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Evolution of Public Administration

Administration And Public Policy (University of Delhi)

Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university

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Lesson: Evolution of Public Administration

Lesson Developer : Dr. Prakash chand

College/Department: Dyal Singh College

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Evolution of Public Administration

Introduction

What is Public Administration

Evolution of Public Administration as an Academic Discipline

Different stages of Public Administration as an Academic discipline

Politics-Administration Dichotomy Debate

Discovery of the Scientific Principles

Attack on the Universal Principles

Discovering the Human aspect of Administration

Shifting focus to the Third World Nations

American Turmoil and Minnow brook-I

Emergence of New Public Management

Globalization and Public Administration

Minnowbrook-III and re-discovering ‘the Publicness’ of Public Administration

Conclusion

Glossary

Questions/practice

Multiple choice questions

End notes

Web links

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Introduction

Public administration plays an important role in our day to day life. It provides a number of
services to us like, health, education, housing, social security and many others. The various
services provided by public administration affect the life of citizen from birth to death. In fact, it
is not possible for us to enjoy the different Governmental services if there is no public
administration. It is public administration which translates decisions of the Government into
reality. By delivering the goods and services to the people, administration maintains harmony
and cohesion in society.

Source: https://aspanational.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/pacloud.jpg,accessed on
February 12 ,2016

1 . What is Public Administration?

Public Administration is a sub-division of the broader concept of administration. Administration

means ‘to serve’, or ‘to manage affairs’. In this sense, administration means management of the
affairs of an organization. And Public administration means management of Governmental affairs
and activities. Thus, Public administration is primarily concerned with the implementation of
Governmental policies. Different administrative thinkers have defined Public administration in
different ways.

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Value Addition – Lets Define and Refine it more

Dimock, Dimock, and Koenig, 1960

‘Administration is a planned approach to the solving of all kinds of problems in almost every

individual or group activity, both public and private’

Simon, 1991

‘Broadest sense administration can be defined as the activities of groups cooperating to

accomplish common goals’.

Waldo , 1955

‘Administration is a type of cooperative human effort that has a high degree of rationality. Human
action is cooperative if it has effects that would be absent if the cooperation did not take place’

Paul h. Appleby, 1947

'Administration as ‘public leadership of public affairs directly responsible for executive action’

Public administration according to Felix A.Nigro is ‘a cooperative group effort in a public

setting’.1 Dimock and Dimock define Public administration as ‘the accomplishment of politically
determined objectives’.2 Woodrow Wilson, an authority in the field defines public
administration as ‘detailed and systematic execution of public law. Every particular application of
general law is an act of administration’.3 By public administration is meant, in common usage,
‘the activities of the executive branches of national, state, and local governments’.4 According to
L.D.White ‘a system of public administration is the composite of all the laws, regulations,
practices, relationships, codes, and customs that prevails at any time in any jurisdiction for the
fulfillment or execution of public policy.’5 To Corson and Harris, ‘it is the action part of the
government, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are realized’.6

On the basis of the above definitions of different Administrative thinkers it can be concluded that
public administration is an instrument of translating political decision into reality, it is the action
part of government, the means by which the purposes and goals of the Government are
realized. The process of public administration consists of the actions involved in realizing the
desires of a government. It is thus, the active part of government, concerned with carrying out
the laws, as passed by legislative bodies and interpreted by courts, through the processes of
coordination and management. In that way, it is the primary instrument to implement
Governmental decisions into reality.

2: Evolution of Public Administration as an Academic Discipline

Administration is both -an activity as well as an academic discipline. As an aspect of Government

activity it is in existence since the origin of an organized political system. However, as a field of

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study it has a brief history. In the US, scholars such as Woodrow Wilson advocated for civil
service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia. Though there is no
specific point in history when the journey of public administration began. However, an essay by
Woodrow Wilson (1887) is often taken as the symbolic beginning of Public Administration as an
academic discipline. Woodrow Wilson’s article , ‘The Study of Administration’, published in
the Political Science Quarterly, was written at a time when there was a grave need to wipe
out corruption, improve efficiency and service delivery to protect public interest.

