Public Administration: Meaning, Scope and Its Nature

Meaning of Public Administration:

Public administration is formed by two different terms, public and administration. The term
public means government which is mainly focus on government activities and actions. Whereas
the term administration is derived from a Latin word “Administer” which means to serve, too
direct, to control, to care for or to look after people. Literally, the term “administration” means
management of public or private affairs. Hence, simply public administration is known as the
management of public affairs. It looks after the affairs of the people and provides services to
them.

Here the main concern is public administration. Public Administration is the implementation of
government policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares
civil servants for working in the public service. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope"
whose fundamental goal is to "advance management and policies so that government can
function. Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government
policies and programs as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally
responsible for their conduct". Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public
administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as
municipal budget directors, human resources (HR) administrators, city managers, census
managers, state mental health directors, and cabinet secretaries. Public administrators are public
servants working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government.

Definition of Public Administration:

Simply, the public administration is defined as the study of government affairs. To know the
answer of the questions like, what is public administration, which dimension and scope it
includes, it is necessary to analysis the view and opinion of some scholars of Public
administration.

1. Public Administration is the detailed a systematic execution of public law. Every particular
application of law is public administration. -Woodrow Wilson (1887)

2. Public administration is the action part of government, the means by which the purposes and
goals of government are realized. -John J. Corson and J.P. Harris

3. Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose of fulfillment or
enforcement of public policy. -L.D. White

4. Public administration is that part of science of administration which has to do with

government and thus concerned itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of
government is done through there are obviously problem connection with legislative and judicial
branches. -Luther Gulick

1
 5. Public administration in all modern nations is identified with the executive branch of
government. It includes the shaping of policy on the way up, execution of policy after it has been
made, and as a necessary part of the execution, decision making about policy matters on the way
down. -James W. Fesler and Donald F. Kettl (1996)

6. Public administration is concerned with the management of public programs. - Robert B.

Denhardt (1995)

7. Public administration is the use of managerial, political, and legal theories and processes to
fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial governmental mandates for the provision of regulatory
and service functions for the society as a whole or for some segments of it. -David H. Rosen
bloom and Robert S. Kravchuk (1997)

8. Public Administration may be defined as all processes, organizations, and individuals acting in
official positions and roles associated with carrying out laws and other rules adopted or issued by
legislatures, executives, and courts (many activities are also concerned with formulations of
these rules).PA is also a field of academic and community study and professional training
leading to public service careers at all levels of government. -Milakovich and Gordon

9. Public administration:

(a) Is the non-political bureaucracy operating in a political system?

(b) Deals with the ends of the state, the sovereign will, the public interest and laws,

(c) Is the business side of government and as such concerned with policy execution, but it is also
concerned with policy making?

(d) Covers all three branches of government, although it ends to be concentrated in the executive
branch,

(e) Provides regulatory and service functions to the people in order to attain good life,

(f) Differs significantly from private administration, especially in its emphasis on public and
interdisciplinary in nature as it draws upon other social science like political science, economics
and sociology. -S.P. Naidu

10. Public administration:

(a) is a cooperative group effort in a public setting;

(b) covers all three branches –executive, legislative, and judicial-and their interrelationships;

(c) has an important role in the formulation of public policy, and is thus part of the political
process;

2
(d) is different in significant ways from private administration; and

(e) is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals. -Felix A. Nigro and
Lloyd G. Nigro (1989)

Thus, public administration is a cooperative effort of a group of people in pursuit of common

objective in the process of managing public affairs. Analysis of the above definition includes that
the term public administration has been used in two senses- narrower sense (view of traditional
writers) and wider sense (view of modern writers). In narrower sense public administration
includes the activities of only execution.

Scope of Public Administration:

Public administration is an evolving applied social science. It is still in the process of evolution.
Hence, the scope of public administration is not completely clear and realized. However, it is
obvious that public administration is an activity done by the human beings for human beings
living in the society. As in the case of its definition there is also argue over the scope of public
administration between the traditional and modern views of the followers.

