Roward a public philosophy of public administration: a civic perspective of the public

The thesis of this article is that a publicphilosophy of public administration needs to be formulated. It must not be based upon romantic and technocratic approaches as past efforts have been. It must rest instead upon a revitalized concept of the public that stresses the importance of public interdependency, public learning, public language, and a critical evaluation of the relationship between the role of the state and public administration. This emphasis has important implications for the respective responsibilities of both academicians and practicing administrators.     

The ideology of professionalism in public administration: implications for education

One of the most influential themes in contemporary public administration is the focus on professionalism. As Dwight Waldo has argued, public administration should act as if it were a profession even if there is hardly any chance of becoming one. This article will explore the pedagogical implications of the ideology of professionalism on education, and how it has impacted the intellectual development of the field. It will be argued that the intellectual baggage of professionalism poses critical challenges to the meaning and substantive purpose of public administration.     

The development of public administration from a global perspective: the case of italy

What is the impact of globalization on the Italian state and the development of the Italian public administration? Italy is one of those countries where the forces of globalization are challenging the strong state tradition and the predominance of the legal model of public administration. Globalization and the European regional integration push toward a diminished role of the state and a managerial public administration with an increased emphasis on efficiency and better quality of government activities.     

Hong kong public administration under stress: the significance and implications of management paradoxes

The purpose of this study is to identify the major obstacles to administrative reform in Hong Kong so as to generate a basis for addressing one critical question, “what is to be done to ensure the occurrence of effective reform?” Based on 35 interviews with 48 public executives, this researcher finds that there are various paradoxical forces acting in concert in their impacts upon the bureaucracy, that public executives are unable to cope with those forces, and that unless those paradoxes are effectively managed, administrators' ability to act (or to undertake reform measures) is seemingly very limited. Policy and research implications are discussed.     

The world's trading system in the post cold war era: implications for public administration

The authors of this article argue that the world is evolving into a regional bloc trading system with important public policy implications. Recent developments in North America and Europe suggest that regional integration is becoming an alternative approach to the multilateral trade deliberations under the auspices of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The reasons for the evolution are suggested in this article, and arguments are presented on how the negative implications of this trend in world trade can be countered effectively by constructive domestic and international government action.     

The road to minnowbrook: development of the new public administration in the United States

The decade of the 1960s was a time of political upheaval and turbulence; American society witnessed many changes. The decade was one of hope and at the same time one of despair. It was one in which there were great expectations of the national government, and one that would lead some to conclude that the national giovernment was incapable of solving the complex problems of modern society. Public administrators, like other members of the population, were deeply affected by the events of the decade. Some of them began to question their discpline and profession, and a movement developed within the discipline in search of a new public administration; one sensitive to and capable of solving societal problems that had gone unresolved in the decade of the sixties.

The present study presents an historical explication of the new public administration. The new public administration movement is viewed as a product of numerous conferences, works, and events, four of which appear as major landmarks: 1) the Honey Report on Higher Education for Public Service, (1967); 2) the Conference on the Theory and Practive of Public Administration, (1967); 3) the Minnowbrook Conference; (1968); and 4) the publication of two works in 1971: Toward a New Public Administration in a Time of Turbulence edited by Dwight Waldo. Each of the above is examined in terms of contributions to the development of the new public administration.     

Trends in teaching public administration: a view from the proceedings of the national conferences on teaching public administration

This article identifies trends in research on teaching public administration. Topics receiving substantial amounts of attention within years, within multiple years, and across time are identified. Cumulation of research on certain topics is identified. This study is based on data from the Proceedings of the National Conferences on Teaching Public Administration between 1978 and 1989.     

Modernizing the public service in latin america: faradoxes of latin american public administration

This article presents impediments to the moderization of the public bureacracy in the Latin American region. These impediments are presented as paradoxes in order to emphasize both the contradications found in, and the America. The article presents examples from various cases it central and South America in order to show the lack of a public service tradition, the obstacles of patronage and corruption, the Opportunity costs of bureacratic development, the difficulty of reform, and the drawbacks of professionalization. It concludes with some suggestions, groped under the general strategies of insulation and fortification, about how to evercome these impeciments.     

Foundations of public administration: Introduction to the symposium

The nature of retrospectives on the literature of public administration has taken a turn in recent years away from polite respect for our heritage, and toward a belief that the older literature can solve some of our most pressing current problems in administration. Specifically, modern works often bemoan a lack of fundamental purpose or moral direction for administration, and these were among the strongpoints of more dated literature. The articles of this symposium largely seek to find current answers in the investigations of long ago.     