Woodrow Wilson -The Founder of Public Administration

Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/President_Woodrow
_Wilson_portrait_December_2_1912.jpG. ACCESSED on 12 February 2016

Woodrow Wilson, the father of Public administration advocated that there should be ‘a science of
administration’. He argued that students of political science prior to that time had been largely
preoccupied with constitutional questions and had ignored the active operations of government
agencies. But, especially with the expansion of government, these questions were becoming
both visible and troublesome. For that reason, Wilson argued, was that ‘it is getting harder to
run a constitution than to frame one’7-i. Writing against the background of widespread
corruption, science meant, to Wilson, a systematic and disciplined body of knowledge which he
thought would be useful to resolve the crisis in administration.

Different stages of Public Administration as an Academic discipline

As an academic discipline Public administration has gone through a number of stages. The
following section will primarily deal with these stages.

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Source:http://www.slideshare.net/KarenAlanSamonte/trends-in-public-
administration (accessed on 13.9.2015 at 11 a.m.)

Politics-Administration Dichotomy Debate

The first stage in the evolution of Public administration is the Politics-administration dichotomy
stage. Credit for this debate goes to Woodrow Wilson. While commenting on the domain of
administrators; Wilson argued that administrators should focus on operating the Government
rather than on substituting their judgment for that of elected officials. The administration was
separate from politics and was confined to the execution of policies. So there is a dichotomy
between politics and administration. Wilson advocated the following four concepts in his popular
article (1887):

• Separating politics and administration

• Introducing Comparative study of public organizations
• Improving efficiency with business-like practices
• Improving the effectiveness of public services through training of civil servants.

While Wilson gave the call, it was Frank J. Goodnow who practically fathered the movement for
evolving the discipline of public administration in the USA. In his Politics and administration in
1900, he also draw a functional distinction between politics and administration, and wrote, ‘The
former having to do with the politics or expression of the state’s will, the later with the execution
of the policies’.7ii

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Public administration started gaining academic legitimacy in the 1920s. The notable in this
regard was the publication of Leonard D. White’s ‘Introduction to the Study of Public
Administration’ (1926), the first textbook completely devoted to the discipline. It reflected
the general characteristics of public administration as non-partisan. Public administration was
supposed to be a ‘value-free’ science and the mission of administration was economy and
efficiency. While not rejecting politics per se, the reformers of this period sought better
government by expanding administrative functions (planning, organizing and coordinating),
keeping them distinct from political functions (deciding).The politics-administration dichotomy
emerged as a conceptual orientation whereby the world of Government was divided into two
functional areas- administrative and political.

Discovery of the Scientific Principles

In 1927 W.F.Willoughby’s book Principles of Public Administration came as the second

textbook in the field reflected the new orientation of public administration. The new thought was
that there are some scientific principles of administration, they could be discovered, and
administrators would be expert in their work if they learned how to apply these principles.8 The
work of Frederick Taylor and the principles of scientific management had a significant
effect on public administration for the period between the two world wars. Taylor believed that
the scientific principles were universally applicable. He was keen to apply them to public
administration and supported attempts by his disciples to employ scientific management
techniques in defense establishment. One of the first test of applicability occurred when the Taft
Commission on Economy and Efficiency undertook the first comprehensive investigation of
federal administration. Its recommendations closely followed scientific management principles.

F.W.Taylor –The Father of Scientific Management

Source:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/F._Taylor_1856-
1915.jpg Accessed on 17 Feb,2016

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This period reached its climax in 1937 when Luther Gulick and Urwick coined seven principles
‘POSDCORB’ (i.e. Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and
Budgeting) in their essay ‘The Science of Administration’. Thus, this period reinforced the concept
of politics-administration dichotomy and to focus on a value-free Science of administration. The
central belief was that there are some universal principles of administration, and it is the task of
scholars to discover them and promote their application. Economy and efficiency was the main
objective of the administrative system.

If Wilson is the pioneer of the discipline, Max Weber is its first theoretician who provided the
discipline with a solid theoretical base. His ‘ideal’ type of bureaucracy continues to remain
fundamental in any conceptualization of organization. Weber’s formulation is characterized as
‘value neutral, having certain ubiquitous features. It can be analyzed from three different
points.

First, bureaucracy can be understood in terms of purely structural characteristics. In fact, the
structural dimension has attracted the most attention in the discussions on bureaucracy. Division
of work and hierarchy are important aspects of structural features.

