Public administration theory

Public administration theory is the amalgamation of history, organizational theory, social theory, political theory and related studies focused on the meanings, structures and functions of public service in all its forms.

A standard course of study in PhD dedicated to public administration, public administration theory often recounts major historical foundations for the study of bureaucracy as well as epistemological issues associated with public service as a profession and as an academic field.

In Public Administration theory there is three different common types of how to understand public administration. The three different theories are New Public Management Theory, Classical Public Administration Theory, and Postmodern Public Administration Theory, these each are different perspectives of ways that an administrator practices public administration.

Important figures of study include: Max Weber, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Luther Gulick, Mary Parker Follett, Chester Barnard, Herbert A. Simon, and Dwight Waldo. Herbert Simon advanced a public administration theory that was informed by positivism. The influence of positivism today can be seen in journals such as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Notable Public Administration Theorist such as Max Weber expressed the importance of values in the development of public administration theory. However, theory cannot simply be derived from  empirical observation of facts, it must be constructed using value judgement s that direct our empirical  observations and then guide out interpretation of those observations. Values are essential for the construction of public administration theories because it takes into account the meaningful ethical principles and philosophies of a culture which ensure appropriate theory practice. Public Administration theories are put into practice or considered through a few distinct strategies: Parallel, Transfer, or Collaboration also known as the theory-gap practice. This practice is used to transfer knowledge between practitioners and scholars.

Types of Public Administration Theory

Public Administration Theory recently has been divide into three branches. The three branches are, Classical Public Administration Theory, New Public Management Theory and Postmodern Public Administration Theory. Each of these three branches study Public Administration from a different perspective. These types of theories are some of the ways which an administrator can understand and exercise their duties as a public administrator.

Classical Public Administration Theory

Classical Public Administration is one of the three main branches of public administration theory. This branch includes notable theorist such as Woodrow Wilson and Max Weber, whom contributed notable works to public administration. In the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson is known as 'The Father of Public Administration' , writing the "The Study of Administration" in 1887. In this work, Wilson advocated that a bureaucracy should be ran like a business, promoting ideas like a merit based promotions, and a nonpartisan system. Woodrow Wilson focuses on two main things when looking at Public Administration which are providence and process. Providence is important, by referring to the administrators place in all governmental structures. The process refers to what public administrators do, and how they do it.

New Public Management Theory

New Public Management asset of administrative practices,a consulting fad, and a body of theory that interprets recent developments in public administration. Many scholars argue persuasively that scholars should pay more attention to New Public management as a theory than as a fad. New public management is part and parcel of the massive intrusion of freemarket values into public space, which threatens to drive out political values altogether. It is worth noting that,in this sense, new public management is the radical opposite of the notion of migrating political values into "private" space in the interest of further democratizing society. However, new public management theory fails to addresses political questions in a meaningful way. This theory looks at public administration from it's roots of capitalism, and goes on through the perspective of global capitalism. Intentional or not, new public management has served the interests of elites, particularly corporate elites, has degraded the ability of governments to address the public interest, and has served as a vehicle for elevating the apolitical governance of free trade and other supranational organizations,which have fully embraced thepolitical philosophy of economic rationalism and new managerialism.

Postmodern Public Administration Theory

When looking at this theory, it is important to distinguish between postmodern theory and the postmodern era or to differentiate between postmodernity (period of time) and postmodernism (theory/philosophy). Postmodern theory evolves out of the postmodern era. Chuck Fox and Hugh Miller are two of the main contributors to postmodern theory because they opened eyes to recognize the postmodern condition and how it was playing out in public administration and and public policy. This theory began in the 1990's, even though this theory had been around in other disciplines for awhile.This theory has been created through three intellectual movements, interrogating the loop model of democracy, showing that it is largely a myth, showing the symolblic nature of policy and politics in the United States, and discourse theory. One of the downsides of this theory is that it is easy to fall into the slippery slope of relativism. This theory also provided us, we hope, with the tools to rebuild our infrastructures of symbolic and social order. There are still many controversies over this theory, however the theory still remains rooted in public administration theory. This theory addresses big questions of what is right and wrong and tries to address the issue to find antidotes for anomie and relativity.

