Public Administration

“Public Ad”

 

INTRODUCTION

     “The people cannot govern themselves; because if they can, what do you need a government for?”

     Public administration broadly speaking, is the process and study of policy implementation in the federal, state, and local governments. Governments are made of all levels of bureaucracies and within these bureaucracies administrators manage workers to carry out the policies. Administrators are specialized in different areas such as budgeting, finance, policy analysis, management, and technology.  ()

     A good working definition is, “taking care of the state’s, and international organizations’, business by civil servants within the executive branch of government, other than public policy.”  ()

      Another term synonymous to public administration is public management.  This refers to ordinary, routine or typical management concerns, but in the context of achieving public good with public infrastructure.  ()

 

 

 

 

 

HISTORY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

     “There is an intricate and intimate relationship between civilization and administration. . . . Administration was present ‘at the creation.’ It was an integral part of civilization whenever and wherever civilization developed; and without the foundation and framework it supplied, civilization would not have developed” (1980)

     In the earliest records, even in the most primitive and elementary social systems, there is evidence of decisions being made and implemented concerning issues of governance. As the idea of governance developed and extended, the area and influence of administrative systems grew.

     Administration was present at the creation of the Republic, as well as throughout the nineteenth century as  (1943, 1951, 1954, and 1958) comprehensively recorded for us in his four-volume administrative history. 

     With the steady growth of the basic social systems into increasingly elaborate systems of governance, the idea of politics and political systems became increasingly linked with the concept of a public administration designed to implement the policy decisions of ruling regimes or governments.

      pointed out that even though this dynamic development of administrative presence began since the earliest of ancient civilizations, the development of public administration in the United States has been essentially a twentieth-century phenomenon. 

     However, the mature elements of the public sector administrative systems in the United States did not become fully developed until the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries are only primarily in terms of:

     The development of a self-conscious sense of professionalism;

     The development of public administration as a field deserving serious scholarly study;

     The explicit disciplinary commitment to the formation of a science of administration;

     The persistent emphasis placed on the politics-administration and fact-value dichotomies, and the emergence of well-defined perspectives concerning the validity of these presumed dichotomies; and

     The continuous efforts to resolve the clash between the values of democracy and the canons of management.

     But when the American democracy moved into the period of a positive state, it could no longer afford the luxury of a dull government.  For it is an inherent implication of dull government that the dynamic of national life is not profoundly affected by its operation; and it is to the inherent dynamic of the positive state that the operations of government are profoundly important. From this it follows that the government of a positive state:  “if it is to be successful it must necessarily be a thinking government.” (1940)

TRENDS AND ISSUE: GLOBALIZATION

     Globalization means many things; it depends whom you are asking.  The economists consider globalization as a step towards a fully integrated world market.  While some political scientists view it as a march away from the conventionally defined concept of the state, with territorial sovereignty and the emergence of nongovernmental power players in the world order ( 1997). Business school academics and consultants apply globalization to a “borderless world” (1990).

     And others view it as a phenomenon driven only by private-sector firms, not by governments ( 1996;1997).   Looking through all these discussions, globalization usually deals with the question of borders–”the territorial demarcations of state jurisdictions and associated issues of governance, economy, identity, and community” (1997).

     Globalization as internationalization. This idea treats globalization in a narrow sense as an increase in cross border relations among organizations, that is, identities and communities that extend beyond national jurisdictional boundaries.  Such a development is due to the field international relations.

     Globalization as border openness. This means large-scale openness of borders achieved by removing state regulatory barriers and protectionist measures, thus facilitating rapid financial transactions, communications, trade, and cultural relationships (1992).

    

     Borderless world would be characterized by a unified global economy, global government, homogenous global culture, and, by implication, a global system of public administration (1997). The Internet and other means of information technology have contributed largely to this phenomenon.

     Globalization as a process.  Using a political economy point of view, this idea refers to globalization not as a phenomenon, but as a process.  A continuing process of capital accumulation in modern capitalism that has been going on for centuries.

     But recently, it has been intensified because of the availability of modern technology.  The beginning of this globalization process goes back to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was marked by the transition from early (competitive) capitalism to late (monopoly) capitalism, which was boosted by the two world wars and produced capitalism’s “golden age” (1950-1970) at the height of the Cold War.

     Globalization as ideology. The driving force behind the globalization of American and Western European liberal democracy is the Western capitalist democracy. The wealth of information, including propaganda, spread throughout the world like a wild fire through the media, the press, computers, and satellite communication systems, which offered an image of an ideal political system for other countries to emulate. The key words that have characterized this ideological force of globalization are freedom, individualism, free enterprise, and plural democracy (1977, 1990).