Secondly; bureaucracy can be defined in terms of behavioral features. Certain patterns of

behavior form an inherent part of bureaucracy. According to Weber, The more the bureaucracy
is ‘dehumanized’ the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love,
hatred, and all purely personal, irrational and emotional elements which escape calculation. This
is the specific nature of bureaucracy and its special virtue”.9

Thirdly, bureaucracy can also be seen from the view point of achievement of purpose. This is an
instrumentalist view of bureaucracy. As Peter Blau suggests, it should be considered as an
“organization that maximizes efficiency in administration or an institutionalized method of
organized social conduct in the interests of administrative efficiency”.10

Principles of Max Weber’s Bureaucracy

Source: https://www.google.co.in/search diagram of Max Weber Bureaucracy

(accessed on 12.9.2015 at 4.04 am)

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What is distinctive in the Weberian formulation is the attempt to formulate ‘an ideal type’
bureaucracy. The ideal type is a mental construct that cannot be found in real life. The
bureaucratic model, according to Weber, is the most efficient organizational structure for
administrative system developed so far in the modern world. It is superior to any other form in
realization of economy, efficiency and stability.

Attack on the Universal Principles

Following World War II, many of the previously accepted theories of public administration came
under attack. In the critical decision-making environment of World War II, Washington quickly
exposed the unrealistic principle of politics-administration dichotomy. The wartime atmosphere
suddenly demonstrated the necessity for flexibility, creativity, and discretion in decision making.
The rigid, hierarchical administrative principles proved totally ineffective in such an environment.
As a result of these experiences, the focus shifted to the social, moral, and political orientation
of the discipline to challenge the dogma of managerial effectiveness.

In 1938, Chester I.Barnard in his book ‘The Functions of the Executive’ questioned the
significance of politics-administration dichotomy debate. Dwight Waldo, a leading critic,
challenged the validity of ‘principles’ borrowed from the scientific management movement and
urged the development of a philosophy of administration based upon broader comparative
study. He observed that Public administration cannot be fruitfully studied without taking into
account its political and social environment.

The most significant dissection of principles appeared in Herbert Simon’s Administrative

Behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administration organization (1947),
a rich intellectual work which facilitated Simon to receive the Nobel Prize in 1978.Simon
proposed the development of a new science of administration based on theories and
methodology of logical positivism. The focus of such a science would be decision-making. He
maintained that to be scientific it must exclude value judgments and concentrate attention on
facts, adopt precise definition of terms, apply rigorous analysis, and test factual statements or
postulates about administration.11

Chart of Simon’s Decision-making process

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:simons(accessed on 12.9.2015 at 4.20 am)

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Simon’s work emphasized the need of scientific analysis in public administration. He considered
some of the classical principles as ‘proverbs’ as these were unscientifically derived.

Discovering the Human aspect of Administration

The pioneering studies which resulted from the experiments in the Hawthorne plant of the
Western Electric Company in late twenties also challenged many prevailing ideas about
incentives and human behavior in groups. Since the Second World War similar studies have been
carried on at a number of universities. These studies of human behavior stress the human
aspect of administration, the need of employees for recognition, security, and ego-satisfaction,
and the importance of the social environment and group attitudes in work situations. They reach
the conclusion that employee-oriented supervision is more effective than production-minded,
authoritarian supervision.12Thus these studies highlighted the weaknesses of the machine
concept of organization and suggested for taking into account the social and psychological
factors of work situation.

Western Electrical Company

Source :http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/images/2900_3550.jpg,accessed on 17
feb,2016

The Human relation theory is a significant development in the evolution of Public administration.
Unlike the machine mode of organization, it views organization in its holistic social perspective.
It treats workers as human beings with all humanly attributes. It believes that each worker
carries with him a different culture, attitude, belief and a way of life. Therefore, the organization
must take proper cognizance of such socio-cultural aspects of a worker while engaging an
employee. It is also significant for identifying the informal groups, which are important in
achieving the organizational goals. Thus, Human relation theory discovered the human side of
organization and tried to offer human solutions to human problems.

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Hawthorne Experiments

Source;http://media.news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/Hawthorne4_605.jpg,accessed on 17 Feb,2016

What do you think?

Source:https://www.google.co.in/search?q=pictures+of+hawthorne+experiments
(accessed on 12.9.2015 at 5 am)

The claim that public administration is a science was challenged by Robert Dahl in his paper ‘The
Science of Public Administration: Three Problems’ (1947).He argued that the quest for principles
of administration was obstructed by three factors: values, individual personalities and social
framework. Dahl argued that a science of public administration cannot emerge unless we have a

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comparative public administration. He further hoped for a broadly based discipline, resting not
on a narrowly defined knowledge of techniques and processes, but rather extending to the
different social, economic and other conditioning factors.

