Organization. With increase in specialization of functions, it only makes sense to
have organizations based on them. Let us read about some of the features of this
principle:

 Specialization of functions and division of labor are two important aspects.

 Economical and efficient administration with speedy decision making
 Expedient in approach
 Concentration of the responsibility and power in the hands of single individual
usually the head thus ensuring appropriate accountability

The departments are further divided into divisions which is the vertical division based on
the broader functions to be performed by the department. The horizontal division is
done for other specific activities to be carried out under that division.
The horizontal method of dividing the work within the organization is preferred in
comparison to the vertical segregation. The arguments given for the same are:

 It helps achieve specialization and ensures the prevention of duplicity of work

 It makes delegation easy and therefore eases out the work load of the Head of
the Department
 It also helps the HOD focus on supervision and control rather than bothering
about minor details thus saving his time and effort

The departments are generally divided into two divisions (there may be more), the
division of Primary Activities and the Division of Secondary or Institutional Activities
about which we read earlier.

Bureau and Boards/Commissions Systems in Departments

We are at the next level of understanding departments within the organizations. In the
earlier article we understood about the line staff and auxiliary agencies and the
organization of business in departments based on the four principles of finance,
process, clientele and geography. This article shall look at the distribution of authority
within the department.

Based on the distribution of authority, there are two main systems namely Bureau
System and the Board or Commission system within departments. When all the
administrative authority is invested in a single individual within the department then the
system is Bureau.

When a plural body is vested with all the administrative power then the system is known
as Board or Commission. Now, the next obvious question that comes into the mind is
how to decide which system to use. According to author Raj Kumar Pruthi, in his book
Administrative Organizations, there are conditions that determine the choice of systems:

 If the department is to carry out work of administrative character, the Bureau

system is more appropriate. He further explains that for the administrative
functions the speedy decision making, unity of command and promptness is
required for efficient performance and it can be achieved only when the
responsibilities and power are invested in a single individual.
 When the nature of work is such that a lot of discretion and care is to be
maintained with respect to information which affects a large number of people,
like the drafting of policies, rules and regulations, the Board or Commission kind
of system works best. Also, when an organization has to perform both kinds of
functions, then in such cases as well, the Board systems works better. To sum
up, for services and functions that require collective intelligence, holistic view
points, mature decision making, a Board system works well as there are more
members to arrive at balanced decisions.

The Board or Commission system is followed under following conditions:

  Organizations that perform quasi-judicial and quasi- legislative functions like the
Railway Board of the Government of India
 Organizations which exercise large discretionary powers to perform their duties
like the Public Service Commission
 Organizations which need representation from different groups to be able to
function objectively like the Arbitration Board of Industrial Dispute
 In countries like USA, where representation of the opposition party is also
included. The e.g. is the Tariff Commission of the USA

There has been a lot of debate amongst the scholars regarding whether the public
organizations and their structures inherently differ from those of private organizations.
Some support the argument saying that it does and some say that through the
difference is there but it is only in the presence of red tapes in the public organizations.
Those who oppose the statement argue that, the public organizations are very different
from the private organization in terms of lack of flexibility, excessive government control,
lack of clear performance indicators like profit and loss and a lot of emphasis on rules
and hierarchy. Some researchers like Pugh, Hickson and Hinnings pointed out that the
size of the organization and technological developments are other important
determinants of the structures and hierarchy of any organization.

What are Public Enterprises ? - Origin and Importance

The public enterprises came into existence as a result of the expanding scope of
public administration. The advent of the concept of welfare state after the Second
World War and the increasing developmental initiative undertaken by Government
across the world, the system of public enterprises was developed. The government sells
goods and services to the common people through the means of a state owned
enterprise system which incorporates the characteristics of both public and private
enterprises. For e.g. the metro train facility for commuting in big cities, developed,
managed and run by the government.

The government operates in the areas which are of basic or strategic importance and
also the areas that require huge investments beyond the scope of private enterprises.
The public enterprises in India have been on a steady rise since their big show in the
Third Five Year Plan and have engaged themselves in a number of economic activities
like advancing loans, regulating trade and commerce, heavy machine manufacturing,
chemical drugs and fertilizers, oil drilling etc. The government of India boasts of five
Maharatnas and nine Navratnas (ratna meaning gems) public enterprises which are
engaged in myriad of economic and developmental activities in the country, e.g. The
Steel Authority of India, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, National Thermal Power
Corporation etc.

The state owned enterprises play an important political, economic and developmental
role in their respective countries. The public enterprises of the erstwhile Soviet Union
comprised of 85% of the workforce of the country.
The growth of public enterprises also has its roots in the colonial pasts of the countries
of Asia and Africa. The Government sector, the public administration and ultimately the
public enterprises in these countries have been greatly influenced by the colonial
powers that ruled them. India is a good example of this trend where even today the
Railways are the biggest example of a successful public enterprise. Even the countries
with no colonial history like Iran and Turkey, the public enterprise was used a tool to
bring about economic, political and social changes, particularly in Turkey after the
demise of the Ottoman Empire and formation of the modern Turkey.

The history of public enterprises in the USA dates back in the nineteenth century and
was characterized by the state chartered banks in which the Federal Government has
significant portion of the stocks. The formation of the Panama Rail Road Company in
1904 was another victory of the public enterprise system. The growth of public
administration and enterprises reached its peak under Franklin D Roosevelt and the
Tennessee Valley Authority became the most emulated model of public corporation.

There are several factors that have contributed the growth of public enterprises in the
recent times. The governments have used it to guide and command the economy; they
own the strategic industries, functions and agriculture and also try to fill the
inadequacies of the private sector. Public enterprises are also essential in bringing
about national development. They are also used as political instrument to maintain
political stability, prevent unrest and provide employment. Public enterprises have also
helped the earlier colonized and now developing economies of the world to decrease
their dependency on other nations and become self sufficient. Monopoly, freedom to
chose profitable projects; no taxes etc are other factors that have led to their growth.

Administrative Decision Making

The pioneering scholar of the theory of decision making in organizations, was Herbert
Simon. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was one of the most celebrated
political scientist, economist, sociologist and also a psychologist. His body of work
covers topics from administration to cognitive psychology to artificial intelligence. He
was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his most important work, the
decision making process of the organizations. Therefore, for the sake of our discussion
we shall refer to the theories and concepts provided by Simon for the administrative
decision making.

In his book Administrative Behavior: a Study of Decision Making Processes in

Administrative Organizations, he makes a very remarkable statement that decision
making is the heart of administration. He went on to add further that the logic and
psychology of human choice determine the administrative theory. The entire premise of
Simon’s work is based on the logical rational model as mentioned earlier, but it is
important to understand rationality within this particular context of decision making.

In Simon’s work, rationality becomes a variable and he was aware of the limitations of
human rationality as well which are not static but depend on the environment of the
organization in which the decisions take place. According to Simon, the task of the
administration should be to design such an environment in which the individual
approach becomes as rational as practicably be possible.

To understand the concept, we need to understand three important aspects:

 The Economic Man

 The Administrative Man
 Organizational Perspective

The Economic Man is all about the ideal and rational model of decision making. In an
organization the decisions are made on empirical and normative elements, these
premises can also be called the factual or the value premises. The factual premise is
nothing but all the information and knowledge regarding the organization and its
environment. The value premises on the other hand are the morals and legal
constraints. A rational decision is to choose those alternatives which are appropriate to
reach the desired end. The means and ends have to be connected in the organizational
hierarchy.

The Administrative man depicts the objective rationality, determining whether the
selected alternative’s course of action is good enough. The administrative man’s
approach to the world is simplistic and would take into account only a few most relevant
and critical factors unlike the economic man for whom knowing all the alternatives and
its consequences is a complex task.

Lastly, the organization perspective criticizes the earlier established principles of

administration which were:

 Specialization
 Hierarchy
 Span of control

Simon argues that the applicability of administrative principles needs to be based on an

underlying understanding of the administrative decision making. Organization manifests
its influence through five mechanisms as identified by Simon. These are:

 Authority - It is defined as the decision making power which in turn guides the
actions of other people. This kind of relational transaction happens in case of a
superior and a subordinate in the organization.
 Communication - It comprises of both the formal and informal communication in
an organization.
 Training - This is to enable individuals to reach satisfactory decisions without
constant authority and guidance. This can be both pre service (educational
qualification) and in service (day to day supervision at work).
 The Criterion of Efficiency - This basically suggests that out of two alternatives
which would bear same cost, the one which shall attain more organizational
 goals should be chosen and if the two alternatives are achieving the same
degree of organizational objectives, then the one which does so in lesser cost
should be chosen.
 Organizational Identification and Loyalty - An organization consists of several
groups and a person thinks himself to be part of group when in the process of
evaluating alternatives he/she weighs the option in terms of its consequences on
the entire group.

Therefore, the decision making within an organization is a complex process which is

influenced by several factors. It is advisable to the readers to study more about Herbert
Simon and his work on decision making to be able to appreciate the vastness and
complexity of the decision making process in administrative organizations and
economy.

What is Personnel Administration ?

Employees form the core and the backbone of any organization and public
organizations are no different. According to authors William Mosher and J. Donald
Kingsley, the key to better governance lies in effective personnel management.

For effective personnel administration there are certain criteria that need to be
fulfilled like:

 Highly qualified workforce of civil servants

 Fair and equitable wages
 Rights of representation
 Work conditions to be decided taking the employee choices and needs in
consideration
 Establishing the prestige of civil service employment

Classification is the first step in personnel management wherein similar kinds of posts
are grouped together based on their duties and responsibilities. A formal classification
plan shows all the classes with each existing job and position suitably placed with
respect to each other in an orderly manner. This in turn is supplemented by rules,
regulations for their administration, interpretation and amendment.

The second step becomes position classification which explains the individual
position of that role within the public administration machinery. It also defines the duties
and responsibilities for which the individual holding the position shall be accountable for.

The third step is the process of recruitment. Recruitment in government organization

is all about finding the right people for the right job. It involves having good public
relations, employment campaigns and effective systems of selection of the people.

The next step is the training. Training develops skills and habits and also develops the
requisite mental attitude and morale of the civil servants. Training helps the civil
servants to carry out their day to day job related transactions with precision, adapt to the
changing socio-economic needs, and understand the larger and broader picture of
administration and also to make their job interesting and be able to take newer
responsibilities.

Next comes, the promotion or the increase in rank or status. It is essential that the
employees are provided with timely promotion to develop their talent and increase their
morale and motivation levels. While the process means increase in pay grade and
responsibilities for the employees, the same process allows the management to select
and pick the best suitable person from an available pool to fulfill higher responsibilities.

The last step is the pay and service of the civil servants. The salary scales of civil
servants are based on several factors like:

 Cost of living
 Equal pay for equal work
 Man-power availability which means that if the manpower for a particular job is in
abundance then everybody gets low wages which maintains parity
 Legislation like minimum wages act or the Pay Commission’s directives in India
 Social considerations of accepted difference between the high and the low
salaries
 Relativity with respect to similar positions in other organization and countries
 Regional variation

The service conditions include leave, holidays, hours of work, accommodation,

healthcare, working conditions and other miscellaneous aspects.

One of the oldest problems that plague the personnel administration in all countries is
the liberal seepage of politics in all its aspects. Despite of the attempts of the scholars to
separate politics and administration, the divorce exists only in textbooks and on paper.
The personnel administration of the public organization has emerged as a triumph of
technique over purpose. While the civil servants are selected through rigorous methods
of written examination, personal interviews, scores, the rule of three, split-digit ranking
etc, but the question remains whether they actually serve the objectives of the
organization.

The system which cites itself as based on merit degenerates into a protectionist system.
The entrance exams are designed to test competence for jobs at junior levels only and
later there is no system of objective evaluation of desired competence level for senior
and complex roles. For most parts, these exams rarely test the attitude and seem
outdated and redundant to meet the challenges of the current needs. The career growth
as well, within the system is based on patronage and politics rather than qualification
and merit. The disqualification based on incompetence is rarely ever heard in public
organizations and even when it happens, the government bears heavy expenditure for
the same. The presence of an unnecessarily large workforce also is a problem with the
government organizations. A lean structure in these organizations would mean efficient
and timely performance.

Significance and Concept of Budget in Public Administration

The budget in its elementary form had been part of almost all monarchies of the history.
There have been written documents regarding the existence of the state treasury,
accountants and auditors who were employed by the monarchs to protect the royal
treasury. The modern democracies have the legislatures playing an important role in the
managing of public finances. The taxes that are collected and the revenues that are
generated by the government through several means are to be used for the
development and welfare of the society. The emergence of the Welfare State made it
important that the government money is being judiciously used to better the living
conditions of society in general and the marginalized sections in particular.

The process of budgets fulfills important functions in the economy of the nation.
They act as a means to carry out several objectives of the public organization.
Some of the important roles of budget in the national economy are:

 Prioritization of the allocation of the public resources

 Achieving policy goals through prudent financial planning
 Establishing accountability regarding the usage of the tax payers money
 Financial controls also ensure compliance to rules and increase in efficiency

In some countries, the executive part of the government also plays an important part
regarding the revenues and expenditures of the government and the legislative is
reduced to just an approving and reviewing authority, e.g. in UK where the budget
process is primarily dominated by the executive (the House of Commons). A more
balanced approach of distributing power is practiced in the USA where the legislature
can review and make changes to the budget presented by the President and the
President finally approves it after satisfactory checks and balances are concluded.

The dominance of executive or legislature in the budgeting process is a matter of

debate as many consider the legislative to be an obstacle in the fast paced globalized
economy where foreign direct investment and monetary funding from organizations like
IMF and World Bank is of crucial importance to several democracies. There are several
measures suggested to expedite the decision making process from fixing the term of the
legislatures, introducing citizen panels, attaching funding power at local levels to
bringing in two year budgetary cycle and special legislation regarding expenditure
management.

The government expenditure is funded by a common pool of tax payer’s money and the
policies that are formed with this money are further used to fund projects. The catch
here lies in the fact that the people who actually are paying for these policies are the
larger group while the people who benefit from these policies might be a much smaller
group, which translates that one might not be enjoying the benefits for which one is
paying money. Such scenario leads to an excessive spending of public money on
policies which are not beneficial to the society as a whole. Such situations are prevalent
in democracies which are multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and divided on the basis of regions,
religions and other factors.

Types of Budgets in Public Administration

The public budgets are different from other forms of budgets in many ways; here the
voters delegate the power of spending their money to the politicians or the elected
representatives. Now having understood the concept of budget in the last article, let us
understand the different kinds of budget that are there in the public financial
management:

1. Balanced Budget: As suggested by the name a balanced budget is that which

has no deficit or surplus. The revenues coming are equal to the expenditures.
2. Revenue Budget: It is just the details of the revenue received by the
government through taxes and other sources and the expenditure that is met
through it.
3. Performance Budget: This type of budget is mostly used by the organizations
and ministries involved in the developmental activities. This process of
budgeting, takes into account the end result or the performance of the
developmental program thus insuring cost effective and efficient planning. With
the increasing developmental challenges and awareness regarding the usage of
tax payer’s money, new methods of budgeting are required of which the
performance based budgeting has emerged as a transparent and accountable
method.

