Comparative Public Administration
February 12, 2025
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. […]
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Let us go through few strategies for organizational diversity: Treat all individuals equally irrespective of their designation, back ground, community and religion. It hardly matters to the organization whether the individual concerned is a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or a Sikh. What matters is his willingness to learn and passion to perform. Rules and regulations ought […]
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Organizational vision & mission, provide a sense of purpose or establish the the reason of existence of an organization. According to Sullivan & Harper 1996, a well-defined organizational vision establishes both long term and short term goals, empower and motivate leaders as well as followers in implementing change and strengthening their adaptive mechanisms for staying […]
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:
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:
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.
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