1. Traditional view: The traditional writers restricted the scope of public administration to the
executive branch of government only. In narrow sense public administration covers the primarily
the organization, personnel, practices and procedures essential to effective performance of the
civilian functions entrusted to the executive branch of the government.

2 . Modern view: The modern writers have extended the scope of public administration to all the
three branches of government, according to them; public administration is the whole government
in action. In a democracy all major administrative policies from the legislative in the form of
laws and the legislature also exercise control over administration with the view to see that the
policies are implemented as it intends. The judiciary has the power to restrain public
administration from the unconstitutional, illegal and arbitrary acts. Therefore, all three branches
of government are part of the study and practice of public administration. By the scope of public
administration, we mean the major concern of public administration; as an activity and as a
discipline.

1. As an activity

Broadly speaking, Public Administration embraces all the activities of the government. Hence as
an activity the scope of public administration is no less than the scope of state activity. In the
modern welfare state people expect many things a wide variety of services and protection from
the government. Several writers have defined the scope of public administration in varying
terms. Luther Gulick has given the elements of administration as an activity in the acronym that
is POSDCoRB which means:

3
P= Planning,

O= Organizing

S= Staffing

D= Directing

C= Coordinating

R= Reporting and

B= Budgeting.

According to Gulick the POSDCoRB activities are common to all organizations. They are the
common problems of management which are found in different agencies regardless of the nature
of the work they do. POSDCoRB gives unity, certainty, and definiteness and makes the study
more systematic. This element is not enough as scope of public administration.

The scope of public administration as activity (wider or narrower) depends upon the state
activities. In the modern welfare state (especially in developing countries) people expect many
things from the government. Public administration of a welfare state provides a number of
welfare and social security services to the people and public administration has to perform
regular activities of the state as like to take care of private sector and corporate organization as
well as activities of NGO/INGO. Public administration covers every area and activity of
government. In this sense it includes all operations of exploration of outer space to sweeping the
streets.

2. as a discipline We all know that public administration deals not only with the processes but
also with the substantive matters of administration, such as Defense, Law and Order, Education,
Public Health, Agriculture, Public Works, Social Security, Justice, Welfare, etc. These services
require not only POSDCoRB techniques but also have important specialized techniques of their
own which are not covered by POSDCoRB techniques. For example, if you take Police
Administration it has its own techniques in crime detection, maintenance of Law and Order, etc.,
which are much and more vital to efficient police work, than the formal principles of
organization, personnel management, coordination or finance and it is the same with other
services too. Therefore, the study of public administration should deal with both the processes
(that is POSDCoRB techniques and the substantive concerns).

The scope of public administration as a discipline (subject matter); i.e., particular subject of
study in public administration are: Public Administration compromises of the following elements

 Organization

 Management of personnel

4
 Method and procedure

 Public Finance

 Administrative Accountability

Organization

This involves the Structuring of individuals and functions in to productive relationship. It

represents the Static part of the administration. It is called as the anatomy of public
administration.

Management of Personnel

This is concerned with the direction of individuals and functions to achieve the predetermined
ends. It represents the dynamic aspect of Administration and it may be called the Physiology of
administration.

Method and Procedure

This represents the technique of administrating, the process of working, and the law of
administration.
Material and supply

This includes the tools with whose help the administrative Work is carried on.

Public Finance

This is the material without which Personnel cannot be employed and work cannot be performed.
This is the chief determining factor in public Administration, in fact, in the whole government, as
the efficiency and the prestige of the administration depends upon it.

Administrative Accountability

This is the accountability of the administration both in terms of internal Control as well as
external responsibility to the judiciary, the legislative and the People. We can conclude that the
scope of public administration with the statement of Lewis Meriam: “Public administration is an
instrument with two blades like a pair of scissors. One blade may be knowledge of the field
covered by POSDCoRB, the other blade is knowledge of the subject matter in which these
techniques are applied. Both blades must be good to make an effective tool”.