It relies on three aspects of understanding of the final outcome, the strategies

formulated to reach those final outcomes and the specific activities that were
carried out to achieve those outcomes. With a very detailed and objective
analysis, this budgeting process is very result oriented in its approach.

4. Zero based budget: Zero based budgeting has its clear advantage when the
limited resources are to be allotted carefully and objectively. It is quite flexible in
nature and relies on rational methods, systematic evaluation to reallocate
resources and justify the usage of funds. It starts from a zero base unlike
traditional budgets where incremental approach is used. Here, the needs and
costs of every function of the organization are taken into consideration for the
next year’s budget. So the budget is futuristic and may or may not be equal or
more from the last year’s budget as traditionally calculated.

The budgets in the parliamentary kind of system similar to what exists in a country like
India become a tool of political negotiations where the budgeting powers are delegated
to the Finance Minister of the country.
In a single party government, the entire party shares the same views regarding the
spending of the resources however; the disagreement arises when individual members
may differ on the cost of the distributive policies and would want the government funds
to be diverted to their respective electoral constituencies.

In a coalition government, the differing opinions are tackled through compromise and
contracts approach where the coalition parties keeps the check on the budget process
ensuring that it lies within the boundaries of the agreed contract. The infamous fallout
between the ruling UPA and the Trinamool Congress over the Railway Budget last year
is worth citing in reference to the current discussion.

In the presidential kind of system too, the executive plays a somewhat similar process.
A significant change that happened in US regarding the budget process was the Budget
Enforcement Act passed in 1990s under the Bush administration, which protected the
budgetary parameters against later modifications once cleared in the budget summit
between the president and the legislature.

The budget process in different systems of government may vary but they are all
aligned to achieve the relevant economic and social goals of that country. With
increasing globalization and interdependent economies, several external considerations
also come into play when the budgets are designed. We shall learn about the budget
process in the next section.

Budgetary Process in Different Countries

We have read earlier regarding the relevance of budget in the economies of the nations.
Apart from the prioritization and allocation of resources and being an account of political
compromises, victory and losses, budgets play one another important role. They are a
mirror into the future; they create a picture of what the future consequences of current
actions shall be, desirable or miserable. Budgets therefore have to be well thought out
plans which should not aim at only short term benefits but also look at long term gains.

According to author Aaron B. Wildavsky, in the book, Budgeting: A comparative theory

of budgeting processes, a very pertinent question which arises are:

 Who will plan the budgetary process, a central authority, decentralized or

delegated authority or non-centralized independent authorities
 How will the planning occur, through a central body which will form regulations or
a price system acting through non-centralized units

The budgeting process has a lot to do with the available resources and wealth of a
country. If the country is poor but the environmental conditions are stable and certain,
the most commonly found budgeting method is revenue budgeting. When the wealth is
absent i.e. a country is poor as well as the environment is uncertain, the budgeting
process if that of repetitive budgeting. Repetitive budgeting is a common phenomenon
for the poor countries where the budgeting happens several times over the year due to
changing scenarios, limited funds and misplaced strategies.
The rich countries which have certain environments go for incremental budgeting and in
case there are uncertainties, the incremental budget is alternated with repetitive budget.
The difference in the budgeting process amongst different nations also happens
because of their respective taxing system and the how and choice of programs they
spend money on. So while, Japan has an electoral party, the Liberal Democratic Party
which plays an important role in the budgeting process, France has a mixed
Presedential-Parliamnetary system, the USA has an independent legislature and
executive and the cabinet in UK is responsible for important decisions regarding
revenues, taxes and expenditure.

In the USA, The Office of Management and Budget steer the President in realizing
the budget goals. The respective government agencies put their request for funds
which are reviewed. The House Appropriations Committee decides how much money
should be given for each purpose however the final deciding power lies with the
Congress. After the budget reforms of 1974, many sub committees gave up their
guardianship and the role played by them was taken over by the higher House bodies.

In India, the Union Budget is presented by the Finance Minister every year in
February. The process begins with a budget speech in the parliament which has two
parts, one outlining the general economic scenario and the second part which contains
details of the proposed taxations for the next financial year. A general discussion on the
budget happens after few days of its presentation and a voting happens on the request
for grants.

An important aspect of this process is the Cut Motions which allows the members of the
upper house to question the policies and programs of the government where the money
is being spent. These cut motions are of three types namely:

 Policy cut where the amount for demand is reduced by a meager Rs1 which also
implies that the mover disapproves of the policy
 Economic cut where the demand is reduced by a specific sum
 Token cut is when the demand amount is reduced by Rs.100

The Parliamentary Committee plays a significant role only when the limited time of the
parliament leads to the Guillotine situation where not all demands are discussed. In this
situation the department related standing committees and financial committees
undertake the task to scrutinize in details, the government spending, expenditures and
performance.

The budgetary process in UK is lengthy too, where the departments submit their
funding requests or Main Supply Estimates to the HM or the Her Majesty’s
Treasury. The government then releases a consolidated document called the Central
Government Supply Estimates for the year. Agencies have respective oversight
committee in parliament which oversees the changes if any made in the requests
submitted. The UK parliament does not take a decision upon the new budget until
summer and therefore the funding for the respective agencies continue up until the new
budget is enacted.
In the rapidly developing economy like China, the central agency that control
budget is Ministry of Finance (MoF). The National Auditing Committee audits the MoF
and the most common discrepancy cited by them was the over allocation than the
budgeted amount or not allocating the sum mentioned in the budget requests. The
Chinese legislature the National People’s Congress lacks any substantial control over
the budgeting process which is often cited as the root of the budgetary problems in
China.

It would be interesting to learn more about the budget processes of other nations as
well however, it lies beyond the scope of this particular article. However, it is
recommended to the readers and students that they try to explore the budgetary
process of nations like France and Germany and the contrasting countries like Somalia
and Zimbabwe in Africa, Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Thailand in
Asia.

Importance of Audit in Public Sector Organizations

Audit is an instrument, a tool of financial control, which is employed by the public or
private sector or an individual to safeguard itself against fraud, extravagance and more
importantly to bring credibility to the audited. According to International Organization of
Supreme Audit Institutions audit is defined as “Evaluation or examination of systems,
operations and activities of a specific entity, to ascertain they are executed or they
function within the framework of certain budget, objectives, rules and requirements.”
This is a modern definition of audit in Public sector and does not constrict itself with only
cash audit, which was the case originally.

For sound and effective functioning of government and to ascertain that the
benefit of public funds being used, reach the lowest strata of society and to every
individual, audit is an indispensable tool. It helps secure accountability of the
executive to the Parliament and towards the public in general. The legislature can
exercise control over the executives and verify that the public resources have been
utilized responsibly, for the purpose intended and funds raised through various sources
like taxes reach government fully.

There are a few International bodies which recommends agreed upon auditing
practices, reports and requirements. They are:

1. INTOSAI: International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions

2. IFAC: International Federation of Accountants
3. IGAE: Intervencion General de la Administracion del Estado

In accordance with the target objective several kinds of audit can be defined in Public
Sector.
 1. Financial Audit: Intended to verify financial statements, accounts and balances
as per generally accepted accounting principles. Also, to verify money expended
has been applied to the same purpose and premise for which it was obtained and
within the boundaries of acceptable vagaries.
2. Audit of Legality Concordance: Intended to verify all transactions, processes
are in full accordance with the law of the land and do not in any case harm or
influence an organization or an individual for its own means.
3. Audit of efficacy or of programs: Intends to verify the result obtained from a
plan for which money was employed is in conformance with the objective for
which program was made.
4. Audit of Economy and efficiency: Intends to verify the way resources have
been managed. Whether resources have been acquired at minimum cost and
employed for maximum benefit.
5. Audit of Systems and Procedures: It is important for every organization which
follows rules and laid down principles to verify its system and processes for
improvement and quality conformance.

Financial and Audit of Legality concordance were originally grouped together to form
Audit of Regularity and rest other audits were termed as Operational Audit.

After audit is complete it is necessary to file a report which has adequate representation
of facts and figures, adequate content, adequate preparation, adequate opinion for the
target audience to understand it better and enough publicity for the report.

Audit must be treated as an instrument for exercising control over processes, systems,
finances and individuals to make governments and governing bodies more responsible
towards the public and its resources, but it cannot be considered as an end unto itself.

Administrative Law, Regulations and Reforms

Governments delegate execution of plans, programs and policies to a vast network of
agencies aiding it at different levels. These agencies can be anything, division of a
government, boards, commissions, special administrative bodies to look into specific
issues, departments or divisions.

These agencies have varied interests and work profiles; they can be public health
departments, commission to work for economically downtrodden minorities, primary
education, public welfare, electricity boards etc. It is important to understand these
agencies are formed within the framework of constitution and governed by the law of the
land.

Administrative law hence is a body of law which governs the creation, working
and dissolution of such agencies. It is important to know that most of these agencies
have their own set of processes and operational systems which is generally not
codified, but becomes important for an individual or an organization to follow them for
any assistance required from them.
The decisions and processes of any agency can be reviewed by a court of Justice.
Court may set aside an administrative decision if it is unreasonable, arbitrary, and
capricious, in case of legitimate expectation and proportionality.

It is important to note here that as the number of agencies doing varied works became
larger in the 20th century so did the administrative law. It went on becoming more
complex in nature and larger in number. In other words, the activities of administrative
agencies have become cumbersome, expensive, and redundant and often represent
enormous waste of time and effort with little result to show. It is further burdened by
conflicting decisions by court and inability of common man to get any work done through
them. In theory the system of checks and balances work out quite well, where the
executives execute the plans and the law formed by parliament or the congress and
judiciary decides issues arising that out of execution. But, it is not that simple if viewed
practically and in the long run.

Further push to reforms was give by two important things happening in the later part of
the 20th Century. Globalization and advances in technology. Globalization tipped the
scales to make administrative bodies more deregularized and transparent in their
working. It went on further to pave way, little at first and present but more so later, for a
globally accepted administrative law and bodies. As more and more effort was towards
economic well being, removal of bottlenecks from governance was found imperative.
Introspection in Administrative law was required and thus redundant and wasteful
practices were done away with.

Technology on the other hand made the processes more streamlined within the
workings of such bodies. It also made such agencies more approachable and
accessible to people in general. This in turn has made personnel accountable and
efficient.

It is important to change with time. As new things are discovered and new inventions
made, so archaic rules and processes needs to be removed. Processes needs to be
galvanized and made more pro people, then only there would be better management of
resources and better planning for a healthy society.

What is Development Administration ?

The traditional approach towards administration has been limited in its scope and
premise, the core of which was strict adherence to laid down rules and hierarchy. In
essence it has limited the role administration to that of a fire fighter or overseer of law
and order in the comfort of laid down principals. While, nothing is wrong in this
approach, if society is utopian but, in a more practical sense it causes problems. Since,
bureaucracy is that arm of government which is responsible for executing plans and
allocating resources at the grassroots, it is imperative that they take some risks and be
innovative in approach, especially more so when the nation is a developing one.
Development Administration is about projects, programs, policies and ideas
which are focused at development of a nation, with the point of view of socio-
economic and socio-political development of society in general, carried out by
talented and skilled bureaucrats.

A model of Development Administration must contain the following points.

 It should reject status quo and be directed towards change and more so towards
results. It is result oriented at its core and every development function should
have a defined objective.
 Planning is essential to decide the framework of resources and time to be allotted
for a development function.
 Innovation. It is dynamic in approach and encourages new and better ways to
achieve objectives.
 It should focus on planning for the people as well as with the people. It is people-
centered, must empower society as a whole and not product or profit-centered.

The concept of Development Administration should be understood using two concepts

Administration of Development and administrative Development.

Administration of Development: Resources are scarce, material or human thus the need
to make optimum utilization of available resources and making new means for
development gathers importance. So administration of development involves following
objectives:

 Innovation at all levels of planning.

 Importance to the development at grassroots level.
 Development of human capital as a resource.
 Politics and administration must go hand in hand to establish rapid change in
society and bring about just and distinct social order.
 Freedom of administrative machinery to express ideas, views for the most
effective and efficient use of natural resources.

Administrative Development: For effective Development Administration the structure

of Administration itself must be empowered, large and capable enough to sustain the
pressures by the developmental activities. In simpler words it means to develop
administrative health by rationalizing and institution building and bringing about a radical
change in the administrative framework, from the traditionalist approach, to handle and
create socio-economic and political development and social change. In essence the
objective of Administrative development can be summarized as:

 Building decision making capabilities.

 Development of skill and specialization to tackle complex issues in the personnel.
 Giving importance to training, effective use of technology to bring about change
in Administrative approach.
  Increasing administrative capacity, capabilities, removing corruption and bringing
in more accountability.
 Creating leaders out of bureaucrats for promotion of development initiatives.

To achieve development goals it is necessary to that there is proper planning, optimum

utilization of resources, skilled personnel, accountability in actions and words, self-
reliance and emphasis on technology. At the same time we need to develop the
bureaucracy, innovativeness, build capabilities, integrity and decentralized decision
making.

So, Administrative development and Administration of Development both are important

for the effective development of Society.

Comparative Public Administration

Comparative public administration focuses on Public Administration as a field of study
and research rather simple execution of tasks. Haroon A. Khan defined the
Comparative Public administration as a quest for searching patterns and regularities in
administrative behavior and action and to characterize them in present day nation
states.

It is interesting to note why and how Public Administration has gained a place in the
field of study. Woodrow Wilson is credited for his writing The Study of Administration
and perhaps this was a starting point in the United States, in other countries like India,
Germany Public Administration was known long back owing to influences of
Arthashashtra and Kameralwissenschaft. Later half of twentieth century saw many
improvements and bureaucratic internationalization between European countries in
reference to Euro-zone and also to all other countries of the world with transnational
organizations like World Bank, Interpol and International Court of Justice.

These changes which came about after 1960s were basically administrative reforms
implemented by the legislative to make administration more decentralized, accountable
and efficient. But, on the other hand some other reforms were pushed aimed at giving
more control to policy makers of the bureaucracy while avoiding all the responsibilities.
It was imperative to look how these two different situations affected Administration as a
whole in different countries. The best way to look at this was through scientific study of
comparative public administration. It is also a way to identify best practices in Public
Administration so as to achieve maximum result most efficiently and to build a solid
organizational structure and processes.

It will be wise to understand here that simply importing those practices which have
served well in other countries will not suffice, since people in general are different and
they react different to same stimuli. So, what works best in one country might not work
at all in other countries.

Most commonly used model for Comparative study has been to compare and contrast
western and non-western methods and styles. This model has created dualistic
concepts like diffused - specific, universalistic - particularistic, etc and often tends to
favor one end of spectrum towards another. But, these do not help in study of
development or how to increase quality of life in third world countries. The other and
better method used is called description. It is more suitable for cross-cultural analysis as
it relies on facts of a situation and get at the all-important aspect of context. But, it too
cannot be used directly as a solution to problems faced by other societies. All the other
frameworks deals with certain units of analysis or tools which help in gathering and
categorizing facts efficiently they are:

 Individuals - the study of behaviors of officials, leaders and elites

 Groups - the study of social movements of parties and interest groups
 Organizations - the study of functions and capacities of cities and regions
 Bureaucracy - the study of the efficacy and performance of whole government
executive branch

Clearly within the last decade there has been a very significant rise in CPA as results
obtained through it are if nothing, interesting. Many international organizations have
come forward and joined their hands in CPA. For example, The international Public
Management Network includes individuals from many countries and they publish
international public management journal to provide a forum for sharing ideas, concepts
and results of research and thinking about alternative approaches to problem solving
and decision making in public sector.