Thus, it became clear that politics and administration could never be separated and the
principles of administration were nothing less than the expression of managerial rationality. The
need of the hour was to make the discipline more flexible, dynamic and environment oriented.

Shifting focus to the Third World Nations

In the post- IInd World War period, the emergence of new nations in Asia, Africa and Latin
America set a new trend in the study of public administration. The western scholars, particularly
the American scholars, began to show much interest in the study of the varied administrative
patterns of the newly independent nations. In this context, they recognized the importance of
the relevance of environmental factors and their impact on the different administrative systems
in these nations. This factor largely accounts for the development of comparative, ecological,
and development administration perspectives in the field of public administration.16Inthis regard
contribution of Ferrel Heady, F.W.Riggs and Edward Wiedner is significant. The cross-cultural
and cross-national administrative studies have provided the impetus needed for the extension of
the scope of public administration.

American Turmoil and Minnowbrook-I

The late 1960s was a period of turbulent time for the American society. The Government was
criticized for being ineffective, inefficient, and irresponsive to the contemporary challenges. The
American involvement in Vietnam War along with domestic scandals including the bugging of
Democratic Party headquarters (Watergate scandal) were two examples of self-destructive
Government behavior that alienated citizens. The expensive Vietnam War frustrated the
American citizens from their irresponsive Government.

US bombing operation(operation Arc Light)

Source: https\\en.wikipedia.org\wiki\public_administration,accessed on 17 Feb

2016.

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There was a demand by citizens for making Public administration relevant to the contemporary
issues. It was supposed to make distance from politics and become effective and responsive. A
group of young American scholars spoke against the contemporary nature of discipline. At the
Minnowbrook conference (1968) they advocated for what is known as ‘new public
administration’ to make the study and practice of the discipline relevant to the demands of the
post-industrial society. The conference was truly a wake-up call for the theorists and the
practitioners to make the discipline socially relevant. These developments coupled with a deep
sense of dissatisfaction among the practitioners regarding the present state of the discipline
especially its love for efficiency and economy. As a result of these circumstances a new approach
came into picture popularly known as the ‘new public administration

Value Addition- Surf and Know

To Get More on New Public Administration, you may go to

https://youtu.be/Y5csWomvoWM

Source;http://image.slidesharecdn.com/3npm-121204174420-phpapp01/95/npm-4-
638.jpg?cb=1354643106 accessed on 17 Feb 2016

The Minnowbrook I conference was famous for bringing about a new phase in public
administration characterized by value, relevance, equity, and change. Relating administration to
‘political’ was the central focus of the new public administration school. Public interest became
the central concern of Public Administration. The conference not only reaffirmed the irrelevance
of the traditional techniques of administration, but also stressed the obligations of public
administrators to be concerned with values, ethics and morality in dealing with the challenges of
society.

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Emergence of New Public Management

The Minnowbrook-II Conference (1988) is another landmark in the evolution of Public

administration. It gave birth to a new approach called as ‘New Public Management’ (NPM). Its
emergence reflected the changes that took place in the western nations. State as major
dispenser of social justice had been increasingly questioned across the globe since late 1970s.
The popular mood was against the state for its dismal performance in almost every sphere-
social, political and economic.
From late 80s and early 90s public sector management in the advanced Western democracies
underwent a sea change. NPM is primarily concerned with providing quality services to citizens;
ensuring greater autonomy to public management, rewarding organizations and individuals on
the basis of fulfilling their targets; and, keeping an open-minded attitude for the private sector.

Main features of the New Public Management

• It focuses on improving the effectiveness of Governments and Public sector organizations,
• It emphasizes on cost cutting and believes the government should deliver more for less,
• It believes in empowerment of citizens. Unlike the traditional public sector, it conceptualizes
citizens as ‘active customers’ to be always kept in good humor,
• it proposes a thorough organizational restructuring like, simplifying organizational procedures,
flattening of hierarchies, etc.,
• It is in favor of greater autonomy for managerial leadership by providing public managers with
greater flexibility in personnel policy like contractual appointment, work place bargaining etc.,
• Application of rigorous performance measurement technique is another feature of NPM,
• It encourages quasi-markets and contracting out techniques to ensure better management of
ailing cash-strapped public sector, and
• It believes in decentralized form of governance. It encourages all kinds of organizational and
spatial decentralization.
• It emphasizes on increasing adoption of managerial practices of private sector in public
administration, promotion of competition within public sector and greater use of contract
arrangements within the governmental organizations.