Purpose and practice in public administration education: The place of substantive public policy areas

Public administration's early identification with the concept of a strong executive has resulted in an emphasis on staff functions in its graduate education programs. In the practicing world, staff functions are viewed as tools employed in the actual practice of public administrators, namely the delivery of substantive public services. Although public administration is characterized as an applied field, it does not focus its theory building and educative efforts on that which practicing public administrators actually do. The field necessarily imports other disciplines, but it does not provide the unique focus that would justify this borrowing; its current research agenda and training curricula are available in other disciplines. Public administration graduate students should concentrate in individual substantive policy areas, and the field should focus on optimizing organizational arrangments for delivering societal knowledge as public services. Interorganizational theory can provide the common theoretical framework necessary to mitigate the centrifugal effects of a variety of “administrations” within the field. The approach developed by J. Kenneth Benson is outlined; it provides a unique theoretical niche for public administration, yields a framework for comparative analysis, and defines the field's relationship to political science.     

Competing motives in the formation of american public administration

The intellectual study of public administration was developed by two separate groups with two distinctive orientations to the field, called here the “Public Service” and the “Public Management” orientations. Both orientations have coexisted in public administration despite their differences largely because they each addresses some of the weaknesses of the other. The continuing tug of war between the orientations provides much of public administration's confusion over its sense of purpose and identity, but also much of its dynamic nature.     

Marketing-oriented planning in public administration: The case of the state development agency

Noting that concepts from marketing are not often found in the public management: literature, the authors present a multi-stage marketing-oriented planning model which can be used in the public sector. the mods1 is applied to the case of industrial development agencies, wit11 emphasis on the use of the model in recruiting foreign direct investment. The model includes the determination of organization mission, goals and objectives, resources, and growth strategies as elements of the management planning process. The marketing planning stage of the model includes opportunity analysis, positioning for target markets, marketing mix selection, and control. The two main stages of the process are mediated by factors in the internal and external environments of the organization.     

Reconciling public administration and democracy: the role of the responsible administrator

This article considers whether the individual responsibilities of bureaucratic officials provide a useful means for reconciling the tension between democracy and bureaucracy. Three questions central to the proper definition of bureaucratic responsibility are examined: (1) What is the relation of bureaucratic responsibility to the view that proper bureaucratic conduct is essentially a matter of ethics and morality? (2) If the appeal to moral values does not ordinarily offer an acceptable guide to proper bureaucratic conduct, upon what principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? (3) What issues arise in putting responsibility into practice within a complex organizational setting? The article concludes that a democratic, process-based conception offers the most useful way of thinking about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials.

The tension between democracy and bureaucracy has bedeviled public administration. However one defines democracy, its core demand for responsiveness (to higher political authorities, the public, client groups, or whatever the presumed agent of democratic rule) does not neatly square with notions of effective organization of the policy process and efficient delivery of goods and services, which are central to the definition of bureaucracy. Responsiveness need not guarantee efficiency, while bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency often belie democratic control.

This tension between democracy and bureaucracy persists, but that it is the individual administrator who directly experiences the tension is especially important as a guide toward a resolution of this conflict. Since divergence is central to this tension between democracy and bureaucracy, speculation about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials—their individual places within the bureaucracy, particularly the administrator's thoughts, choices, and actions—provides fruitful terrain for resolving the question of bureaucracy's place within a democratic system of rule.

Three questions need to be addressed if one accepts the premise that individual responsibility is central to locating the place of bureaucracy in a democratic order. First, what is unique about bureaucratic responsibility, especially in contrast to the view that these are largely ethical problems that can be resolved by appeal to moral values? Second, if dilemmas of bureaucratic conduct are by and large not resolvable through appeal to moral values, upon what other principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? Third, what issues arise in putting responsibility into practice, especially within a complex organizational setting? This list of questions is not meant to be exhaustive but only a starting point for discussion.     

Deregulation and the decline of public administration teaching in the UK

In 1991 eight polytechnics offered a BA in public administration while five universities provided the degree with either public or social policy. Currently, no higher education institution in Britain offers a BA degree solely entitled 'public administration'. The subject area is, however, offered in 16 higher education institutions under a variety of names that include, in any order, the words 'public', 'management', 'policy' and 'administration'. This paper analyses the reasons for the transformation during the 1990s in undergraduate courses for the public sector. It is argued that these changes do not so much derive from academics, employers or students taking on board an enthusiasm for new public management but are as much the consequences of deregulation of student choice and an expansion in student numbers that has not been matched in financial terms. The consequence has been to increasingly move this sector towards business and management teaching geared to private sector interests and away from its more political and social science roots.