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Three Approaches to Public Administration

- PA lacks coherence and contains three relatively distinct approaches that
grow out of different perspectives on its functions.
view it as a managerial endeavor, similar to practices in the private sector.
emphasize its political aspects, stressing the 'publicness' of PA.
view it as a distinctly legal matter, noting the importance of sovereignty,
constitutions, and regulation in PA.
- Each of these approaches stress different values, procedural and structural
arrangement for the operation of PA. We are going to deal with the
followings:
the gist of these three approaches
definitions
how each is present in the various central activities of contemporary PA
[1] The Managerial Approach to PA
1) General Characteristics
- tends to minimize the distinction b/ public and private administration.
- PA is essentially the same as big business and ought to be run according to
the same managerial principles and values (businesslike manner, nonpolitical)
- rooted in the 19th century civil service reformers who complained at 'the
spoils system' (corruption, inefficiency, and the emergence of a class of
politicians)
- appointment : based on 'merit' and 'fitness' rather than political partisanship
- tenure : based on their efficiency and effectiveness
- depend on the existence of politics and administration dichotomy.
- put forward by Woodrow Wilson (1887), "PA is a field of business".
- (values) PA is geared toward maximizing effectiveness, efficiency, economy
- This approach became the orthodox or classical view of how the public
service should be run.
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2) Organizational Structure - Bureaucratic Organization
- maximize the amount of output per unit of input (efficiency)
- stress the need for a division of labor (specialization): become expert at~
- requires coordination
- hierarchy : a chain of authority
- programs & functions be clearly assigned to specific organizational unit
(overlapping authority)
- organized along formalistic line
- classified according to "scientific principles and one organized into a
rational scheme.
- selected based on merit.
3) Criticism
- Some criticize that PA is evaluated through administrative values such as
efficiency (good) or inefficiency (bad) in terms of a mathematical relationship
of 'inputs' to 'outputs'.
4) View of the Individual
- promotes an impersonal view of individuals
- dehumanization to be the special virtue of bureaucracy, viewing the
bureaucrat as a "cog" in an organization machine over which one has virtually
no control
- the worker has to adapt to the machine ; the machine is not engineered to
suit on individual worker's physical, mental, social, and emotional
idiosyncrasies.
- is considered essential to the maximization of efficiency, economy, and
effectiveness.
5) Cognitive Approach
- emphasizes a scientific method in developing knowledge.
- cognition as a science, Woodrow Wilson in 1887(The Study of Administration)
L. White(1926), L. Gulick & L. Urwick(1937).
- contribute to developing generalization about administrative behavior.
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6) Budgeting
- favoring rational budget system
- building cost-effectiveness considerations into the formulation of budgets.
7) Decision-making
- rational decision making - consider all plausible alternatives and choose the
one that most cost-effective
[2] The Political Approach to P.A.
1) General Characteristics
- public administrators participate in public policy making in the sense of
practical reality.
- stress the values of representativeness, political responsiveness, and
accountability
ex) (US) The Federal Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 - representativeness.
(Korea) ( )-representativeness
(representativeness), (reponsiveness)
- Values b/ managerial and political approaches conflict with each other.
- Sometimes, hard to measure effectiveness
2) Organizational Structure
- rather than emphasizing the characteristics of a hierarchical organizations,
stress the extent and advantages of political pluralism within PA, reflecting
the values, conflicts, and competing forces to be found in a pluralistic society
- enable competing groups to counteract each other by providing political
representation to various groups.
3) Criticism
- overlapping of missions and programs
- make government unmanageable, costly "inefficient"
4) View of Individual
- to aggregate the individual into a broad social, economic, or political group.
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- turn an individual into a "member of group", identifying the individuals interest
as being similar to those of others
ex) affirmative action (minority, women), , black vote, farm vote,
U.R. round, , labor
- the individual personality exists, but it is addressed in collective terms.
5) Cognitive Approach
- bases decisions on the opinions of the public, interest groups, and media.
- techniques : elections, public opinion surveys, content analysis of letters,
review of citizen's view
6) Budgeting
- views budgets as political, rather than business, document, (allocations are
formal statements of how the political system ranks competing values.)
- contributed to incrementalism, a budgeting process that tends to accept
agencies current budgets as a base to next year's allocations will be made
7) Decision Making
- incremental style of decision making called "muddling through"
[3] The Legal Approach to PA
1) General Characteristics
- views PA as applying and enforcing the law in concrete circumstances
- the movement toward the judicialization of PA - the tendency for
administrative processes increasingly to resemble courtroom procedures.
- derived from two main sources
administrative law ( , ,
.)
constitutional law (hearings in case of cruel investigation, unusual
punishment, sexual harrassment): to protect equality and privacy
- values (rule of law)
due process of law (procedural due process) - to protect fundamental
fairness, individuals from malicious, arbitrary, unconstitutional deprivation
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of life, liberty, or property
substantive rights - equal protection of the laws - maximization of
individual rights and liberty as a positive good
equity - stands for the value of fairness
2) Organizational Structure
- on that will maximize the use of adjudicatory (adversary procedure)
3) Criticism
- downgrading of the cost-effectiveness reasoning associated with the
managerial approach.
4) View of the Individual
- consider the individual as a unique person in unique set of circumstance.
(ex) Before a mandatory maternity leave could be imposed on a pregnant
public school teacher, she was entitled to an individualized medical
determination of her fitness to continue on the job.
- member of class in a class-action suit
- reasonable person.
5) Cognitive Approach
- Inductive Case Analysis ( )
- Deductive Legal Analysis ( )
- Normative Reasoning
- Adversary Process
6) Budgeting
- emphasizes constitutional integrity and the need to protect constitutional rights
(Rights Funding)
7) Decision making
- Precedential Incrementalism
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