The New Public Management thus, believes in results rather than procedures .It talks of the
entrepreneurial government. It is characterized by participatory management and community
owned Governance, in which citizens are considered as active consumers and not as passive
recipients of programmes and policies. Citizens’ empowerment is the central concern of this
approach.

Osborne and Gaebler’s book Reinventing Government ( 1992) is a landmark in the

evolution of Public Administration which redefined functions of the Government. The authors
argue in favor of ‘entrepreneurial government’ that is certain to bring about radical changes by
(a)improving public management through performance, measurement and
evaluation,(b)reducing budgets,(c)downsizing the government,(d)selective privatization of public
enterprises and(e)contracting out in selective areas.

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Source: http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/osborne.html(accessed on 13.9.2015 at 4.26

a.m.)
Principles of Reinventing Government (Osborne and Gaebler)

Source:http://www.slideshare.net/KarenAlanSamonte/trends-in-public-
administration (accessed on 13.9.2015 at 11.10 a.m.)

Thus the focus of New Public Management is on democratization, decentralization and

debureaucratization of the administrative institutions and processes in the interest of the citizen.
Concept of governance has further led to the recognition of the role of multiple agencies in
organizing and undertaking public’s business. In addition to formal government, the role of non-
governmental organizations and community based organizations has been acknowledged as
supplementary public agencies.

Diagram showing shift from Government to E-Governance Paradigm

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http://www.slideshare.net/KarenAlanSamonte/trends-in-public-administration(accessed on
13.9.2015 at 11.12 a.m.)

Globalization and Public Administration

Globalization is another phenomenon which has introduced a major shift in the theory and
practice of Public Administration. It has set the discipline free from the traditional bondage of
structure and process and paved the way for a more flexible, less-hierarchical, and
accommodative kind of discipline connected by networks and collaboration. In fact, globalization
had increased the urgency of having a more proactive public administration. Both structurally
and functionally, public administration has experienced a radical change. Structurally, the rigid,
hierarchical, and bureaucratic form of governance has given way to a more flexible, de-
hierarchical and post-bureaucratic form of governance based on networks and partnership.
Similarly, at the functional level public administration has witnessed a profound transition in the
nature of delivery of public services.

Until recently one of the important functions of public administration was delivery of public
goods and services. But the onset of globalization and the eventual rolling back of the welfare
state led to a new collaborative form of public administration, where state has to deliver public
goods and services in collaboration with a number of players especially the non-governmental
organizations functioning at the grassroots level.

Thus, in the era of globalization public administration is playing the role of 'enabler' or
'facilitator' by privatizing the significant functions of a welfare state. Several methods have been
used to facilitate the privatization of welfare delivery viz. contracting out, encouraging private
provision, introducing quasi-markets, mobilizing voluntary sector and the like. However, the
shift from the role of a direct provider to a facilitator of welfare delivery did not make public
administration redundant. In fact, it continued to enjoy its key position. The centrality of public
administration is neither denied by the state nor by market. It provides state with adequate
support mechanism to govern.

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Minnowbrook-III and re-discovering ‘the Publicness’ of Public Administration

The Minnowbrook III Conference (2008) is another landmark in the evolution of discipline as a
field of enquiry. The conference was useful in conceptualizing the difficulties that Public
Administration was confronting in a globalizing world in two different and yet complementary
perspectives: one perspective, rooted in the complex texture of globalization, seemed to have
governed the effort at building universal models, and the other related to the quest for context-
specific models underlining simultaneously the possible influences from the wider global milieu.
It was, therefore, an occasion to chart the future road map for Public Administration by involving
both the senior academics like Frederickson, Lambright and Rosemary O’Leary and their younger
counterparts 13.