The Future of Public Administration

Future belongs to Flexible Public Sector rather than Machine Bureaucracies

As the world around us is changing with concomitant changes in politics, business,

economics, and society, the field of public administration cannot be aloof from the need
to innovate and change. As the public sector in many developed countries feels the
need to move beyond the static and machine bureaucratic paradigm, the public sector
in the third world and the developing countries is also in the throes of adapting to the
broader changes happening in society.

With the increased awareness among the citizenry and the rapid spread of information
along with use of technology and social media, the public sector in the west and the
east has to wake up to the new realities and cannot be an ostrich or a fossil among the
nimble and agile private sector. This is the key theme of this article that looks at the
future of public administration around the world in an era of rapid change. There cannot
be a more compelling case for proactive public sector rather than a reactive public
sector as the future catches them and they can only survive by adapting to the future.

Need for Change and Innovation

The Great Recession of 2008 put paid hopes to the public sector in the west as the
bureaucrats were suddenly faced with shrinking budgets, downsizing, and a general
tendency to squeeze the public sector to get “more bang for the buck”. This meant that
the public sector in the west had to innovate to cope with the broader changes in the
countries. Innovation is often defined as the ability to create something new and find
newer ways of doing things. This means that the public sector in the west had to find
innovative ways to save money, cut down on costs, and generate more returns for their
investments.

On the other hand, the public sector in the east had to contend with radical changes as
the long-suffering masses who were frustrated with red tape and bureaucrats finally
summoned the courage to use technology and protest to fight against them. Further,
many governments in the developing world faced pressure to divest their stakes in the
public sector and make the bureaucrats more accountable as they needed to generate
funds for the other items on their agendas. The net result of all these pressures meant
that the public sector in the east had to change fast as otherwise they would be faced
with disruption and obsolescence.

Ways to Innovate and Change

The ways in which the public sector can innovate include using technology more
proactively, collaborating and communicating within and with the external world,
adopting a more humane approach to administration and attending to the
grievances of the citizenry, and most importantly “walking the talk” which meant
that they had to not only declare their intent but also have to act accordingly. In
other words, merely having a gazette is not enough and the public servants have to
follow it in the spirit of the law as well as the letter of the law. As for using technology
and social media, the public sector and the public managers are gradually taking to IT to
communicate and collaborate among themselves as well as with the external world. The
other key imperative here is that public sector managers must not initiate a change and
then give up midway because of resistance from vested interests and those with hidden
agendas. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing public sector managers is that they plan
to work but not work to the plan.

Some Recent Trends in Public Administration

In the United States, there has been a lot of criticism on the bureaucrats who were seen
as holding up approvals and sanctions to the projects initiated by the private sector.
Further, with outsourcing and Offshoring of many routine activities as well as the use of
contractors to get the job done, the public sector in the United States has been forced to
embrace innovation and change. As many experts aver, the government of the future is
simpler, leaner, and more nimble rather than the behemoths that they are at the
moment. The outcry against big government has reached such a crescendo that the
Defense Department in the United States has more or less outsourced almost all
peripheral activities and has only retained its core staff for the managerial and the
combat functions. This example illustrates how the public sector in the United States is
operating in the context of the changing governmental landscape.
The Government of the Future

The first item for the government of the future would be to remove the opaqueness and
the secrecy surrounding its activities and instead embrace accountability and
transparency as the motto. For instance, the government of the future is one where the
citizenry is made aware of the decisions taken by it rather than hiding under archaic
laws and regulations in the name of confidentiality. Apart from this, the government of
the future is one that is proactive instead of reactive where it anticipates the changing
trends and responds accordingly instead of knee jerk reactions to events and incidents.
This means that the public servants have to be responsive to all the stakeholders
including their superiors, the elected representatives, and most importantly the citizenry
instead of favoring a particular section over the other. In other words, the government of
the future would be responsive instead of secretive and accountable instead of resorting
to blame game, and would be transparent instead of being opaque.

Unionism in Ireland

Unionists today want Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom with
England, Scotland and Wales
Unionism in Ireland is a political ideology that favours the continuation of some form
of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain and which attaches
particular importance to the concept of loyalty to the person of the British monarch.
Since the partition of Ireland, unionism in Ireland has focused on maintaining and
preserving the place of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. In this context, a
distinction may be made between the unionism in the province of Ulster and unionism
elsewhere in Ireland.
Today in Northern Ireland, Unionist ideology is expressed in a number of different ways:
through preferences for particular newspapers or sports team, participation in local
unionist subculture and by voting for political candidates who espouse unionism. Mixing
with non unionists, either in the education system or elsewhere, is discouraged in the
community.
Irish nationalism is opposed to the ideology of unionism. Most unionists come
from Protestant backgrounds; most nationalists come from a Roman
Catholic background. Exceptions to these generalisations exist; there are Protestant
nationalists and there are Catholic unionists.[1] Additionally, some recent immigrants and
their descendants are not Chistians.

History
The political relationship between England and Ireland dates from the 12th century with
the establishment of the Lordship of Ireland. After almost four centuries of the Lordship,
the declaration of the independence of the Church of England from papal supremacy
and the rejection of the authority of the Holy See required the creation of a new basis to
legitimise the continued rule of the English monarch in Ireland. In 1542, the Crown of
Ireland Act was passed by both the English and Irish Parliaments. The Act established a
sovereign Kingdom of Ireland with Henry VIII as King of Ireland. Both parliaments later
passed the Act of Union 1800 by which a new state was created - the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, twenty-six counties of Ireland gained autonomy
from the U.K. as the Irish Free State; in 1949, the State was declared to be a Republic
and the last vestiges of royal power were abolished. The Republic of Ireland left
the Commonwealth of Nations organisation. The remaining six counties of the island of
Ireland constituted the territory of Northern Ireland. In 1927, the realm, consisting of
combined territories of Northern Ireland and Great Britain, was renamed the "United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Today, unionism is almost exclusively
an issue for Northern Ireland. It is concerned with the governance of and relationship
between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. In the Republic of Ireland today, there is
scant support for unionists who would advocate the state rejoining the UK.

Unionism and British identity

Irish unionism is often centred on an identification with Protestantism, especially in the
sense of Britishness,[2] although not necessarily to the exclusion of a sense of Irishness
or of an affinity to Northern Ireland specifically.[3]Unionism emerged as a unified force in
opposition to William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886.[4][5] Irish
nationalists believed in separation from Great Britain, whether through repeal of the
1800 Act of Union, "home rule", or complete independence. Unionists believed in
maintaining and deepening the relationship between the various nations of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. They expressed pride in symbols of Britishness.
A key symbol for unionists is the Union Flag.[6] Unionist areas of Northern Ireland often
display this and other symbols to show the loyalty and sense of identity of the
community.[7] Unionism is also known for its allegiance to the person of the British
monarch, both historically[8] and today.[9]

Religion
Historically, most unionists in Ireland have been Protestants and most nationalists have
been Catholics. This remains the case. However, a number of Protestants have
adhered to the Nationalist cause, and a number of Catholics have espoused Unionism.
Both unionism and nationalism have had sectarian and anti-sectarian elements. While
nationalism has had a number of Protestant leaders (for instance, Henry
Grattan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Charles Stewart Parnell, Douglas Hyde, and Ivor Bell),
unionism was invariably always led by Protestant leaders and politicians. The dearth of
Catholics, particularly among the leadership, meant the UUP was vulnerable to
accusations of sectarianism. Only one token Catholic, G. B. Newe, served in the
Government of Northern Ireland (Newe was specially recruited to boost cross-
community relations in the last UUP government in the 1970s). Another Catholic, Sir
Denis Henry, who was the first Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, was a member of
the UUP from its foundation in 1905 and was a UUP MP for South Londonderry.
Terminology
Unionists and Loyalists
People espousing unionist beliefs are sometimes referred to as Loyalists. The two
words are sometimes used interchangeably, but the latter is more often associated with
particularly hardline forms of Unionism. In some cases it has been associated with
individual or groups who support or engage in violence. Most unionists do not describe
themselves as loyalists. In Irish, the terms aontachtóir (from aontacht, "union")
and dílseoir (from dílis, "loyal") are used.[10]
Nationalists and Republicans
A similar distinction exists in relation to Irish nationalists. Mainstream nationalists, such
as the supporters of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the main
parties in the Republic of Ireland, are generally referred to by that term. The more
militant strand of nationalism, which once comprised groups such as Sinn Féin, has
been known as republicanism. In the Republic of Ireland, the republican tradition has
moderated and moved into the mainstream. Today the republican party, Fianna Fáil,
has little in common with militant republicans other than certain ideological and historical
perspectives. In Irish, the terms poblachtánach (from poblacht, "republic")
andnáisiúnach (from náisiún, "nation") are used.[11]
Unionists and the British monarchy
Unionism has traditionally been associated with strong loyalty to the British monarchy.
Four members of the current Royal Family hold titles with roots in Northern Ireland:
the Duke of York (Baron Killyleagh), the Earl of Ulster, theDuke of Kent (Baron
Downpatrick) and the Duke of Cambridge (Baron Carrickfergus). Older Irish royal titles
included Lord of Ireland, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Earl of Athlone and Baron
Arklow. The Queen is still technically Sovereign of the Order of St. Patrick, the highest
Irish order of chivalry, and the Norroy and Ulster King of Arms is an officer in
the College of Arms in London.

History post 1801

Division between Catholic and Protestant in Ireland pre-dates the conflict over the
Union. To some extent, these can be traced back to the wars of religion, land and power
arising out the 16th and 17th century Plantations of Ireland. In the 18th century, Ireland
was ruled by a Protestant-only Irish Parliament, autonomous in some respects from
Britain. Catholics and Presbyterians were denied full political and economic rights under
the Penal Laws.
Origins of unionism in Ireland
At the time of the Act of Union in 1800, the Protestant community was divided over
whether to support the Act. The Union came in the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, in
which elements of Irish Protestants – particularly Presbyterians – had supported
republican United Irishmen and others had been mobilised to defend the status quo in
the Yeomanry and Orange Order. Others still, parliamentary 'patriots' such as Henry
Grattan did not support the rebellion but had lobbied for more independence for Ireland
and for equal rights for Catholics.[12]
The Act of Union was first proposed in the Irish Parliament in 1799 but defeated by 111
votes to 116. The idea of Union was supported by in Parliament those whose main
concern was security in the wake of the 1798 rebellion and the need for the 40,000
strong British military garrison to remain. It was opposed by two distinct groups. On one
side, by those known as the 'ultra Protestants', who feared that direct British rule would
mean reforms that would give Catholics equal rights and overturn Protestant supremacy
in Ireland, and from the other side by the 'patriot' tendency led by Henry Grattan who
wanted to defend Ireland's constitutional independence and were also worried about the
effect that a Union would have on Irish trade. Lord Castlereagh managed to tip the
balance in favour of the Union by offering titles, land and in some cases cash payments
to Parliamentarians. The Act was passed at the second attempt in 1800.[13]
The Orange Order was split over the Union and adopted policy of neutrality to avoid a
split.[14] Conversely, the Catholic Bishops and much of the Catholic middle class initially
accepted the Union, as it promised to undo the last of the Penal Laws.
However, what radically changed the balance of forces for and against the Union
was Catholic Emancipation in 1829. This enabled Catholics to hold public office for the
first time since the 1690s. It now meant that an Irish Parliament, even one elected under
strict property requirements, would have a majority of Catholic voters and potentially of
Catholic representatives.
For this reason, most Protestants in Ireland opposed the agitation, under Daniel
O'Connell and the Repeal Association for Repeal of the Union or restoration of the Irish
Parliament, in the 1830s and 1840s. The Orange Order, by this stage committed to the
Union, increased its membership to over 100,000 by 1835 and "working class
Protestants...developed effective militant politics of their own".[15] The political
representative of Unionism was the Irish Conservative Party – which urged the
suppression of O'Connell's 'monster meetings' for Repeal. The British Conservative
government eventually agreed to this in October 1843, banning a proposed mass
meeting for Repeal at Clontarf, Dublin and deploying troops and a warship to prevent
it.[16]
The Conservative Party successfully mobilised Protestant voters against Repeal, by
such means signing on more freemen of the cities (hereditary trade guilds, open only to
Protestants from the 1690s to the 1840s) to get around the greater number of Catholic
property holders.[17] The Conservative Party remained the largest in Irish politics until
1859.
The final challenge to the Union in this era was the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848,
which largely failed to come off and which was suppressed after minor military action.
Home Rule

The political union is symbolised by the Westminster Parliament

"Home Rule" was the name given to the policy of establishing a devolved parliament to
govern Ireland as an autonomous region within the United Kingdom. Home Rule was
supported from the 1860s onwards by mainstream nationalist leaders such as Isaac
Butt, William Shaw, Charles Stewart Parnell, John Redmond and John Dillon, and it
became the aim of theNationalist Party, subsequently known as the Home Rule
League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, which was the largest political party in Ireland
from the 1880s until the end of the First World War.
Unionists comprised the opposition to Home Rule. They believed that an Irish
Parliament dominated by Catholic nationalists would be to their economic, social and
religious disadvantage, and would move eventually towards total independence from
Britain. In most of Ireland, Unionists were members of the governing and landowning
classes and the minorgentry, but Unionism had a broad popular appeal
among Protestants of all classes and backgrounds in northeastern Ireland. This part of
the island had become industrialised, and had an economy that closely resembled that
of Britain.
A series of British governments introduced Home Rule Bills in the British Parliament.
The 1886 Bill was rejected by the House of Commons, and managed to destroy
the Liberalgovernment in the process: Whig and Radical elements left the Liberal Party
to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which allied itself with the Conservative Party.
Eventually, the two middle-class parties merged into the Conservative and Unionist
Party (generally known as the Conservative Party), which remains Britain's dominant
right-of-centre party. The Ulster Unionist Labour Association, known as "Labour
Unionists", represented the working class. The 1893 Bill passed the Commons but was
rejected by the House of Lords, which had a permanent and large Conservative
majority.
Political Unionism crystallised around the Protestant areas in the northern part of
Ireland. By the early 20th century, the Irish Unionist Party had become predominantly
associated with this territory, and in 1905 the Ulster Unionist Council was founded,
which in turn produced the Ulster Unionist Party, which replaced the IUP in northeastern
Ireland.[citation needed] In the period up to 1920, most of the IUP's leadership (including
the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Dunraven) came from other parts of Ireland, and its
most prominent leader, Sir Edward Carson, opposed not merely Home Rule but also
any attempt to partition Ireland.
In 1911, the House of Lords' veto over legislation was removed, and it became clear
that a Home Rule Bill would finally be enacted. Unionists, particularly in northern
Ireland, mounted a campaign against Home Rule, drawing up a"Solemn League and
Covenant" and threatening to establish a Provisional Government in Belfast if Home
Rule were imposed upon them. They set up a militia called the Ulster
Volunteers and imported 25,000 rifles from Germany. By mid-1914, 90,000 men had
joined the Volunteers.[citation needed]
On the eve of the First World War, the Home Rule Act 1914 passed into law. The War,
however, prevented it from coming into force. The Easter Rising of 1916 and the events
that followed it led to the enactment of a fourth Home Rule Bill after the War, known as
the Government of Ireland Act 1920. This was heavily influenced by the Unionist
leader Sir Edward Carson, and provided six of the nine counties of Ulster with its own
devolved parliament independent from that of the rest of the island ("Southern Ireland").
The 1914 Act had provided for a similar partition as a temporary measure, for an
unspecified length of time. In the end, only Northern Ireland became a functioning entity,
as the Irish War of Independence began in 1919 with nationalist rebels boycotting both
Northern and Southern parliaments, preferring their own rebel parliament, however in
Northern Ireland, there was still enough members who didn't boycott to have a
functioning parliament.