     Globalization as a phenomenon. As a cause-and-effect phenomenon in late capitalism, this kind of perspective treats globalization as a cause of world capitalism’s endless effort to reach global markets for accelerated accumulation of capital during the stagnant era of the 1970s.

     Globalization has produced significant consequences for the state and other institutions, whose territorial borders have “not so much crossed or opened as transcended.  `Global’ phenomena here are those that extend across widely dispersed locations simultaneously. Territorial distance and territorial borders hold limited significance in these circumstances; the globe becomes a single `place’ in its own right” (1997)

     Globalization as both a transcending phenomenon and a process.  This perspective considers globalization to be a process of accumulation by global capitalism.  A constant process of expansion into new frontiers and opportunities for increasing capital accumulation at the global level.

     It also views globalization as a phenomenon caused by the process of global capital accumulation.  A phenomenon that has manifested its negative and positive effects almost everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GLOBALIZATION AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

     Globalization has facilitated better connection and coordination among peoples, governments, and nongovernmental organizations. Global accessibility is a big positive step toward human advancements. Yet, globalization is building the foundation of a new civilization characterized by many paradoxes. Nevertheless, the globalization of capital, politics, administration, and culture has affected virtually every nation; no country has been left untouched.

     The following are consequences public administration faces because of the major changes in the character of the modern state (1998;1994; 1999; 1997) caused by globalization.

    

     1) The globalizing state has forced public administration to do more with less.  Admittedly, public administrators must perform the impossible task of high output under severe psychological conditions of fear and downsized personnel, setting them up for failure only to prove the corporate claims of government inefficiency.

     Public administrators should document their records of high performance as well as the failures of the corporate marketplace to make a comparison that the government does what ever it can to serve the public.

 

     2) Professionalization of public administration is a response to the challenge of globalization. Professionalization brings both institutional and moral and ethical standards to public service at the global level, exposing the fallacies of globalizing transnational elites while learning from their organizational and technical skills.

     The excesses of globalization and market failure will invite more government intervention. A professionally sound public administration should be ready to take future action.

 

     3) Globalization pushes for increased privatization, which promotes greater opportunities for corruption (1991). Corruption turns societal resources into illegal, immoral, and unproductive activities. It also challenges the very foundations of societal health and destroys citizens’ trust in leadership and legitimacy of the government system.

     Privatization is based on the market-based, rational choice theory of self-interested individualism in search of maximizing self-interests at almost any cost to community and society. This behavioral and normative philosophy puts individual interests above the interests of the community and society (1991;1995); which is exactly what the globalizing transnational companies are promoting in order to build a global culture of consumerism (1985). This global corporate culture is, managed through human resources management practices, many of which are in sharp contrast with national and community cultures (1986). Public administrators must resist these market-based concepts of treating citizens as consumers.

 

 

     4) Globalization challenges the human conscience of the public administration community. Professional citizens of the global community have the opportunity and the responsibility to observe and examine what is happening around the corners of their global community.

     There are many issues that can challenge them, including the conditions and deprivations of the poor, wage slavery and sweatshops in global factories, environmental destruction, global warming, and inequity and injustice. Raising consciousness about global issues, both positive and negative, is both important and necessary, as public administrators can make a difference when making decisions that affect their fellow citizens.

     They should question the sincerity of the elites, oppose exploitation, and resist being used for undemocratic, unjust, and inequitable purposes around the globe. In the 1980s, public administrators played an effective role in the globally successful campaign against South Africa’s regime of apartheid. Raising such a global consciousness can challenge destructive forces of globalization and global elites on various grounds. Administrators can use the net or other forms of communication to communicate globally with fellow professionals.

 

     5) Public administrators are the guardians of “global community interests.”  Public administrators in more- and less-developed nations have a global responsibility to act ethically and morally in a coordinated manner. They should expose and fight corruption at any level and at any time.

     Political appointees and politicians are temporal officials, whom have intimate ties with global corporate elites; they are prone to corruption and abuse of authority, and their definition of public interest is narrow and mostly focused only on the powerful constituencies.

 

CONCLUSION

      Globalization does not end the state or public administration. This is just a new global challenge that broadens public administration’s scope of research, practice, and teaching.

     Public administration has just entered a new stage of human civilization, with a future that is both brightened and darkened by globalization and the hegemonic world order.

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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