5
Nature of public administration:

There are two broad views regarding the nature of public administration. The integral view and
the managerial view;

1. The Integral view

According to this view, administration is the sum of total activities- manual, clerical, technical,
managerial etc, which are under taken to realize the objectives. This view believes that public
administration comprises all types of operations undertaken by all persons ranging from the
lowest to the highest in order to implement public policies. Supporter of this views are Woodrow
Wilson, Marshal Dimock, John Piffnner, L.D. White etc.

2. Managerial View

According to this view, administration comprises the work of only those people who are engaged
in performing managerial functions in an organization. If we take a managerial view, public
administration focus principally on the planning, organizing, directing, controlling and
coordination of governmental operations. Managerial view believes in getting the things done,
not doing things. Luther Gulick, Henry Fayol, Robert Dhal, Herbert Simon etc support this view.

Is Public Administration Science or Arts?

At a first glance it seems easier to accept public administration as an art. It is just the
administration of Government affairs and for most part it does not follow the laws of Science
like absence of normative value, predictability of behavior and universal application. So, does
that mean we cannot list it into a respectable category of scientific subjects? There are many
authors who ferociously defended it and argued that public administration as an area of study is
indeed a Science. The earliest of them was Lorenz von Stein an 1855, a German professor from
Vienna who said that public administration is an integrated Science and viewing it just as
administrative laws was a restrictive definition.

In modern times, categorizing public administration as Science found favor with many, the most
important one being the father of American public administration, President Woodrow Wilson.
We shall read more about the Wilsonian view of public administration in the next article,
however he mainly emphasized that the objective of administrative study is to discover what
government can properly and successfully do and how it can do those things with utmost
efficiency with least possible cost of money or energy. After Wilson another important argument
came from Frederick Taylor who wrote a book called The Principles of Scientific Management
(1911) in which he proposed to discover one best way of doing things/operation and thus save on
cost on time and energy.

Luther Gulick and L Urvick collectively published, Papers on the Science of Administration
which reaffirmed its status as a Science.

6
W F Willoughby stated that public administration like Science has certain fundamental
principles which can be generally applied and therefore it is a Science. However, there still
remain certain aspects to be established before public administration can be actually and in real
terms, be classified as a Science. The places of normative values in public administration should
be clearly defined. More efforts should be put in to understanding the human nature and
dynamics at play in public administration.

Lastly, the principles of public administration should derive references from across the worlds,
cultures, type of states etc. to make them more universal and free of cultural, religious and
political biases. The advent of the modern welfare state itself has added, to the changing
approach to public administration. The kind of activities and sphere of works have never been
more varied and dynamic and there has been a never before interest in actually improving the
efficiency of the government.

Subject matter experts like Frederick Taylor have opened ways to exploration, experimentation,
observation, collection of data and analysis based on which principles and laws can be made.
There are increasing number of authors like Metcalfe, Fayol, Emerson, Follett, Mooney, and
more recently Drucker etc who have written on the subjects of administration.

In-fact Drucker wrote a book called “The Age of Discontinuity” and one of the chapters of the
book called The Sickness of Government became the basis of the New Public Management
theory popular in 1980s which emphasized the market oriented management of the public sector.
So, one can safely say that with the changing times and more and more studies carried out in the
field of social sciences, administration and human relations, the subject of public administration
can no longer take the shelter of art and would have to emerge stronger with relevant and
fundamental principles like that of Science.

References:

1. Shrestha Tulsi Narayan (2007), Public Administration Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar.

2. Bhatta Bhim Dev (2065) Sarbajanik Prashan ko Adhabhut Siddhanta, America: Shree Asisdev
Bhatta 3. https://www.managementstudyguide.com/

4. Wilson, W. (1887). The study of administration. InR. J. Stillman, II. Public administration:
concepts and cases, 6-17.

5. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

6. Denhardt, Robert B. and Joseph W. Grubbs, 2003, Public Administration: An action

Orientation, Fourth Edition, Thomson (Wadsworth), Canada.

7. http://www.markedbyteachers.com/university-degree/social-studies

8. https://www.managementstudyguide.com/public-administrationk
7