CHAPTER FOUR

CRITICAL ISSUES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1. Fundamental Issues in Public Administration theory and practice

This section outlines two themes that have traditionally characterized work in public organizations and
that continue to be of great importance today. As such, these themes—of politics and administration and
of bureaucracy and democracy—provide a part of the intellectual and practical context of public
administration. Although our purpose is to simply introduce these two themes, we suggest that they are
most often manifest in contemporary public administration as a tension between efficiency and
responsiveness. This tension is absolutely central to the work of public administrators today.

1.1. Politics and administration

Even though the supposed dichotomy between politics and administration is one of the oldest issues in
public administration, it continues to hold great relevance for administrators today. Wilson focused on
isolating the processes of administration from the potentially corrupting influence of politics. Accordingly,
although policies were to be debated and decided by politicians, they were to be carried out by a politically
neutral, professional bureaucracy. In this way, the everyday conduct of government would be isolated from
the potentially corrupting influence of politics.

Other early writers joined Wilson in talking, at least analytically, about the distinction between politics (or
policy) and administration. More practical reformers went further, creating governmental forms, such as
the council-manager plan for local government, that were based on a separation of policy and
administration. In this form of government, the council presumably makes the policy and the city manager
carries it out. The council is engaged in politics (or policy) and the manager in administration.

However, the distinction between policy and administration was increasingly broken down, even in council-
manager governments. Managers found that they had expertise that was needed by policy makers and began
to be drawn into the policy process. By about the middle of the century, Paul Appleby writes simply, “Public
administration is policy-making” (Appleby, 1949:170).

The increasing involvement of administrators in the policy process was in part attributable to the fact that the
operations of government—and in contemporary society, of non-profit organizations—were becoming more
complex, and the technical and professional skills needed to operate public agencies were dramatically
increasing. As people with such skills and expertise became a part of public organizations, they were
inevitably called upon to present their views. At the same time, the legislative branches of government (at all
levels) found it difficult to be knowledgeable about every detail of government and, consequently, were
forced to rely more and more on the expertise of those in public agencies. Additionally, the complexity of
government meant that legislative bodies often found it necessary to state laws in general terms, leaving
those within government agencies with considerable discretion to interpret those laws as they saw fit and,
therefore, make policy daily.

Ensuring Accountability: The acknowledgment of the interaction of politics and administration does not
make the question of their relationship any easier. If public administrators make policy, how can we be sure
that the policies they make are responsible to the people? Presumably, legislators must be at least
somewhat responsive, or, come the next election, they will no longer be legislators. But what of
administrators? Traditionally, the answer was that the administrators were accountable to the legislators,
who, in turn, were accountable to the people. But even that argument is somewhat tricky today. Those in
public and nonprofit agencies do indeed both work with and report to legislatures (or boards), but they
also shape public opinion through the information they provide. They mobilize for support inside and
outside government and bargain with a variety of public and private groups. To a certain extent, they act
as independent agents.

For this reason, more contemporary discussions of accountability place an emphasis on measures that would
supplement accountability to the legislature by either seeking a strong subjective sense of responsibility on
the part of administrators or by providing structural controls to ensure responsibility. Some people have
tried to assert professional standards in public and nonprofit organizations, while others have developed
codes of ethics and standards of professional practice. Others have sought greater legislative involvement
in the administrative process or more substantial legislative review. Still others have described mechanisms
such as public participation in the administrative process or surveys of public opinion that would bring the
administrator in closer alignment with the sentiments of the citizenry.

Although the classic dichotomy between politics and administration has become less distinct as the role
of public administrators in the policy process has become more apparent, the question of the relationship
between politics and administration remains central, simply because it goes to the heart of what public
administration is all about. If public organizations differ from other organizations in our society, that
difference must surely rest in the way public organizations participate in and respond to the public
interest. But that issue merely leads us to another: the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy.

1.2. Bureaucracy and Democracy

A second theme that grew from early discussions of public administration had to do with the potential
for conflict between democracy and bureaucracy. One writer has defined the moral commitments of a
democracy in terms of three standards. First, democratic principles assume that the individual is the
primary measure of human value and that the development of the individual is the primary goal of a
democratic political system. Second, democratic morality suggests that all persons are created equal—
that differences in wealth, status, or position should not give one person or group an advantage over
another. Third, democratic morality emphasizes widespread participation among the citizens in the
making of major decisions.