Sir Edward Carson signing the Ulster Covenant

Unionists opposed Home Rule for several reasons:

 Landowners in southern and western Ireland feared that a nationalist assembly

would introduce property and taxation laws contrary to their interests.
 Some feared that Home Rule would become "Rome Rule" under an oppressive and
socially dominant Roman Catholic Church. They feared that they would experience
discrimination, including legal disabilities analogous to those imposed on Catholics
and dissenting Protestants under the old Penal Laws.
 Some identified strongly with the Crown and British rule and wished to see both
continue unchanged in Ireland.
 Some, particularly in northern Ireland, viewed the rest of the island as economically
backward, and feared that a parliament in Dublin would impose economic tariffs
against industry.
 Again, primarily in the industrialised north and Dublin, many viewed Ireland's
economic interests as tied to Britain and her export markets, which would be
adversely affected by independence.
Not all Protestants supported Unionism. Some – notably Charles Stewart Parnell – were
nationalists, while by contrast some middle-class Catholics supported the maintenance
of the union. In addition, Unionism received the support in the period from the 1880s
until 1914 from leading mainland Conservative politicians, notably Lord Randolph
Churchill and future prime minister Andrew Bonar Law. Churchill coined the well-known
slogan "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right".
Northern Ireland

The Union Flagrepresents England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland united
together

The Ulster Banner – the flag of the former Government of Northern Ireland 1953–72

St. Patrick's Cross represents Ireland in the Union Flag

The creation of Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and the later
creation of the Irish Free State in the remainder of the island separated southern and
northern unionists. The exclusion of three Ulster counties, County Donegal, County
Monaghan and County Cavan, from 'Northern Ireland' left unionists there feeling
isolated and betrayed. They established an association to persuade their fellow
unionists to reconsider the border, but to no avail. Many assisted in the policing of the
new region, serving in the B-Specials while continuing to live in the Free State (see
here[18]).
Unionists were in the majority in four counties of the Ulster
(Antrim, Londonderry, Down and Armagh), and formed a large minority in the remaining
counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone. Sir Edward Carson had expressly urged the new
Prime Minister, Sir James Craig, to ensure absolute equality in the treatment of
Catholics, so to guarantee the stability of the new state. Discrimination, however, took
place, particularly in the areas of housing, employment and local government
representation, with the former Northern Irish prime minister, Lord Brokeborough
proclaiming that the new entity was "a Protestant state for a Protestant people". The
extent of such discrimination is disputed,[citation needed] and there was also widespread
poverty among Protestants: for example, recovery operations in working-class areas
after the Belfast Blitz of 1941 revealed that both communities had disadvantaged
elements. Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Ulster Unionist Party leader David
Trimble has admitted that Northern Ireland was a "cold house" for Catholics for most of
the 20th century. Many unionists, particularly in the Democratic Unionist Party, deny
that organised discrimination took place and attribute the poverty suffered by both
communities to wider economic conditions.
The Troubles[edit]
Main article: The Troubles

Ulster Defence Association mural in Shankill, Belfast

By the 1960s, the reforms of Prime Minister, Terence O'Neill, designed to create a more
equitable society between unionists and nationalists, resulted in a backlash led
by fundamentalist Protestant minister Ian Paisley. Nationalists launched a Civil
Rights movement in the mid-1960s with key demands made on matters such as one
man, one vote. With attacks on Northern Ireland's infrastructure by loyalists, and the
resignation of a relative from the Cabinet over the principle of One man One Vote,
O'Neill resigned on 2 April 1969[19] to be replaced by Chichester Clark.
In August 1969 following the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry parade in the city, serious
rioting took place in Derry[20] and Belfast.[21] The Civil Rights movement responded by
calling marches across Northern Ireland to further stretch police resources [22] and on 14
August the British Government allowed the deployment of the Prince of Wales's Own
Regiment in Derry to relieve the Police.[23] The following day the deployment was
extended to Belfast.[24] Early the next year Chichester Clark flew to London to request
more military support in an attempt to stem the increasing violence. Receiving much
less than he had requested, he resigned and was replaced by Brian Faulkner.
By 1972 the situation in Northern Ireland had deteriorated considerably, and on 30
January thirteen civilians on a Civil Rights march in Derry were killed by the Parachute
Regiment on Bloody Sunday. Three months later the Parliament of Northern Ireland and
government were suspended, and later abolished, and replaced by Direct
Rule.[25] Within Unionism, Ian Paisley had entered electoral politics and quickly merged
his Protestant Unionist Party into the new Democratic Unionist Party with former UUP
MPs Desmond Boal and John McQuade.[26] The new party quickly began to win support
from the UUP, and since 1975 polled at least 10% of the vote at elections. [27]
A power-sharing government between nationalists and unionists in 1974 was brought
down by the Ulster Workers' Council Strike. Faulkner as a result lost the support of his
party, where he was replaced as leader by Harry West, and formed his own Unionist
Party of Northern Ireland. West subsequently resigned and was replaced by Jim
Molyneauxin 1979. Secretary of State Jim Prior made another attempt at restoring
devolution by introducing a plan for rolling devolution through an assembly between
1982 and 1986 but this was boycotted by nationalists. Violence intensified throughout
this period.
After nearly three decades of conflict, a ceasefire and intense political negotiations
produced the Belfast Agreement on 10 April 1998 (also known as the "Good Friday
Agreement"), which again attempted with mixed success to produce a power-sharing
government for Northern Ireland with cross-community support. The Ulster Unionist
Party (UUP) supported the agreement but it was opposed by the Democratic Unionist
Party (DUP) and other smaller parties.

Ties to Unionism in Scotland

There is some degree of social and political co-operation between some Scottish
unionists and Northern Irish unionists, due to their similar aims of maintaining the unity
of their constituent country with the United Kingdom. For example, the Orange
Order parades in Orange Walks in Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, many
unionists in Scotland shy away from connections to unionism in Ireland in order not to
endorse any side of a largely sectarian conflict. This brand of unionism is largely
concentrated in the Central Belt and west of Scotland. Loyalists in Scotland are seen as
a militant or extreme branch of unionism. Orangism in west and central Scotland, and
opposition to it by Catholics in Scotland, can be explained as a result of the large
amount of immigration from the Republic and Northern Ireland.
Songs and symbols of unionism, particularly of the Northern Irish variety, are used by
many supporters of Rangers F.C., an association football club in Glasgow, Scotland.
Both Rangers and its main rival Celtic F.C., which has Irish Roman Catholic roots, have
a reputation for sectarian clashes and bitter opposition to each other, frequently
characterised by religious taunts, chants and other provocations. This behaviour by
some supporters is condemned by the management of the clubs. Despite the symbols
associated with the clubs, not all Rangers supporters can be automatically classified as
unionists, nor all Celtic supporters as nationalists.
Unionism and religion
Most Unionists in Northern Ireland are Protestants and most Nationalists are Catholics,
but this generalisation (which is evident in the work of some commentators) is subject to
significant qualifications. The Ulster Unionist Party, for example, has some Catholic
members and supporters, such as Sir John Gorman, a respected former MLA. Polls
taken over the years have suggested that as many as one in three Catholics could be
considered Unionist, though this may not translate into support for Unionist parties at
election time and the size of the foregoing figure has been questioned.
In a more general sense, Catholics cannot be assumed to be hostile to the institutions
of the Union: many Catholics serve in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and
the British Army, just as their predecessors served in the RICand the RUC, in the face
of sometimes violent opposition from militant nationalists. The PSNI maintains a 50%
quota for Catholic officers.
On the Nationalist side, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has attracted a
number of sympathetic Protestants, and Sinn Féin too is said to have some Protestant
members and elected officials.[citation needed]
Northern Ireland has an increasing number of inhabitants who are neither Catholic nor
Protestant, either being adherents of other religions or being non-religious. Increasingly,
the trend has been to ignore the question of religion, particularly as the numbers of
practising churchgoers on both sides have been in decline.
2006 Public Support for Unionism in Northern Ireland[28]

Survey No
Indicator Overall % Protestant % Catholic %
Date religion %

Support
for the
union as 2006 54 85 22 46
long-term
policy[29]

Unionist
personal 2006 36 69 3 17
identity[30]

British
personal 2006 39 63 11 35
identity[31]
Support
for
unionist 2006 32 63 2 20
political
party[32]

For some years, there has been a perception both in Britain and in Ireland that the
Catholic birthrate will guarantee a Catholic – and hence supposedly Nationalist –
majority in Northern Ireland at some point in the first half of the 21st century. However, a
strong decline in the Catholic birthrate may slow down or even reverse the growth in the
Catholic population (which may in turn be balanced by an increased rate of emigration
of young Protestants, often to study and work in Great Britain). Recent influxes of
immigrants, especially from Eastern Europe, are also having a significant effect on the
demographic balance, although how many choose to reside permanently in Northern
Ireland or take an interest in the political scene remains to be seen.
Political Unionism
Recent Unionist Electoral Performance in Northern Ireland

Total Unionist Unionist Unionist %

Level Election
seats seats poll vote

Northern
Ireland 2011 108 56 318,915 48.2%
Assembly[33]

House of
[34] 2010 18 9 340,620 50.5%
Commons

European
2009 3 2 237,436 49.0%
Parliament[35]

Northern
Ireland 2007 108 55 329,826 47.8%
Assembly[36]

House of
[37] 2005 18 10 371,888 51.8%
Commons
Local
2005 582 302 343,148 48.8%
Government[38]

European
2004 3 2 266,925 48.6%
Parliament[39]

Northern
Ireland 2003 108 59 352,886 51.0%
Assembly[40]

Northern Ireland currently has a number of pro-union political parties, the largest of
which is the traditionalist Democratic Unionist Party led by Peter Robinson, followed by
the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party led by Mike Nesbitt. Both parties are active
across Northern Ireland. On a smaller level, the Progressive Unionist Party, which is the
political wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) paramilitary group, attracts some
support in the greater Belfast area. Traditional Unionist Voice is opposed to the current
constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland following the Belfast Agreement and St
Andrews Agreement. The pluralist Conservative Party is currently allied to the Ulster
Unionist Party. While the Alliance Party supports the status quo position of Northern
Ireland, it does not define itself as Unionist.
Moderate unionists who support the principle of Equal Citizenship between Northern
Ireland and Great Britain have campaigned for mainstream British political parties to
organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland. Equal citizenship pressure groups
have included the Campaign for Equal Citizenship (CEC), Labour Representation
Campaign, Democracy Now and, currently, Labour - Federation of Labour Groups.
Momentum for this concept picked up after the Conservative Party Conference voted in
favour of working in Northern Ireland in 1989. The Conservatives currently have one
councillor on Down District Council, who was elected as an Ulster Unionist. No
Conservative has been elected in Northern Ireland since the 1997 local government
elections.[41]
Under legal pressure from local trade unionists, Labour accepted members from
Northern Ireland in October 2002[42] and in September 2006 agreed to organise through
a forum.[43] The Liberal Democrats have a branch in Northern Ireland but do not contest
elections, but are affiliated with the Alliance Party.[44]
Pro-union parties and independents contest elections and represent their constituents at
a number of different levels. There is a unionist presence at election time in
all parliamentary constituencies. A Unionist win is a virtual certainty in ten
constituencies: East Antrim, North Antrim, South Antrim, Belfast North, Belfast
East, North Down, Lagan Valley, East Londonderry, Strangford, Upper Bann.
Twenty peers in the House of Lords owe their peerages to a direct connection
with Northern Ireland,[45] usually through a political party. Of these there are eight Ulster
Unionists (sitting as Cross-benchers), three Democratic Unionist Party (DUP),
two Conservative, two Labour and one Liberal Democrat, with the rest independent. As
well as the two Unionist MEPs in the European Parliament, DUP MP Nigel Dodds is
also an alternate member of the UK Parliament delegations to the Council of
Europe and Western European Union[46] and Unionists also participate in the
EU Committee of the Regions.[47]
Unionist candidates stand for election in most district electoral areas (small areas which
make up district councils) in Northern Ireland. Exceptions, in 2005, were Slieve Gullion
in South Armagh, Upper and Lower Falls in Belfast, Shantallow, Northland and Cityside
in Derry – all of which are strongly nationalist. Likewise, nationalist parties and
candidates did not contest some areas in North Antrim, East Antrim, East Belfast, North
Down and theStrangford constituency which are strongly unionist and therefore unlikely
to return a nationalist candidate.
Local government in Northern Ireland is not entirely divided on nationalist-unionist lines
and the level of political tension within a council depends on the district that it
represents and its direct experience of the Troubles.

Southern Irish Unionism 1891–1922

Main article: Irish Unionist Alliance § Southern Unionists

Satellite view of Great Britain and Ireland.

After 1890, and particularly during the period from the start of the First World War to the
mid-1920s, the number of Unionists in what is now the Republic of Ireland declined to a
point where their numbers were widely regarded as almost insignificant. [48] This is
attributed to a number of factors:

 Land reform from the 1870s to the 1900s, arranged by the Land Commission. This
broke up many of the large Protestant-owned estates, many of whose former
owners chose in the 1920s to use their compensation money to settle in Britain,
often in other estates that they owned there.
 The disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871. This led the Church to sell
many of its properties, in the process laying off many Protestant workers who
subsequently moved away.
 The Irish War of Independence and its aftermath. During the War, some elements of
the Irish Republican Army (IRA) allegedly conducted a campaign of murder
and ethnic cleansing against Unionists in parts of the country such as Cork.
Historians disagree as to whether such murders were isolated incidents or parts of a
wider organised campaign.[citation needed] Attacks continued in the 1920s against many
Unionists who had assisted the British in the War, and in the process 300 historic
homes were burned. Such attacks were said to be reprisals for the British forces'
destruction of the homes and property of republicans, actual or suspected.
 Emigration. Large numbers of Unionists left Ireland (voluntarily or otherwise) in the
years before and after independence, mainly for Northern Ireland, Great Britain and
Canada.
 Assimilation. Many of the Unionists who remained assimilated to some extent into
the majority nationalist culture. This was encouraged by the Free State government,
and was largely accepted with resignation. The process was accelerated by the pro-
Free State stance taken by most Unionists in the Irish Civil War. The process of
assimilation had begun prior to Irish independence, with a number of Protestant
Nationalists playing leading roles in the Irish nationalist and Gaelic
revival movements.
 Intermarriage and the Ne Temere decree. Unionists were and are[citation needed] largely
Protestant, and in many mixed households the children were brought up as
Catholics, often because of family or community pressure and the 1908 papal Ne
Temere decree. There was also a surplus of marriageable female Unionists in the
aftermath of World War I who could not find Protestant husbands.[49]
The first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde (1938–1945) was Protestant, though only
two senior Irish politicians attended his Church of Ireland funeral; the Catholic members
of the government had to wait on the pavement near the Church to be compliant
with Canon law.
Some Unionists in the south simply adapted and began to associate themselves with
the new southern Irish regime of Cumann na nGaedheal.[citation needed] On 19 January
1922, leading Unionists held a meeting and unanimously decided to support the Free
State government.[citation needed] Many gained appointment to the Free State's Senate,
including the Earl of Dunraven and Thomas Westropp Bennett. Several generations of
one Unionist political family, the Dockrells, won election as Teachta Dála (TDs). The
Dublin borough of Rathmines had a unionist majority up to the late 1920s, when a local
government re-organisation abolished all Dublin borough councils. Later, the Earl of
Granard and the Provost of Trinity College Dublin gained appointment to the President
of Ireland's advisory body, the Council of State. Most Irish Unionists, however, simply
withdrew from public life, and since the late 1920s there have been no self-professed
Unionists elected to the Irish parliament.[50]
Public Office is a public trust.
Public Officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve
them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and
justice, and lead modest lives.