Public Administration Theory Development

Public Administration theory is derived from several contemporary theory building tools such as Max Weber's Ideal type method. Theories are also derived from studies of evolving governments around the world, such as China's expanding bureaucracy. Different aspects to take into account are: accountability, state-citizen relations, and services for all in times of fiscal scarcity. When developing theories, the most effective theories are the ones tailored for a particular country taking aspects such as values into account. When empirical evidence is the only aspect taken into account it leads to a ineffective policy because the theory will not reflect the values of the citizens, resulting in bad citizen- state relationships.  The Theory-Gap Practice is used to analyze the correlations between Public Administration theory and practice. The three fields of the theory gap-practice that describe the relationship between scholars and practitioners are: Parallel, Transfer, and Collaboration strategy.

Max Weber's Ideal- Type Method

The ideal-type method developed by Max Weber is a useful tool in contemporary public administration theory development, because the method takes into account the culture of a society that is then integrated into a theory. Weber referred to it as cultural science, or interpretive sociology, which is, to understand ideas and practices from within their own intellectual and cultural horizon and on the basis of categories that are grounded in a meaningful social and historical context. Ideal- Type methods are used to frame observation and analysis and to evaluate what is found. Webster's method must be developed using value judgments that direct our empirical observations and then guide our interpretation or those observations. Through this theory building method, Weber insisted that all interpretations of meaning must remain at best "a peculiarly plausible hypothesis", as opposed to a claim of relevance of a theory. Weber's purpose for using this method is to clarify the importance of values in sense making, but how they are also extremely important for the conduct of meaningful social science. Weber’s interpretive sociology employs a type of functional analysis that begins with the whole, proceeds to the parts, and then goes back from the parts to the whole. His ideal-type method is thereby simultaneously useful in both the study of social structure and social action. Social action is linked to subjective meaning at the individual level of analysis, and structural forms are a consequence or construction of social action. This combination is particularly valuable to public administration because the manner in which administrative action and the social structures of governance interrelate requires an approach that considers both. On the one hand, ideal-types enable consideration of things like alternative meanings of important concepts or alternative motivations held by social actors. On the other hand, they enable analysis of associated or resulting social structures. In this way, an ideal-type can concurrently help interpret the meaning of the administrative role as well as critique the institutions of governance. 

Important Figures in Public Administration Theory

Max Weber

Max Weber was a German political economist, social scientist, and renowned Philosopher is an important father to the theory of Public Administration and the bureaucratic side of it. He did extensive research studying ancient and modern states to gather a better perspective of bureaucracies in multiple eras for his Magnum Opus Economy and Society published in 1922. That piece of work has contributed countless insight into the Public Administration Theory. Max Weber considered bureaucracy to be the most rational form of administration yet devised by man. In his writings he asserts that domination is exerted through administration and that for legal domination to take place bureaucracy is required.

Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson defined public administration as a detailed and systematic execution of public law, he divided government institutions into two separate sectors, administration and politics. According to him politics is dealt with policy formulation and questions regarding such, whereas administration is equipped with carrying said policies out. In his own words in his early essay, “The Study of Administration” he said “it is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one.” Wilson very much so tried to establish a distinction between politics and administration; he saw administration as a field of business which lies outside politics. He thought the theory of public administration existed simply because of technicalities and was around for the behind the scenes business aspect of politics.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Frederick Taylor was an engineer by profession who saw much of life from a scientific aspect. He is a popular less conservative contributor to the Theory of Public Administration in that he produced his own, very popular, theory of traditional public administration, The Scientific Management Theory. He was concerned with finding the best and most efficient way to complete a task for a particular job, reducing the overall labor a worker had to exert with the least amount of movements. Frederick Taylors work approached motivation with a very authoritative, cold, scientific motivator which weighed heavy over any sort of humane aspect to scientific management. Overall many intricacies in Public Administration such as management, control and accounting are subject to scientific principles and Taylor draws on these to find his own, efficient theory approach to Public Administration Theory.

See also

• Lean Government

References

<ref>Brownlow, Louis. "Woodrow Wilson and Public Administration." Jstor. American Society for Public Administration, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

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External links

• The Northcote-Trevelyan Report