Set against these tenets of democracy are the ideals of bureaucratic management. To some extent the
public sector looked to the field of business for models of organization. It found that the growth of large-
scale business had led to the development of large and complex bureaucratic organizations, organizations
that were built around values quite different from those of democracy. Consequently, the bureaucratic
model of organizing was brought into the public sector.

The values of bureaucracy included first the need to bring together the work of many individuals in order
to achieve purposes far beyond the capabilities of any single individual. Second, bureaucratic systems
were to be structured hierarchically, with those at the top having far greater power and discretion than those
at the bottom. Third, bureaucratic organization generally assumes that power and authority flow from the
top of the organization to the bottom rather than the other way around.

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In contrast to the democratic value of individuality, there stood the bureaucratic value of the group or
organization; in contrast to the democratic values of equality, there stood the bureaucratic hierarchy; and
in contrast to the democratic values of participation and involvement, there stood the bureaucratic
value of top-down decision making and authority. How these values were to be reconciled became a
difficult issue for early scholars and practitioners in the field of public administration, as it continues to be
today. Varieties of questions are raised. For example, is it proper for a democratic government to carry out
its work through basically authoritarian organizations? The key issue turns out to be an emphasis on
efficiency as the sole measure of agency success.

1.3. Efficiency versus responsiveness

Those in public administration have long wrestled with the issues of politics and administration and of
democracy and bureaucracy. Public and increasingly nonprofit managers have begun to experience these
tensions more frequently in the day-to-day problems they face in terms of efficiency versus responsiveness.
Indeed, in a sense, the two earlier issues seem to have dissolved into the single issue of efficiency versus
responsiveness. On the one hand, there is the hope that public and nonprofit organizations will operate in
the most efficient way possible, getting things done quickly and at the least cost to taxpayers and donors.
On the other hand, public managers must be constantly attentive to the demands of the citizenry, whether
those demands are expressed through the chief executive, through the legislature, or directly.

The main point, of course, is that in public organizations, you may frequently encounter difficulties in
reconciling efficiency and responsiveness. A key to resolving the ethical questions raised in such kind of
situations is (1) understanding the various moral values represented on each side of the equation and then
(2) engaging in ethical deliberation (and perhaps dialogue) to arrive at a proper approach to the problem. In
this process, the result would be a course of action they both agreed on, one they felt met their obligations
to be both efficient and responsive. In the real world, dialogue sometimes works!

To summarize this point, the themes of politics and administration and of bureaucracy and democracy have
marked much of the history of the field of public administration. Today these themes seem often to
manifest in the tension between efficiency and responsiveness. Are public agencies to concentrate only on
creating the desired outcomes in the most efficient manner possible? Or should such agencies be responsive
to the public interest and the public will, even though the public interest and the public will may not have
been explicitly articulated by elected officials, especially those in the legislature? Time after time, you’ll
find evidence of this tension in discussions on public policy, human resources management, budgeting and
financial management, and so on. The tension between efficiency and responsiveness remains an “unsolved
mystery” of public administration. But perhaps for that reason, it is a tension that helps make public
administration such a fascinating and dynamic field.

2. Managerialism and performance management

2.1. Introduction
In the 1960s and 1970s there was a vast expansion in the intellectual development and technical capabilities
of public administration. The new tools of program evaluation and policy analysis, with quantitative
precision, called into question the efficacy and utility of long-standing public programs—especially those
having to do with social services and education. New budgeting techniques—from PPBS to zero-based
budgeting—meant that political executives and legislators could better see, if not better control, where
money was spent. The traditional management focus was expanded to include greater emphasis on strategic

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planning and internal control and ethical responsibility. Nevertheless, in spite of all these advances in the art
and science of public administration, the 1980s became a period of decline in the public service—declining
budgets, declining productivity, declining quality of services, and the declining reputation of the public
service itself. In response a new doctrine—managerialism—would emerge and ride, if not to the rescue,
then at least into the fray.

2.2. Managerialism
Managerialism as a term has long been used by sociologists as referring to the economic and bureaucratic
elites that run an industrial society. James Burnham asserted that as control of large businesses moved from
the original owners to professional managers, society’s new governing class would be not the traditional
possessors of wealth—but those who have the professional expertise to manage, to lead, those large
organizations.

In the 1980s, managerialism took on new connotations when the British government sought to refocus the
civil service from policy toward management. Managerialism, entrepreneurial management that goes
beyond participative management to unleash the creative abilities of public managers at all levels, became
the prevailing public sector doctrine. As a philosophy of continuous reform, it seeks to prevent an
organization from ever degenerating into incompetence. Paradoxically, managerialism is also a retreat from
participative management in that it assumes that a managerial elite can radically change and control the
direction, culture, and purpose of organizations.

