Comparative Public Administration
February 12, 2025
In the previous article, we have already seen how reinsurance policies are generally priced and what factors are taken into account while pricing them. There are certain specific methods and approaches which have been used by reinsurance companies across the globe for many years. These methods or approaches have now become a standard that is […]
The Forces of Chaos The business landscape of the 21st Century is characterized by increasing complexity, disorder, intense competition, hyper speed pace of change, and above all, a 24/7 “always on” culture. This means that chaos is inevitable in such a landscape because of the confluence of all these factors. Therefore, managers and leaders cannot […]
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 […]
Research has shown that the best way to get the senior managers at all levels interested in the change initiatives is by engaging them and seeking their buy-in for the change management process. Studies have proved that the managers in the upper echelons buy into the change from a strategic perspective where the accent is […]
What is a Diversity Scorecard and Why it is Important Typically, organizations have what is known as a Balanced Scorecard for measuring and tracking outcomes against goals. By “keeping the score” on how well they have been doing on various measures related to strategy, policies, and other imperatives, organizations use metrics and KRAs or Key […]
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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