E-Governance
Not to be confused with E-Government.

Electronic governance or e-governance is the application of information and

communication technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of
information communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and
services between government-to-customer (G2C), government-to-business (G2B),
government-to-government (G2G) as well asback office processes and interactions
within the entire government framework.[1] Through e-governance, government services
will be made available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. The
three main target groups that can be distinguished in governance concepts are
government, citizens and businesses/interest groups. In e-governance there are no
distinct boundaries.[2]
Generally four basic models are available – government-to-citizen (customer),
government-to-employees, government-to-government and government-to-business.[2]

Difference between E-Government and E-Governance

Both terms are treated to be the same, however, there is some difference between the
two. "E-government" is the use of the ICTs in public administration - combined with
organizational change and new skills - to improve public services and democratic
processes and to strengthen support to public. The problem in this definition to be
congruence definition of e-governance is that there is no provision for governance of
ICTs. As a matter of fact, the governance of ICTs requires most probably a substantial
increase in regulation and policy-making capabilities, with all the expertise and opinion-
shaping processes along the various social stakeholders of these concerns. So, the
perspective of the e-governance is "the use of the technologies that both help governing
and have to be governed".[3] The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) based e-governance
projects are hugely successful in India. United Telecoms Limited known as UTL is a
major player in India on PPP based e-governance projects . Each project had mammoth
statewide area networks in these states.
Many countries are looking forward to a corruption-free government. E-government is
one-way communication protocol whereas e-governance is two-way communication
protocol. The essence of e-governance is to reach the beneficiary and ensure that the
services intended to reach the desired individual has been met with. There should be an
auto-response to support the essence of e-governance, whereby the Government
realizes the efficacy of its governance. E-governance is by the governed, for the
governed and of the governed.
Establishing the identity of the end beneficiary is a challenge in all citizen-centric
services. Statistical information published by governments and world bodies does not
always reveal the facts. The best form of e-governance cuts down on unwanted
interference of too many layers while delivering governmental services. It depends on
good infrastructural setup with the support of local processes and parameters for
governments to reach their citizens or end beneficiaries. Budget for planning,
development and growth can be derived from well laid out e-governance systems

Government to citizen
The goal of Government to Customer (G2C) e-Governance is to offer a variety of ICT
services to citizens in an efficient and economical manner, and to strengthen the
relationship between government and citizens using technology.
There are several methods of Government to Customer e-Governance. Two-way
communication allows citizens to instant message directly with public administrators,
and cast remote electronic votes (electronic voting) and instant opinion voting.
Transactions such as payment of services, such as city utilities, can be completed
online or over the phone. Mundane services such as name or address changes,
applying for services or grants, or transferring existing services are more convenient
and no longer have to be completed face to face.[4]
By country
G2C e-Governance is unbalanced across the globe as not everyone has Internet
access and computing skills, but the United States, European Union, and Asia are
ranked the top three in development.
The Federal Government of the United States has a broad framework of G2C
technology to enhance citizen access to Government information and
services. Benefits.Gov is an official US government website that informs citizens of
benefits they are eligible for and provides information of how to apply assistance. US
State Governments also engage in G2C interaction through the Department of
Transportation, Department of Public Safety, United States Department of Health and
Human Services, United States Department of Education, and others.[5] As with e-
Governance on the global level, G2C services vary from state to state. The Digital
States Survey ranks states on social measures, digital democracy, e-commerce,
taxation, and revenue. The 2012 report shows Michigan and Utah in the lead
and Florida and Idaho with the lowest scores.[5] Municipal governments in the United
States also use Government to Customer technology to complete transactions and
inform the public. Much like states, cities are awarded for innovative technology.
Government Technology's "Best of the Web 2012" named Louisville, KY, Arvada, CO,
Raleigh, NC, Riverside, CA, and Austin, TX the top five G2C city portals. [6]
European countries were ranked second among all geographic regions. The Single
Point of Access for Citizens of Europe supports travel within Europe and eEurope is a
1999 initiative supporting online government. Main focuses are to provide public
information, allow customers to have access to basic public services, simplify online
procedures, and promote electronic signatures.[5]
Asia is ranked third in comparison, and there are diverse G2C programs between
countries. Singapore’s eCitizen Portal is an organized single access point to
government information and services. South Korea’s Home Tax Service (HTS) provides
citizens with 24/7 online services such as tax declaration. Taiwan has top ranking G2C
technology including an online motor vehicle services system, which provides 21
applications and payment services to citizens.[5]
Government-to-Citizen is the communication link between a government and private
individuals or residents. Such G2C communication most often refers to that which takes
place through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), but can also
include direct mail and media campaigns. G2C can take place at the federal, state, and
local levels. G2C stands in contrast to G2B, or Government-to-Business networks.
One such Federal G2C network is USA.gov: the United States' official web portal,
though there are many other examples from governments around the world. [7]
Concerns
A full switch to Government to Customer e-Governance will cost a large amount of
money in development and implementation.[4] In addition, Government agencies do not
always engage citizens in the development of their e-Gov services or accept feedback.
Customers identified the following barriers to Government to Customer e-Governance:
not everyone has Internet access, especially in rural or low income areas, G2C
technology can be problematic for citizens who lack computing skills. some G2C sites
have technology requirements (such as browser requirements and plug-ins) that won't
allow access to certain services, language barriers, the necessity for an e-mail address
to access certain services, and a lack of privacy.[8]

Government to employees
"G2E" redirects here. For gaming trade show, see Global Gaming Expo.

E-Governance to Employee partnership (G2E) Is one of four main primary interactions

in the delivery model of E-Governance. It is the relationship between online tools,
sources, and articles that help employees maintain communication with the government
and their own companies. E-Governance relationship with Employees allows new
learning technology in one simple place as the computer. Documents can now be
stored and shared with other colleagues online.[9] E-governance makes it possible for
employees to become paperless and makes it easy for employees to send important
documents back and forth to colleagues all over the world instead of having to print out
these records or fax[10] G2E services also include software for maintaining personal
information and records of employees. Some of the benefits of G2E expansion include:
E-Payroll- maintaining the online sources to view paychecks, pay stubs, pay bills, and
keep records for tax information.
E-benefits- be able to look up what benefits an employee is receiving and what benefits
they have a right to.
E-training- allows for new and current employees to regularly maintain the training they
have through the development of new technology and to allow new employees to train
and learn over new materials in one convenient location. E-learning is another way to
keep employees informed on the important materials they need to know through the use
of visuals, animation, videos, etc. It is usually a computer based learning tool, although
not always. It is also a way for employees to learn at their own pace (distance learning) .
Although, it can be instructor lead.
Maintaining records of personal information- Allows the system to keep all records in
one easy location to update with every single bit of information that is relevant to a
personal file. Examples being social security numbers, tax information, current address,
and other information[11]
Government-to-employees (abbreviated G2E) is the online interactions through
instantaneous communication tools between government units and their employees.
G2E is one out of the four primary delivery models of e-Government.[12][13][14]
G2E is an effective way to provide E-learning to the employees, bring them together
and to promote knowledge sharing among them.[15] It also gives employees the
possibility of accessing information in regard to compensation and benefit policies,
training and learning opportunities and civil rights laws.[12][15][16] G2E services also
includes software for maintaining personnel information and records of employees. [16]
G2E is adopted in many countries including the United States, Hong Kong and New
Zealand.[17]

Government to Government
E-Government
From the start of 1990s e-commerce and e-product, there has rampant integration of e-
forms of government process. Governments have now tried to use their efficiencies of
their techniques to cut down on waste. E-government is a fairly broad subject matter,
but all relate to how the services and representation are now delivered and how they
are now being implemented.
Many governments around the world have gradually turned to Internet Technologies (IT)
in an effort to keep up with today’s demands. Historically, many governments in this
sphere have only been reactive but up until recently there has been a more proactive
approach in developing comparable services such things as e-commerce and e-
business.[18]
Before, the structure emulated private-like business techniques. Recently that has all
changed as e-government begins to make its own plan. Not only does e-government
introduce a new form of record keeping, it also continues to become more interactive to
better the process of delivering services and promoting constituency participation.
The framework of such organization is now expected to increase more than ever by
becoming efficient and reducing the time it takes to complete an objective. Some
examples include paying utilities, tickets, and applying for permits. So far, the biggest
concern is accessibility to Internet technologies for the average citizen. In an effort to
help, administrations are now trying to aid those who do not have the skills to fully
participate in this new medium of governance, especially now as e-government
progressing to more e-governance terms
An overhaul of structure is now required as every pre-existing sub-entity must now
merge under one concept of e- government. As a result, Public Policy has also seen
changes due to the emerging of constituent participation and the Internet. Many
governments such as Canada’s have begun to invest in developing new mediums of
communication of issues and information through virtual communication and
participation. In practice this has led to several responses and adaptations by interest
groups, activist, and lobbying groups. This new medium has changed the way the polis
interacts with government.
Municipal
The purpose to include e-governance to government is to make means more efficient in
various aspects. Whether it means to reduce cost by reducing paper clutter, staffing
cost, or communicating with private citizens or public government. E-government brings
many advantages into play such as facilitating information delivery, application
process/renewal between both business and private citizen, and participation with
constituency. There are both internal and external advantages to the emergence of IT in
government, though not all municipalities are alike in size and participation.
In theory, there are currently 4 major levels of E-government in municipal
governments:[19]

 the establishment of a secure and cooperative interaction among governmental

agencies;
 Web-based service delivery;
 the application of e-commerce for more efficient government transactions activities,;
 and digital democracy.
These, along with 5 degrees of technical integration and interaction of users include:

 simple information dissemination (one-way communication);

 two- way communication (request and response);
 service and financial transactions;
 integration (horizontal and vertical integration);
 political participation
The adoption of e-government in municipalities evokes greater innovation in e-
governance by being specialized and localized. The level success and feedback
depends greatly on the city size and government type. A council-manager
government municipality typically works the best with this method, as opposed
to mayor-council government positions, which tend to be more political. Therefore, they
have greater barriers towards its application. Council-Manager governments are also
more inclined to be effective here by bringing innovation and reinvention of governance
to e- governance.
The International City/County Management Association and Public Technology Inc.
have done surveys over the effectiveness of this method. The results are indicating that
most governments are still in either the primary stages (1 or stage 2), which revolves
around public service requests. Though application of integration is now accelerating,
there has been little to no instigating research to see its progression as e-governance to
government. We can only theorize it’s still within the primitive stages of e-governance.
Overview
Government-to-Government (abbreviated G2G) is the online non-commercial interaction
between Government organisations, departments, and authorities and other
Government organisations, departments, and authorities. Its use is common in the UK,
along with G2C, the online non-commercial interaction of local and central Government
and private individuals, and G2B the online non-commercial interaction of local and
central Government and the commercial business sector.
G2G systems generally come in one of two types: Internal facing - joining up a single
Governments departments, agencies, organisations and authorities - examples include
the integration aspect of the Government Gateway, and the UK NHS Connecting for
Health Data SPINE. External facing - joining up multiple Governments IS systems - an
example would include the integration aspect of the Schengen Information
System (SIS), developed to meet the requirements of the Schengen Agreement.
Objective[edit]
The strategic objective of e-Governance, or in this case G2G is to support and simplify
governance for government, citizens and businesses. The use of ICT can connect all
parties and support processes and activities. Other objectives are to make government
administration more transparent, speedy and accountable, while addressing the
society’s needs and expectations through efficient public services and effective
interaction between the people, businesses and government.[20]

Government-to-government model
Delivery Model
Within every of those interaction domains, four sorts of activities take place: [21] [22]
Pushing data over the internet, e.g.: regulative services, general holidays, public
hearing schedules, issue briefs, notifications, etc. two-way communications between
one governmental department and another, users will interact in dialogue with agencies
and post issues, comments, or requests to the agency. Conducting transactions, e.g.:
Lodging tax returns, applying for services and grants. Governance, e.g.: To alter the
national transition from passive info access to individual participation by:

 Informing the individual

 Representing an individual
 Consulting an individual
 Involving the individual
Internal G2G (UK)
In the field of networking, the Government Secure Intranet (GSI) puts in place a secure
link between central government departments. It is an IP based Virtual Private Network
based on broadband technology introduced in April 1998 and further upgraded in
February 2004. Among other things it offers a variety of advanced services including file
transfer and search facilities, directory services, email exchange facilities (both between
network members and over the Internet) as well as voice and video services. An
additional network is currently also under development: the Public Sector Network
(PSN) will be the network to interconnect public authorities (including departments and
agencies in England; devolved administrations and local governments) and facilitate in
particular sharing of information and services among each other.[23]

Government to business
"G2B" redirects here. For the scientific journal, see Genes, Brain and Behavior.