Now “managerialism” is used worldwide to refer to efforts to force the bureaucracy to be more responsive
to the needs of its customers. Public managers are now expected to be policy entrepreneurs who forcefully
develop creative solutions to vexing problems.

Managerialism is an entrepreneurial approach to public management that emphasizes management rights

and a reinvigorated scientific management. The core theme of managerialism is management rights—giving
managers enough room to maneuver so that they can accomplish their goals. Managerialism is quite
comfortable with authoritarian management styles and a new version of scientific management—except the
search for the “one best way” has been updated to the constant installation of the latest in behavioral and
mechanistic technologies. In an effort to gain maximum control of personnel costs, and minimal problems
with introducing labor-saving technologies, managerialism seeks to contract out to the private sector as
much of the public’s business as it can. The techniques of administrative improvement advocated by
managerialism, such as management audits and program evaluations, are comparatively old. What’s new is
that these same old techniques, are being reinvigorated by a new doctrine or guiding philosophy.

Accordingly, modern public managers are expected to be policy entrepreneurs who forcefully develop,
argue for, and, yes, sell creative solutions to vexing problems. Current thinking calls for the most aggressive
actions on the part of administrators to fight the never-ending threats of waste, fraud, and abuse. There are
three major aspects to managerialism: reengineering, empowerment, and entrepreneurialism.

2.2.1. Reengineering
Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and redesign of organizational processes to achieve significant
improvements in critical measures of performance, such as costs or quality of services. The “message” of
reengineering is that all large organizations must undertake a radical reinvention of what they do, how they

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do it, and how they are structured. There is no room for incremental improvement. Organizations need to
quit asking, “How can we do things faster?” or “How can we do our current work at the lowest cost?” The
question needs to be “Why do we do what we do—at all?” Reengineering is the process of asking, “If I were
recreating this company today, given what I know and given current technology, what would it look like?”
Thus, reengineering is the search for new models for organizing work.

Reengineering takes reorganization beyond its traditional focus by seeking to totally rethink and refocus
how programs are managed and to take maximum advantage of new technology—especially computers. But
neither reorganization nor reengineering happens in a political vacuum. Harold Seidman warns that all
potential reengineers should be aware of the strong relationship between the organization of a legislature
and its executive branch. What may appear to be structural eccentricities and anomalies within the executive
branch are often nothing but mirror images of jurisdictional conflicts within the Congress. Legislative and
executive branch organizations are “interrelated and constitute two halves of a single system.

Becoming a Reengineer
Reengineering is as much a mental discipline and a philosophy as it is a process. The reengineer’s primary
skill is an ability to look at things such as work processes and organizational structures with new eyes.
According to Hammer and Champy, “When someone asks us for a quick definition of business
reengineering, we say that it means ‘starting over.’ It doesn’t mean tinkering with what already exists or
making incremental changes that leave basic structures intact. . . . It involves going back to the beginning
and inventing a better way of doing work.”

While there are various paths to reengineering, they all usually include the following three steps:
 Process mapping: The flowcharting of how an organization presently delivers its services and
products as a process. This emphasis on process is why reengineering is often called “process
reengineering.”
 Customer assessments: The evaluation of the organization’s customers’ needs, both presently and in
the future, by means of focus groups, surveys, and meetings with consumers of the organization’s
products and services.
 Process visioning: A total rethinking of how the work processes ought to function, keeping in mind
the latest available technology.

The key to successful reengineering efforts is the ability to challenge the assumptions underlying the current
system. Just as there are barriers to entry that face all new business ventures, there is a parallel set of barriers
to reengineering. Barriers include bureaucratic turf concerns, employee resistance to change, lack of
incentives, and general skepticism about just another in a long line of reform efforts. But with a strategic
commitment from top management, these barriers can be overcome. For example, a 1994 International
City/County Management Association report explained how Charlottesville, Virginia, reengineered its
process for issuing new business licenses to take less than a half-hour instead of two days; how Merced
County, California, reengineered its social service eligibility process to take less than three days instead of
the previous 40 days; and how Phoenix, Arizona, reengineered the time it took to get city property maps
from five days to five minutes.