Rosemary O'LEARY, Coordinator, Minnowbrook III Conference2008

Source- http://cepa.maxwell.syr.edu/people/22/photo.jpg accessed on 17 Feb 2016

The Minnowbrook Conference III reflected the genuine concern of those seeking to conceptualize
Public Administration as an organic discipline that was equipped adequately to respond to the
new demands of global human concern. Primarily the scholars focused on four specific areas of
‘discomfort’ that appeared to have been critical in contemporary research in Public
Administration. These four specific areas of concerns relate to

(a) the nature and scope of discipline in the changed environment of a globalizing world,

(b) the complexities of the market-oriented New Public Management,

(c) the impact of inter-disciplinary borrowing on the methodological core of the discipline,

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(d) the growing importance of networked governance and collaborative public management in
re-conceptualizing public administration in a rapidly changing socio-economic and political
milieu. Public Administration has become a complex area of human endeavor simply because of
equally complex socio-economic circumstances in which it is rooted as a practice.

Hence the scholars highlighted the following challenges that needed to be addressed
meaningfully to re-orient the discipline.

Five major challenges seemed to have governed the discussion in the preconference
workshops which are:

(a) the challenge of remaining relevant,

(b) the challenge of understanding public administration with the election of the first African-
American nominee to the US presidency,

(c) the challenge of teaching Public Administration in Asia given the clear western bias of the
discipline,

(d) the challenge of creating a global discourse in Public Administration, and

(e) the challenge of retaining an independent identity for the discipline since Public
Administration has reportedly been dominated by Economics. 14

The third Minnowbrook conference has tried to rearticulate its ‘human face’ that was
significantly undermined in the second Minnowbrook Conference of 1988 with the uncritical
acceptance of the neo-liberal and market-driven structural adjustment programme to address
economic underdevelopment. In the debates and discussion, the participants highlighted the
importance of being truly ‘multi-disciplinary’ in order to understand the complexities in public
administration that would remain unaddressed within the traditional perspective.

The 2008 Minnowbrook Conference reiterates some of the major concerns of the first
Minnowbrook Conference which sought to redesign public administration by insisting on its
‘commitment to responsiveness, social equality and participation’. By reaching-out to learn non-
western experiences of dealing with public problems, the 2008 Conference is a counter to the
ethnocentric Public Administration. In the context of globalization, Public Administration, despite
its contextual character, is thus well-equipped to meaningfully address human concerns of
varied nature.

The Minnowbrook III emphasized the importance of ‘collaborative governance’ as perhaps the
best shield against bureaucratic delay. In an interdependent world, collaborative governance
refers to ways of institutionalizing coordination and to establish decision making processes that
works in multi-organizational settings such as networks of government agencies. Key to an
effective decision making is a meaningful coordination among various institutions involved in
making and also implementing decisions. Thus, the Minnowbrook III conference was an effort to
make the discipline relevant and meaningful in addressing contemporary human concerns.

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Conclusion

It can be concluded that as an academic discipline Public administration has passed through
different stages. It is an evolutionary discipline. The evolutionary process indicates the shifting
boundaries of the discipline in response to constantly emerging socio-economic needs. It has
changed itself in response to new inputs from the contemporary socio-economic and political
scenario. Today it is therefore difficult to grasp the nature of public administration in terms of
the Weberian conceptualization underlining its rigid, rule-bound and hierarchic characteristics.
Instead, the preferred form of administration is one which is accountable, accessible, and
transparent.

The notion of ‘public’ in public administration has acquired new dimensions where the public-
private distinction is more formal than real since there is a growing support for both cooperation
and healthy competition between these two sectors in the larger interests of societal
development. Today, Public administration is being directed by three kinds of Governance i.e.-E-
Governance, Collaborative Governance and Network Governance. ‘Public interest’ is the central
focus of the discipline. The Third Minnowbrook conference (2008) was also an effort to
rediscover the ‘Publicness’ of Public Administration.

Summary

• Public administration is both-an activity as well as an academic discipline,

• As an activity it is in practice since the origin of human civilization,
• As a discipline, its origin can be traced to Woodrow Wilson’s seminal paper titled ‘The Study of
Administration’ in1887,
• Woodrow Wilson is considered as the founding father of discipline of Public Administration,
• Public administration as an academic discipline has passed through different stages,
• Minnowbrook Conferences-1968,1988 and 2008 have a significant impact on Public
administration,
• Even in the era of privatization, liberalization and globalization ‘Public interest’ is the central
concern of Public administration.

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Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Downloaded by Adei Chaudhary ([email protected])