Government-to-Business (G2B) is the online non-commercial interaction between local

and central government and the commercial business sector with the purpose of
providing businesses information and advice on e-business'best practices'. G2B:Refers
to the conduction through the Internet between government agencies and trading
companies. B2G:Professional transactions between the company and the district, city,
or federal regulatory agencies. B2G usually include recommendations to complete the
measurement and evaluation of books and contracts.
Objective
The objective of G2B is to reduce difficulties for business, provide immediate
information and enable digital communication by e-business (XML).In addition, the
government should re-use the data in the report proper, and take advantage of
commercial electronic transaction protocol.[24] Government services are concentrated to
the following groups: human services; community Services; judicial services; transport
services; land resources; business services; financial Services and other.[25] Each of the
components listed above for each cluster of related services to the enterprise.
Benefits for business
E-government reduce costs, carry out all companies to interact with the government.
Electronic trading saves time compared to human doing business. No need for driving
to government and no waiting time. If the transaction is not completed, you can use the
mouse to click on the return trip rather than drive to the office.As more and more
companies are doing online conduct government business, and their transaction costs
will be reduced.More technology and less workers needed reduce the business cost.
E-Government provides a greater amount of information that business needed,also it
makes those information more clear.A key factor in business success is the ability to
plan for the future. Planning and forecasting through data-driven future.The government
collected a lot of economic, demographic and other trends in the data. This makes the
data more accessible to companies which may increase the chance of economic
prosperity.
In addition, E-Government can help businesses navigate through government
regulations by providing an intuitive site organization with a wealth of useful
applications.The electronic filings of applications for environmental permits gives an
example of it.Companies often do not know how, when, and they must apply. Therefore,
failure to comply with environmental regulations up to 70%, a staggering figure [26] most
likely to confusion about the requirements, rather than the product of willful disregard of
the law.[27]
Disadvantages
The government should concern that not all people are able to access to the internet to
gain on-line government services.The network reliability, as well as information on
government bodies can influence public opinion and prejudice hidden agenda.There are
many considerations and implementation, designing e-government, including the
potential impact of government and citizens of disintermediation, the impact on
economic, social and political factors, vulnerable to cyber attacks,and disturbances to
the status quo in these areas.[28]
G2B rises the connection between government and businesses.Once the e-government
began to develop, become more sophisticated, people will be forced to interact with e-
government in the larger area.This may result in a lack of privacy for businesses as their
government get their more and more information.In the worst case, there is so much
information in the electron transfer between the government and business,a system
which is liketotalitarian could be developed.As government can access more
information, the loss privacy could be a cost.[29][30]
The government site does not consider about "potential to reach many users including
those who live in remote areas, are homebound, have low literacy levels, exist on
poverty line incomes."[31]
Examples

 e-Tender Box (ETB) system[32] - ETB system was developed by Government

Logistics Department (GLD) to replace Electronic Tendering System.Users can use
ETB system to download the resources and gain the service from the GLD.

 e-Procurement Programme[33] - e-Procurement Programme provide a simple,

convenient on-line ways for suppliers of the participating bureaux/departments
(B/Ds) and suppliers of Government Logistics Department and agree to provide the
low-valued goods and service.[34]

 Finance and support for your business[35] - UK Government provide the on-line
financial help for business including grants,loans,business guide,what's more,it also
offer the funding for the sunrise businesses(just start) or small scale firms.
Overview
The Main Goal of Government to Business- is to increase productivity by giving
business more access to information in a more organize manner while lowering the cost
of doing business as well as the ability to cut “red tape”, save time, reduce operational
cost and to create a more transparent business environment when dealing with
government.
 Lowering cost of doing business- electronic transaction save time compared to
conducting business in person.
 Cutting red tape- rules and regulation placed upon business normally take time and
are most likely to cause a delay- in (G2B) will allow a much faster process with less
delays and decreasing the number of rules and regulations
 Transparency- More information will be available, making G2B easier to
communicate.
Government to business Key points:

1. Reduce the burden on business by adopting a process that enables collecting

data once for multiple uses and streamlining redundant data.
2. Key lines of business: regulations, economic development, trade,
permits/licenses, grants/loans, and asset management.
Difference between G2B and B2G

 Government to business (G2B)- Refers to the conducting of transactions between

government bodies and business via internet.
 Business to government (B2G)- Professional affairs conducted between companies
and regional, municipal, or federal governing bodies. B2G typically encompasses
the determination and evaluation of proposal and completion of contract.
Conclusion:
The overall benefit of e-governance when dealing with business is that it enables
business to perform more efficiently.

Challenges Before E-Governance- International Position[edit]

E-governance is facing numerous challenges world over. These challenges are arising
from administrative, legal, institutional and technological factors.
New Public Administration

New Public Administration is an anti-positivist, anti-technical, and anti-hierarchical

reaction against traditional public administration. A practiced theory in response to the
ever changing needs of the public and how institutions and administrations go about
solving them. Focus is on the role of government and how they can provide these
services to citizens in which are a part of public interest, by means, but not limited to
public policy.

History
New Public Administration traces it origins to the first Minnowbrook Conference held in
1968 under the patronage of Dwight Waldo. This conference brought together the top
scholars in public administration and management to discuss and reflect on the state of
the field and its future.[1] The 1960s in the USA was a time of unusual social and political
turbulence and upheaval. In this context, Waldo concluded that neither the study nor the
practice of public administration was responding suitably to the escalating turmoil and
the complications that arose from those conditions. Part of the reasoning for this Waldo
argued, was the general mistrust that had become associated with public administration
itself. A call to remap the ethical obligations of the service sector was necessary in
rebuilding the public's trust of government and bureaucracy in which had been plagued
by corruption and the narrow self interests of others. Moving toward a more ethical
public service, then, requires attention to the underlying values that support public
service-and public servants-in any sector.[2]
The new public management(npm) did not offer public servants an alternative model to
help them resolve emerging conflicts and tensions. Concepts of citizenship, democracy
or public interest have evolved over time and they are continuing to evolve.
Consequently, the role of government and the role of the public service are being
transformed in ways that push beyond the constraints of the Classic model. At its core,
public service requires a vision that extends beyond narrow self-interest.[3] Waldo sees
public administration and bureaucracy as integrally bound to civilization and to our
culture in two senses: the evolution of civilization itself was dependent upon public
administration and related concepts are constitutive elements within out specific
civilization and culture.[4]
New Public Administration theory deals with the following issues:

 Democratic citizenship; Refers directly to the belief in creating a government

where the "common man" have a voice in politics. For such an approach to work,
citizens must become aware, knowledgeable, and active in their communities and
nations. True democratic citizenship requires more than voting for representatives. It
requires using one's own mind, voice, and actions.[5]
 Public interest; Refers to the collective common good within society, to which is the
main objective of public interest.
 Public policy; The means by which new public policy is enacted, and introduced.
Not limited in participation of the public but encouraged involvement.
 Services to citizens; Providing and upholding the moral and ethical standard in
regards to meeting the needs of citizens through institutions and bureaucracies.
First, a ‘new’ theory should start with the ideal of democratic citizenship. The public
service derives its true meaning from its mandate to serve citizens to advance the public
good. This is the raison d’être of the institution, the source of motivation and pride of all
those who choose to make it their life, whether for a season or for an entire career.

Features of public administration

These are-

1. Change and Responsiveness: The administration should bring about certain

internal as well as external changes so that public administration could be made
more relevant to the social, economic, political and technological environment.
For this to happen the administration has to be more flexible and adaptable to
the various changes.
 2. Client Centricity: this means that the effectiveness of the administrator should
be judged not only from the point of view of the government, but from that of the
citizens. If the administrative actions did not improve the quality of life of citizens
then they are not effective notwithstanding whatsoever rationality and efficiency
they may have.
3. Structural Changes in Administration: the new public administration approach
calls for small, flexible and less hierarchical structures In administration so that
the citizens administration interface could become more flexible and comfortable.
The organizational structure should be in tune with the socially relevant
conditions.
4. Multi-disciplinary Nature of Public Administration: knowledge from several
disciplines and not just one dominating paradigm build the discipline of public
administration. The political, social, economic, management and human relation
approaches are needed to ensure the growth of discipline.
5. Politics-Administration Dichotomy since administrators today are involved in
policy formulation and policy implementation at all the stages. Dichotomy
meaning "a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented
as being opposed or entirely different".

Themes

1. Relevance: Traditional public administration has too little interest in

contemporary problems and issues. Social realities must be taken into
consideration. i.e. people should see changes as relevant meaning thereby that
changes should be specific to the needs of the area and the need of the people.
Earlier approaches to NPA considered that rationality of the people was
neglected. NPA suggests the inclusion of rationality of the people too in the
process of policy formulation.
2. Values: Value-neutrality in public administration is an impossibility. The values
being served through administrative action must be transparent.To practice
transparency in public administration is to ensure citizens the availability of
information which is deemed public. This should be an organizational goal, and
is to be taken into account when conducting all public business regardless of
one’s job title. If the goal of an organization is to serve the citizens to the best of
their ability, then avoiding or failing to achieve transparency would cause
significant damage to the relationship between them and the people they are
aiming to serve.
3. Social Equity: Realization of social equity should be a chief goal of public
administration.
4. Change: Skepticism toward the deeply rooted powers invested in permanent
institutions and the status quo. Operational flexibility and organisational
adaptability to meet the environmental changes should be in-built in the
administrative system.
5. Client Focus: Positive, proactive, and responsive administrators rather than
inaccessible and authoritarian "ivory tower" bureaucrats.
 6. Management-Worker relations. There should be equal emphasis both on
efficiency and humane considerations. The new approach has to satisfy both the
efficiency and the human relations criterion in order to achieve success.
NPA provides solutions for achieving these goals, popularly called 4 D's i.e.
Decentalisation, Debureaucratisation, Delegation and Democratisation.

Criticism
Though New Public Administration brought public administration closer to political
science, it was criticized as anti-theoretic and anti-management. Robert T.
Golembiewski describes it as radicalism in words and status quo in skills and
technologies. Further, it must be counted as only a cruel reminder of the gap in the field
between aspiration and performance. Golembiewski considers it as a temporary and
transitional phenomena.[6] In other words, we can say that the solutions for achieving
the goals and anti-goals were not provided by the NPA scholars explicitly. Secondly,
how much one should decentralize or delegate or debureaucratize or democratize in
order to achieve the goals? On this front NPA is totally silent.

Significance
Felix and Lloyd Nigro observe that New Public Administration has seriously jolted the
traditional concepts and outlook of the discipline and enriched the subject by imparting a
wider perspective by linking it closely to the society.[7]The overall focus in NPA
movement seems to be to make administration to be less "generic" and more "public",
less "descriptive" and more "prescriptive", less "institution-orientd" and more "client-
oriented", less "neutral" and more "normative" but should be no less scientific all the
same.
Public administration theory
Public administration theory is the amalgamation of history, organizational theory,
social theory, political theory and related studies focused on the meanings, structures
and functions of public service in all its forms.
A standard course of study in PhD dedicated to public administration, public
administration theory often recounts major historical foundations for the study
of bureaucracy as well as epistemological issues associated with public service as a
profession and as an academic field.
Important figures of study include: Max Weber, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Luther
Gulick, Mary Parker Follett, Chester Barnard, Herbert A. Simon, and Dwight
Waldo. Herbert Simon advanced a public administration theory that was informed
by positivism. The influence of positivism today can be seen in journals such as
the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the Journal of Policy
Analysis and Management.[1] In more recent times, the field has had three main
branches: new public management, classic public administration and postmodern public
administration theory. The last grouping is often viewed as manifest in the Public
Administration Theory Network(PAT-NET) and its publication, Administrative Theory &
Praxis.
Classical Public Administration Theory
Classical Public Administration is one of the three main branches of public
administration theory. This branch includes notable theorist such as Woodrow Wilson
and Max Weber, whom contributed notable works to public administration. In the United
States of America, Woodrow Wilson is known as 'The Father of Public Administration'
, writing the "The Study of Administration" in 1887. In this work, Wilson advocated that a
bureaucracy should be ran like a business, promoting ideas like a merit based
promotions, and a nonpartisan system. [2]
New public management
New Public Management (NPM) is a discussion and investigation of economic and
political systems in various countries and their policies that aimed to modernize and
render the public sector more efficient.
New Public Management is viewed as a more efficient means of attaining the same
product or service; however, citizens are viewed as customers and public
servers/administrators hold the title of Public Manager. Under NPM, Public Managers
have incentive-based motivation and have greater discretion (as opposed to a regulated
outcome per scenario, regardless of situation). NPM relies heavily on disaggregation,
customer satisfaction, entrepreneurial spirit, and the "Rules of the Game.".[1] "Public
Managers under the New Public Management reforms can provide a range of choices
from which customers can choose, including the right to opt out of the service delivery
system completely".[2]

History and Development

The first practices of New Public Management emerged in the United Kingdom under
the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Playing the functional role of “policy
entrepreneur,” as well as the official role of prime minister, Thatcher drove changes in
public management policy in such areas as organization and methods, civil service and
labor relations, expenditure planning and financial management, audit and evaluation,
and procurement.
Thatcher's successor, John Major, kept public management policy on the agenda of the
Conservative government, leading to the implementation of the Next Steps Initiative and
the launching of the Citizens Charter Initiative, Competing for Quality, Resource
Accounting and Budgeting, and the Private Finance Initiative.
In the 1980s, public management became an active area of policy-making in numerous
other countries, notably in New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. At the same time, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) established its
Public Management Committee and Secretariat (PUMA), conferring to public
management the status normally accorded more conventional domains of policy. In the
1990s, public management was a major item on President Clinton’s agenda. Early
policy actions of the Clinton administration included launching the National Performance
Review and signing into law the Government Performance and Results Act. At the time
of this writing, there are few indications that public management issues will vanish from
governmental policy agendas any time soon.
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 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, in particular, 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.

Differences Between Public and Private Sectors

New Public Management draws practices from the private sector and uses them in the
public sector of management.
The New Public Management reforms use market forces to hold the public sector
accountable and the satisfaction of preferences as the measures of accountability. In
order for this system to proceed, certain conditions, such as the existence of
competition, must exist and information about choices must be available.[3]
That students of public administration have failed to adequately challenge the New
Public Management. I also take issue with another theme that runs, perhaps more
obliquely, throughout Lynn's piece: the methodological claims and interests of the New
Public Management as compared with those of the "old" public management. Here,
Lynn seems to suggest that, due to a tradition of being "unduly careless,"not only the
New Public Management but the broader field of public administration itself "seems to
have let lapse [its] moral and intellectual authority."[4]
Reforms that promise to reinvent government by way of focusing on results and
customer satisfaction as opposed to administrative and political processes fail to
account for legislative self-interest. Institutions other than federal government, the
changes being trumpeted as reinvention would not even be announced, except perhaps
on hallway bulletin boards.

Issues
Criticisms
There are blurred lines between Policy Making and Rendering Services in the New
Public Management system as well as whether or not they can be trusted to be involved
politically. Public managers are involved with how to progress policies, but now what the
public needs. NPM brings to question integrity and compliance when dealing with
incentives for public managers. Will managers be more or less faithful? The public
interest is at risk and could undermine the trust in government. How can we ensure
accountability?[5]
New Zealand exemplifies a functional New Public Management system because of its
academically rigorous analysis; however, to prove this is functional, there needs to be
more than one country operating smoothly. Some difficulty surrounding the discussion
and experimentation of New Public Management is managing the analysis.
Dunleavy believes New Public Management is phasing out because of disconnect with
“customers” and their institutions. New Public Management was created in the Public
Sector to create change based on: disaggregation, competition, and incentives. Using
incentives to produce the maximum services from an organization is largely stalled in
many countries and being reversed because of increased complexity.[6]
Alternatives
Post New Public Management evolves the Digital Era Governance (DEG). Dunleavy
believes this new way of governance should be heavily centered upon information and
technology.[7] Technology will help re-integrate with digitalization changes. Digital Era
Governance provides a unique opportunity for self- sustenance; however, there are
various factors that will determine whether or not DEG can be implemented
successfully.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at
the bottom[1]
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham
Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological
Review.[2] Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of
humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of
human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of
growth in humans. Maslow used the terms "physiological", "safety", "belongingness"
and "love", "esteem", "self-actualization", and "self-transcendence" to describe the
pattern that human motivations generally move through.
Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane
Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally
ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and
unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple
philosophy."[3] Maslow studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population. [4]
Maslow's theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality.[5] The
hierarchy remains a very popular framework in sociology research, management
training[6] andsecondary and higher psychology instruction.

Hierarchy
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the
largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom and the need for self-
actualization at the top.[1][7] While the pyramid has become the de facto way to represent
the hierarchy, Maslow himself never used a pyramid to describe these levels in any of
his writings on the subject.
The most fundamental and basic four layers of the pyramid contain what Maslow called
"deficiency needs" or "d-needs": esteem, friendship and love, security, and physical
needs. If these "deficiency needs" are not met – with the exception of the most
fundamental (physiological) need – there may not be a physical indication, but the
individual will feel anxious and tense. Maslow's theory suggests that the most basic
level of needs must be met before the individual will strongly desire (or focus motivation
upon) the secondary or higher level needs. Maslow also coined the term
"metamotivation" to describe the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of the
basic needs and strive for constant betterment.[8]
The human mind and brain are complex and have parallel processes running at the
same time, thus many different motivations from various levels of Maslow's hierarchy
can occur at the same time. Maslow spoke clearly about these levels and their
satisfaction in terms such as "relative," "general," and "primarily." Instead of stating that
the individual focuses on a certain need at any given time, Maslow stated that a certain
need "dominates" the human organism.[9] Thus Maslow acknowledged the likelihood
that the different levels of motivation could occur at any time in the human mind, but he
focused on identifying the basic types of motivation and the order in which they should
be met.
Physiological needs
Physiological needs are the physical requirements for human survival. If these
requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately
fail. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first.
Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including
humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While
maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual
instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct.[2]
Safety needs
With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual's safety needs take
precedence and dominate behavior. In the absence of physical safety – due to war,
natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse, etc. – people may (re-
)experience post-traumatic stress disorder or transgenerational trauma. In the absence
of economic safety – due to economic crisis and lack of work opportunities – these
safety needs manifest themselves in ways such as a preference for job security,
grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings
accounts, insurance policies, reasonable disability accommodations, etc. This level is
more likely to be found in children because they generally have a greater need to feel
safe.
Safety and Security needs include:

 Personal security
 Financial security
 Health and well-being
 Safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts
Love and belonging
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third level of human needs is
interpersonal and involves feelings of belongingness. This need is especially strong in
childhood and can override the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to
abusive parents. Deficiencies within this level of Maslow's hierarchy – due
to hospitalism, neglect, shunning, ostracism, etc. – can impact the individual's ability to
form and maintain emotionally significant relationships in general, such as:

 Friendship
 Intimacy
 Family
According to Maslow, humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance
among their social groups, regardless whether these groups are large or small. For
example, some large social groups may include clubs, co-workers, religious groups,
professional organizations, sports teams, and gangs. Some examples of small social
connections include family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, and
confidants. Humans need to love and be loved – both sexually and non-sexually – by
others.[2] Many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical
depression in the absence of this love or belonging element. This need for belonging
may overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the
peer pressure.
Esteem
All humans have a need to feel respected; this includes the need to have self-
esteem and self-respect. Esteem presents the typical human desire to be accepted and
valued by others. People often engage in a profession or hobby to gain recognition.
These activities give the person a sense of contribution or value. Low self-esteem or
an inferiority complex may result from imbalances during this level in the hierarchy.
People with low self-esteem often need respect from others; they may feel the need to
seek fame or glory. However, fame or glory will not help the person to build their self-
esteem until they accept who they are internally. Psychological imbalances such
as depression can hinder the person from obtaining a higher level of self-esteem or self-
respect.
Most people have a need for stable self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two
versions of esteem needs: a "lower" version and a "higher" version. The "lower" version
of esteem is the need for respect from others. This may include a need for status,
recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The "higher" version manifests itself as the
need for self-respect. For example, the person may have a need for strength,
competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, and freedom. This "higher"
version takes precedence over the "lower" version because it relies on an inner
competence established through experience. Deprivation of these needs may lead to an
inferiority complex, weakness, and helplessness.
Maslow states that while he originally thought the needs of humans had strict
guidelines, the "hierarchies are interrelated rather than sharply separated". [5] This
means that esteem and the subsequent levels are not strictly separated; instead, the
levels are closely related.
Self-actualization
"What a man can be, he must be."[10] This quotation forms the basis of the perceived
need for self-actualization. This level of need refers to what a person's full potential is
and the realization of that potential. Maslow describes this level as the desire to
accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be. [11] Individuals
may perceive or focus on this need very specifically. For example, one individual may
have the strong desire to become an ideal parent. In another, the desire may be
expressed athletically. For others, it may be expressed in paintings, pictures, or
inventions.[12] As previously mentioned, Maslow believed that to understand this level of
need, the person must not only achieve the previous needs, but master them.
Self-transcendence
In his later years, Maslow explored a further dimension of needs, while criticizing his
own vision on self-actualization.[13] The self only finds its actualization in giving itself to
some higher goal outside oneself, in altruism and spirituality.[14]

Research
Recent research appears to validate the existence of universal human needs, although
the hierarchy proposed by Maslow is called into question.[15][16]
Following World War II, the unmet needs of homeless and orphaned children presented
difficulties that were often addressed with the help of attachment theory, which was
initially based on Maslow and others' developmental psychology work by John
Bowlby.[17]Originally dealing primarily with maternal deprivation and concordant losses
of essential and primal needs, attachment theory has since been extended to provide
explanations of nearly all the human needs in Maslow's hierarchy, from sustenance and
mating to group membership and justice.[18]
Criticism
In their extensive review of research based on Maslow's theory, Wahba and Bridwell
found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described or for the existence
of a definite hierarchy at all.[19]
The order in which the hierarchy is arranged (with self-actualization described as the
highest need) has been criticized as being ethnocentric by Geert Hofstede.[20] Maslow's
hierarchy of needs fails to illustrate and expand upon the difference between the social
and intellectual needs of those raised in individualistic societies and those raised
in collectivist societies. The needs and drives of those in individualistic societies tend to
be more self-centered than those in collectivist societies, focusing on improvement of
the self, with self-actualization being the apex of self-improvement. In collectivist
societies, the needs of acceptance and community will outweigh the needs for freedom
and individuality.[21]
The term "Self-actualization" may not universally convey Maslow's observations; this
motivation refers to focusing on becoming the best person that one can possibly strive
for in the service of both the self and others.[9] Maslow's term of self-actualization might
not properly portray the full extent of this level; quite often, when a person is at the level
of self-actualization, much of what they accomplish in general may benefit others or,
"the greater self".
The position and value of sex on the pyramid has also been a source of criticism
regarding Maslow's hierarchy. Maslow's hierarchy places sex in the physiological needs
category along with food and breathing; it lists sex solely from an individualistic
perspective. For example, sex is placed with other physiological needs which must be
satisfied before a person considers "higher" levels of motivation. Some critics feel this
placement of sex neglects the emotional, familial, and evolutionary implications of sex
within the community, although others point out that this is true of all of the basic
needs.[22][23]

Changes to the hierarchy by circumstance

The higher-order (self-esteem and self-actualization) and lower-order (physiological,
safety, and love) needs classification of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is not universal
and may vary across cultures due to individual differences and availability of resources
in the region or geopolitical entity/country.
In one study,[24] exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of a thirteen item scale showed there
were two particularly important levels of needs in the US during the peacetime of 1993
to 1994: survival (physiological and safety) and psychological (love, self-esteem, and
self-actualization). In 1991, a retrospective peacetime measure was established and
collected during the Persian Gulf War and US citizens were asked to recall the
importance of needs from the previous year. Once again, only two levels of needs were
identified; therefore, people have the ability and competence to recall and estimate the
importance of needs. For citizens in the Middle East (Egypt and Saudi Arabia), three
levels of needs regarding importance and satisfaction surfaced during the 1990
retrospective peacetime. These three levels were completely different from those of the
US citizens.
Changes regarding the importance and satisfaction of needs from the retrospective
peacetime to the wartime due to stress varied significantly across cultures (the US vs.
the Middle East). For the US citizens, there was only one level of needs since all needs
were considered equally important. With regards to satisfaction of needs during the war,
in the US there were three levels: physiological needs, safety needs, and psychological
needs (social, self-esteem, and self-actualization). During the war, the satisfaction of
physiological needs and safety needs were separated into two independent needs while
during peacetime, they were combined as one. For the people of the Middle East, the
satisfaction of needs changed from three levels to two during wartime.[25][26]
A 1981 study looked at how Maslow's hierarchy might vary across age groups. [27] A
survey asked participants of varying ages to rate a set number of statements from most
important to least important. The researchers found that children had higher physical
need scores than the other groups, the love need emerged from childhood to young
adulthood, the esteem need was highest among the adolescent group, young adults
had the highest self-actualization level, and while old age had the highest level of
security, it was needed across all levels comparably. The authors argued that this
suggested Maslow's hierarchy may be limited as a theory for developmental sequence
since the sequence of the love need and the self-esteem need should be reversed
according to age.
New Public Administration

New Public Administration is an anti-positivist, anti-technical, and anti-hierarchical

reaction against traditional public administration. A practiced theory in response to the
ever changing needs of the public and how institutions and administrations go about
solving them. Focus is on the role of government and how they can provide these
services to citizens in which are a part of public interest, by means, but not limited to
public policy.

History
New Public Administration traces it origins to the first Minnowbrook Conference held in
1968 under the patronage of Dwight Waldo. This conference brought together the top
scholars in public administration and management to discuss and reflect on the state of
the field and its future.[1] The 1960s in the USA was a time of unusual social and political
turbulence and upheaval. In this context, Waldo concluded that neither the study nor the
practice of public administration was responding suitably to the escalating turmoil and
the complications that arose from those conditions. Part of the reasoning for this Waldo
argued, was the general mistrust that had become associated with public administration
itself. A call to remap the ethical obligations of the service sector was necessary in
rebuilding the public's trust of government and bureaucracy in which had been plagued
by corruption and the narrow self interests of others. Moving toward a more ethical
public service, then, requires attention to the underlying values that support public
service-and public servants-in any sector.[2]
The new public management(npm) did not offer public servants an alternative model to
help them resolve emerging conflicts and tensions. Concepts of citizenship, democracy
or public interest have evolved over time and they are continuing to evolve.
Consequently, the role of government and the role of the public service are being
transformed in ways that push beyond the constraints of the Classic model. At its core,
public service requires a vision that extends beyond narrow self-interest.[3] Waldo sees
public administration and bureaucracy as integrally bound to civilization and to our
culture in two senses: the evolution of civilization itself was dependent upon public
administration and related concepts are constitutive elements within out specific
civilization and culture.[4]
New Public Administration theory deals with the following issues:

 Democratic citizenship; Refers directly to the belief in creating a government

where the "common man" have a voice in politics. For such an approach to work,
citizens must become aware, knowledgeable, and active in their communities and
nations. True democratic citizenship requires more than voting for representatives. It
requires using one's own mind, voice, and actions.[5]
 Public interest; Refers to the collective common good within society, to which is the
main objective of public interest.
 Public policy; The means by which new public policy is enacted, and introduced.
Not limited in participation of the public but encouraged involvement.
 Services to citizens; Providing and upholding the moral and ethical standard in
regards to meeting the needs of citizens through institutions and bureaucracies.
First, a ‘new’ theory should start with the ideal of democratic citizenship. The public
service derives its true meaning from its mandate to serve citizens to advance the public
good. This is the raison d’être of the institution, the source of motivation and pride of all
those who choose to make it their life, whether for a season or for an entire career.

Features of public administration

These are-

1. Change and Responsiveness: The administration should bring about certain

internal as well as external changes so that public administration could be made
more relevant to the social, economic, political and technological environment.
For this to happen the administration has to be more flexible and adaptable to
the various changes.
2. Client Centricity: this means that the effectiveness of the administrator should
be judged not only from the point of view of the government, but from that of the
citizens. If the administrative actions did not improve the quality of life of citizens
then they are not effective notwithstanding whatsoever rationality and efficiency
they may have.
3. Structural Changes in Administration: the new public administration approach
calls for small, flexible and less hierarchical structures In administration so that
the citizens administration interface could become more flexible and comfortable.
The organizational structure should be in tune with the socially relevant
conditions.
 4. Multi-disciplinary Nature of Public Administration: knowledge from several
disciplines and not just one dominating paradigm build the discipline of public
administration. The political, social, economic, management and human relation
approaches are needed to ensure the growth of discipline.
5. Politics-Administration Dichotomy since administrators today are involved in
policy formulation and policy implementation at all the stages. Dichotomy
meaning "a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented
as being opposed or entirely different".

Themes

1. Relevance: Traditional public administration has too little interest in

contemporary problems and issues. Social realities must be taken into
consideration. i.e. people should see changes as relevant meaning thereby that
changes should be specific to the needs of the area and the need of the people.
Earlier approaches to NPA considered that rationality of the people was
neglected. NPA suggests the inclusion of rationality of the people too in the
process of policy formulation.
2. Values: Value-neutrality in public administration is an impossibility. The values
being served through administrative action must be transparent.To practice
transparency in public administration is to ensure citizens the availability of
information which is deemed public. This should be an organizational goal, and
is to be taken into account when conducting all public business regardless of
one’s job title. If the goal of an organization is to serve the citizens to the best of
their ability, then avoiding or failing to achieve transparency would cause
significant damage to the relationship between them and the people they are
aiming to serve.
3. Social Equity: Realization of social equity should be a chief goal of public
administration.
4. Change: Skepticism toward the deeply rooted powers invested in permanent
institutions and the status quo. Operational flexibility and organisational
adaptability to meet the environmental changes should be in-built in the
administrative system.
5. Client Focus: Positive, proactive, and responsive administrators rather than
inaccessible and authoritarian "ivory tower" bureaucrats.
6. Management-Worker relations. There should be equal emphasis both on
efficiency and humane considerations. The new approach has to satisfy both the
efficiency and the human relations criterion in order to achieve success.
NPA provides solutions for achieving these goals, popularly called 4 D's i.e.
Decentalisation, Debureaucratisation, Delegation and Democratisation.

Criticism
Though New Public Administration brought public administration closer to political
science, it was criticized as anti-theoretic and anti-management. Robert T.
Golembiewski describes it as radicalism in words and status quo in skills and
technologies. Further, it must be counted as only a cruel reminder of the gap in the field
between aspiration and performance. Golembiewski considers it as a temporary and
transitional phenomena.[6] In other words, we can say that the solutions for achieving
the goals and anti-goals were not provided by the NPA scholars explicitly. Secondly,
how much one should decentralize or delegate or debureaucratize or democratize in
order to achieve the goals? On this front NPA is totally silent.

Significance
Felix and Lloyd Nigro observe that New Public Administration has seriously jolted the
traditional concepts and outlook of the discipline and enriched the subject by imparting a
wider perspective by linking it closely to the society.[7] The overall focus in NPA
movement seems to be to make administration to be less "generic" and more "public",
less "descriptive" and more "prescriptive", less "institution-orientd" and more "client-
oriented", less "neutral" and more "normative" but should be no less scientific all the
same.
Fiscal policy of the Philippines

Fiscal policy refers to the "measures employed by governments to stabilize the

economy, specifically by manipulating the levels and allocations of taxes and
government expenditures. Fiscal measures are frequently used in tandem with
monetary policy to achieve certain goals."[1] In the Philippines, this is characterized by
continuous and increasing levels of debt and budget deficits, though there have been
improvements in the last few years.[2]
The Philippine government’s main source of revenue are taxes, with some non-tax
revenue also being collected. To finance fiscal deficit and debt, the Philippines relies on
both domestic and external sources.
Fiscal policy during the Marcos administration was primarily focused on indirect tax
collection and on government spending on economic services and infrastructure
development. The first Aquino administration inherited a large fiscal deficit from the
previous administration, but managed to reduce fiscal imbalance and improve tax
collection through the introduction of the 1986 Tax Reform Program and the value
added tax. The Ramos administration experienced budget surpluses due to substantial
gains from the massive sale of government assets and strong foreign investment in its
early years. However, the implementation of the 1997 Comprehensive Tax Reform
Program and the onset of the Asian financial crisis resulted to a deteriorating fiscal
position in the succeeding years and administrations. The Estrada administration faced
a large fiscal deficit due to the decrease in tax effort and the repayment of the Ramos
administration’s debt to contractors and suppliers. During the Arroyo administration, the
Expanded Value Added Tax Law was enacted, national debt-to-GDP ratio peaked, and
underspending on public infrastructure and other capital expenditures was observed.
A comparative graph of Revenue and Tax Effort from 2001-2010[3]

A comparative graph of Tax and Non-Tax Revenue contribution from 2001-2010[4]

The Philippine government generates revenues mainly through personal and income
tax collection, but a small portion of non-tax revenue is also collected through fees and
licenses, privatization proceeds and income from other government operations and
state-owned enterprises.
Tax Revenue
Tax collections comprise the biggest percentage of revenue collected. Its biggest
contributor is the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), followed by the Bureau of Customs
(BOC). Tax effort as a percentage of GDP has averaged at roughly 13% for the years
2001-2010.[5]
Income Taxes
Income tax is a tax on a person's income, wages, profits arising from property, practice
of profession, conduct of trade or business or any stipulated in the National Internal
Revenue Code of 1997 (NIRC), less any deductions granted.[6] Income tax in the
Philippines is a progressive tax, as people with higher incomes pay more than people
with lower incomes. Personal income tax rates vary as such:[7]
Annual Taxable Income Income Tax Rate

Less than ₱10,000 5%

Over ₱10,000 but not over ₱30,000 ₱500 + 10% of the excess over ₱10,000

Over ₱30,000 but not over ₱70,000 ₱2,500 + 15% of the excess over ₱30,000

Over ₱70,000 but not over ₱140,000 ₱8,500 + 20% of the excess over ₱70,000

Over ₱140,000 but not over ₱250,000 ₱22,500 + 25% of the excess over ₱140,000

Over ₱250,000 but not over ₱500,000 ₱50,000 + 30% of the excess over ₱250,000

Over ₱500,000 ₱125,000 + 32% of the excess over ₱500,000

The top rate was 35% until 1997, 34% in 1998, 33% in 1999, and 32% since 2000. [7][8]
In 2008, Republic Act No. 9504 (passed by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo)
exempted minimum wage earners from paying income taxes.[9]
E-VAT
The Expanded Value Added Tax (E-VAT), is a form of sales tax that is imposed on the
sale of goods and services and on the import of goods into the Philippines. It is a
consumption tax (those who consume more are taxed more) and an indirect tax, which
can be passed on to the buyer. The current E-VAT rate is 12% of transactions. Some
items which are subject to E-VAT include petroleum, natural gases, indigenous fuels,
coals, medical services, legal services, electricity, non-basic commodities, clothing, non-
food agricultural products, domestic travel by air and sea.[10]
The E-VAT has exemptions which include basic commodities and socially sensitive
products. Exemptible from the E-VAT are:[11]

1. Agricultural and marine products in their original state (e.g. vegetables, meat,
fish, fruits, eggs and rice), including those which have undergone preservation
processes (e.g. freezing, drying, salting, broiling, roasting, smoking or stripping);
2. Educational services rendered by both public and private educational institutions;
3. Books, newspapers and magazines;
 4. Lease of residential houses not exceeding ₱10,000 monthly;
5. Sale of low-cost house and lot not exceeding ₱2.5 million
6. Sales of persons and establishments earning not more than ₱1.5 million
annually.
Tariffs and Duties
Second to the BIR in terms of revenue collection, the Bureau of Customs (BOC)
imposes tariffs and duties on all items imported into the Philippines. According to
Executive Order 206, returning residents, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) and
former Filipino citizens are exempted from paying duties and tariffs.[12]
Non-Tax Revenue
Non-tax revenue makes up a small percentage of total government revenue (roughly
less than 20%), and consists of collections of fees and licenses, privatization proceeds
and income from other state enterprises.[13]
The Bureau of Treasury
The Bureau of Treasury (BTr) manages the finances of the government, by attempting
to maximize revenue collected and minimize spending. The bulk of non-tax revenues
comes from the BTr’s income. Under Executive Order No.449, the BTr collects revenue
by issuing, servicing and redeeming government securities, and by controlling the
Securities Stabilization Fund (which increases the liquidity and stabilizes the value of
government securities[14]) through the purchase and sale of government bills and
bonds.[15]
Privatization
Privatization in the Philippines occurred in three waves: The first wave in 1986-1987,
the second during 1990 and the third stage, which is presently taking place. [16] The
government’s Privatization Program is handled by the inter-agency Privatization Council
and the Privatization and Management Office, a sub-branch of the Department of
Finance.[17]
PAGCOR
The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) is a government-
owned corporation established in 1977 to stop illegal casino operations. PAGCOR is
mandated to regulate and license gambling (particularly in casinos), generate revenues
for the Philippine government through its own casinos and promote tourism in the
country.[18]

Spending, Debt, and Financing

A comparative graph of National Revenues and Expenditures from 2001-2010[5]

A comparative graph of Domestic and External Sources of Financing from 2001-2010[5]

A comparative graph of Total National Debt from 2001-2010[19]

Government Spending and Fiscal Imbalance
In 2010, the Philippine Government spent a total of ₱1.5 trillion and earned a total of
₱1.2 trillion from tax and non-tax revenues, thus resulting to a total deficit of ₱314.5
billion.[5]
Despite the national deficit of the Philippines, the Department of Finance reported an
average of ₱29.6 billion in Local Government Unit (LGU) surplus, which is mostly due to
an improved LGU financial monitoring system which the government implemented in the
recent years. Efforts of the monitoring system include "debt monitoring and
creditworthiness monitoring system, effective mobilization of second generation funds
(SGF) to promote LGU development, and the implementation of a Land Administration
and Management Project (LAMP2) which received a 'very good' rating from the World
Bank (WB) and Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid)."[20]
Microfinance management in the Philippines is improving substantially. In 2009, the
Economist Intelligence Unit "recognized the Philippines as the best in the world in terms
of its microfinance regulatory framework." The DOF-National Credit Council (DOF-NCC)
focused on improving the state of local cooperatives by developing a supervision and
examination manual, launching advocacies for these cooperatives, and pushing for the
Philippine Cooperative Code of 2008. A standardized national strategy for
microinsurance and the provisions of grants and technical assistance were
formulated.[20]
Financing and Debt
Aside from Tax and Non-Tax Revenues, the government makes use of other sources of
financing to support its expenses. In 2010, the government borrowed a total net of
₱351.646 billion for financing:[21]

Domestic
External Sources
Sources

Gross Financing ₱489.844 billion ₱257.357 billion

Less: Repayments/Amortization ₱271.246 billion ₱124.309 billion

Net Financing ₱218.598 billion ₱133.048 billion

Total Financing ₱351.646 billion

External Sources of Financing are:[21]

 1. Program and Project Loans - the government offers project loans to external
bodies and uses the proceeds to fund domestic projects like infrastructure,
agriculture, and other government projects.[20]
2. Credit Facility Loans
3. Zero-coupon Treasury Bills
4. Global Bonds
5. Foreign Currencies
Domestic Sources of Financing are[21]

1. Treasury Bonds
2. Facility loans
3. Treasury Bills
4. Bond Exchanges
5. Promissory Notes
6. Term Deposits
In 2010, the total outstanding debt of the Philippines reached ₱4.718 trillion: ₱2.718
trillion from outstanding domestic sources and ₱2 trillion from foreign sources.
According to the Department of Finance, the country has recently reduced dependency
on external sources to minimize the risks caused by changes in the global exchange
rates. Efforts to reduce national debt include increasing tax efforts and decreasing
government spending. The Philippine government has also entered talks with other
economic entities, like the ASEAN Finance Ministers Meeting (AFMM), ASEAN+3
Finance Ministers Meeting (AFMM+3), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and
ASEAN Single-Window Technical Working Group (ASW-TWG), in order to strengthen
the countries' and the region's debt management efforts*.[20]

History of Philippine Fiscal Policy

Marcos Administration (1981-1985)
The tax system under the Marcos administration was generally regressive as it was
heavily dependent on indirect taxes. Indirect taxes and international trade taxes
accounted for about 35% of total tax revenue, while direct taxes only accounted for
25%. Government expenditure for economic services peaked during this period,
focusing mainly on infrastructure development, with about 33% of the budget spent on
capital outlays. In response to the higher global interest rates and to the depreciation of
the peso, the government became increasingly reliant on domestic financing to finance
fiscal deficit. The government also started liberalizing tariff policy during this period by
enacting the initial Tariff Reform Program, which narrowed the tariff structure from a
range of 100%-0% to 50%-10%, and the Import Liberalization Program, which aimed at
reducing or eliminating tariffs and realigning indirect taxes.[22][23][24]
Aquino Administration (1986-1992]
Faced with problems inherited from the previous administration, the most important of
which being the large fiscal deficit heightened by the low tax effort due to a weak tax
system, Aquino enacted the 1986 Tax Reform Program (TRP). The aim of the TRP was
to “simplify the tax system, make revenues more responsive to economic activity,
promote horizontal equity and promote growth by correcting existing taxes that impaired
business incentives”. One of the major reforms enacted under the program was the
introduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT), which was set at 10%. The 1986 tax reform
program resulted in reduced fiscal imbalance and higher tax effort in the succeeding
years, peaking in 1997, before the enactment of the 1997 Comprehensive Tax Reform
Program (CTRP). The share of non-tax revenues during this period soared due to the
sale of sequestered assets of President Marcos and his cronies (totalling to about ₱20
billion), the initial efforts to deregulate the oil industry and thrust towards the
privatization of state enterprises. Public debt servicing and interest payments as a
percent of the budget peaked during this period as government focused on making up
for the debt incurred by the Marcos administration. Another important reform enacted
during the Aquino administration was the passage of the 1991 Local Government Code
which enabled fiscal decentralization. This increased the taxing and spending powers to
local governments in effect increasing local government resources.[22][24]
Ramos Administration (1993-1998)
The Ramos administration had budget surpluses for four of its six years in power. The
government benefited from the massive sale of government assets (totalling to about
₱70 billion, the biggest among the administrations) and continued to benefit from the
1986 TRP. The administration invested heavily on the power sector as the country was
beset by power outages. The government utilized its emergency powers to fast-track
the construction of power projects and established contracts with independent power
plants. This period also experienced a real estate boom and strong foreign direct
investment to the country during the early years of the administration, in effect
overvaluing the peso. However, with the onset of the Asian financial crisis, the peso
depreciated by almost 40%. The Ramos administration relied heavily on external
borrowing to finance its fiscal deficit but quickly switched to domestic dependence on
the onset of the Asian financial crisis. The administration has been accused of resorting
to “budget trickery” during the crisis: balancing assets through the sales of assets,
building up accounts payable and delaying payment of government premium to social
security holders. In 1997, the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program (CTRP) was
enacted. Republic Act (RA) 8184 and RA 8240, which were implemented under the
program, were estimated to yield additional taxes of around ₱7.4 billion; however, a
decline in tax effort during the succeeding periods was observed after the CTRP was
implemented. This was attributed to the unfavorable economic climate created by the
Asian fiscal crisis and the poor implementation of the provisions of the reform. A sharp
decrease in international trade tax contribution to GDP was also observed as a
consequence of the trade liberalization and globalization efforts in the 1990s, more
prominently, the establishment of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) and
membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC). The Ramos administration also provided additional incentives to
export-oriented firms, the most prominent among these being RA 7227 which was
instrumental to the success of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone.[22][23]
Estrada Administration (1999-2000)
President Estrada, who assumed office at the height of the Asian financial crisis, faced
a large fiscal deficit, which was mainly attributed to the sharp deterioration in the tax
effort (as a result of the 1997 CTRP: increased tax incentives, narrowing of VAT base
and lowering of tariff walls) and higher interest payments given the sharp depreciation of
the peso during the crisis. The administration also had to pay P60 billion worth of
accounts payables left unpaid by the Ramos administration to contractors and suppliers.
Public spending focused on social services, with spending on basic education reaching
its peak. To finance the fiscal deficit, Estrada created a balance between domestic and
foreign borrowing.[22][23]
Arroyo Administration (2002-2009)
The Arroyo administration in 2001 inherited a poor fiscal position that was attributed to
weakening tax effort (still resulting from the 1997 CTRP) and rising debt servicing costs
(due to peso depreciation). Large fiscal deficits and heavy losses for monitored
government corporations lingered from 2001-2004 as her caretaker administration
struggled to reverse downward trends. Following her election in 2004, the national debt-
to-GDP ratio reached a high of 79% in that year, before dropping every year thereafter
to 57.5% by 2009, her last full year in office. Lesser roads and bridges and other
infrastructure were built during the Arroyo administration compare to the previous three
administrations. Educational spending likewise increased from only Ps 9.3 Billion in
2001 to Ps 22.7 Billion by 2009. The cost of medicines was brought down by as much
as 50% as a result of the Cheaper Medicines Act and the opening of Botikas ng Bayan
and Botikas ng Barangay, while the ground-breaking conditional cash transfers (CCT)
program was adapted from Latin America to stimulate positive behaviors among the
poor. As a result, the Arroyo administration contributed to ever-declining levels in self-
rated poverty, from a high of 68% at the start of the Ramons administration, to around
50% at the end of the Arroyo one. Much of the fuel for government activism came from
an expanded value-added tax (from 10% to 12%) in 2005 (see final reports of various
Cabinet agencies concerned), which with other fiscal reforms paved the way for
successive sovereign credit rating upgrades by the time Arroyo stepped down in June
2010. These fiscal reforms complemented conservative liquidity management by the
Central Bank, allowing the peso, for the first time ever, to close even stronger at the end
of a presidential term than at the start.

External links

 Official Websites of Government Offices related to Fiscal Policy

 Bureau of Customs
 Bureau of Internal Revenue
 Bureau of Treasury
 Department of Finance
 Philippine National Statistical Coordination Board
 Republic Acts amending the National Internal Revenue Code
 R.A. 8424: Tax Reform Act of 1997
 R.A. 9337: E-VAT