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 2.2.2. Empowerment
Power is the fuel of organizational life. It is what makes things go. It is relatively easy for managers to get
the traditional authoritarian powers of domination that allow them to control and punish subordinates. What
is far more difficult is obtaining the power needed for positive accomplishment. This kind of power is less
formally given than informally earned—often by empowering others. Thus the paradox that managers can
often make themselves more powerful by giving power away. By empowering others, leaders actually
acquire more “productive power”—the power truly needed to accomplish organizational goals.

Managers who cannot delegate, who will not trust or empower subordinates, become less and less powerful,
and correspondingly more and more incompetent, as they increasingly seek to hoard power. Remember
power, much as with money—a variant of power—is like manure: you have to spread it around for it to do
any good. Perhaps the most common example of the dysfunctional withholding of power concerns the way
managers are punished for not spending all of their budgeted funds. The typical punishment is to take away
the money by reallocating the funds and then, to add insult to injury, budget less money during the next
budget cycle. No wonder managers have become adept at spending their allocations down to virtually the
last penny. Not only is this wasteful, but it also discourages cost-cutting to achieve real savings and greater
productivity. Empowering managers to control their budget savings is one of the main thrusts of the
entrepreneurial management movement.

Empowering Teams
Virtually all of the “new” approaches to management that are being advocated—the attempts to find
solutions to the “productivity problem”—have blended traditional management methods with new forms of
employee involvement and participative management. For the past two decades, we have witnessed a never-
ending series of “new” management approaches, particularly approaches that emphasize organizational
flexibility through the development and empowerment of individuals and work groups.

All of these team-based approaches assume that groups provide individuals with opportunities for personal
and professional growth and self-expression and job satisfaction. They also assume that these opportunities
cannot become available to workers in traditional hierarchical organizations. Groups provide structure and
discipline for individuals at work. Therefore, organizations that permit empowerment do not need multiple
levels of supervisors to coordinate, control, and monitor production.

2.2.3. Entrepreneurialism
The last and potentially most powerful element of the revolutionary credo is entrepreneurialism. This calls
for managers to be transformational leaders who strive to change organizational culture. Each must develop
a new vision for the organization—and then convert that vision into reality.

Entrepreneurial vision cannot and should not be limited to the top. At every organizational level managers
need vision and dreams, need the ability to assess the situation and plan for a better future. Those who
cannot do this, who cannot visualize and plan for change, are by definition incompetent. After all,
organizations that do not change must eventually die—even in the public sector. Besides, if you don’t have
a dream—a vision—how will you ever know if it comes true?

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Public administration, and management in general, is newly concerned— indeed, newly obsessed—with an
issue variously described as quality, competence, more bang for the buck, or meeting the needs of your
customers. The whole thrust of this trend toward managerialism is with instilling a newfound sense of
competence in organizations—to ward off the evils of incompetence. Unfortunately, competence and
incompetence are two sides of the same trick coin. It is a trick coin because there is no common agreement
on which side wins—no universal agreement on what constitutes either competence or incompetence. After
all, while one person may see obstructing red tape, another, looking at the same thing, may see a treasured
procedural safeguard.

2.3. What is Performance Management?

Performance management is what leaders do, it is the primary responsibility of an organizational leader. It is
the systematic integration of an organization’s efforts to achieve its objectives. What makes performance
management different from mere management is this emphasis on systematic integration. Thus it includes
the comprehensive control, audit, and evaluation of all aspects of organizational performance. The
components of performance management are long-established management tools that encompass most of
the other senses in which the term performance is used in the language of public sector management. These
components include:
 The specification of clear and measurable organizational objectives (i.e., management by objectives),
which is the essence of strategic management.
 The systematic use of performance indicators, measures of organizational performance, to assess
organizational output (this is closely linked to concepts of performance standards to allow the
performance measured in one organization to be compared with industry averages, best practice, and
benchmarking—the systematic comparison of performance between or among organizations).
 The application of the performance appraisal of individual employees to assist in harmonizing their
efforts and focusing them toward organizational objectives.
 The use of performance incentives, such as performance pay, to reward exceptional personal efforts
toward organizational goals.
 The linking of human and financial resource allocation to an annual management or budget cycle.
 Regular review at the end of each planning cycle of the extent to which goals have been achieved and
the reasons for performance that is better or worse than planned.
This creates the feedback that helps start the cycle anew.

Management Control
Management information and control systems are instituted in public agencies for two primary reasons: (1)
to allow administrators to find out what is going on in an organization (and in the environment as the result
of an agency’s activities) and thereby to manage the activities of others, and (2) to respond to the need to
report (to be accountable) to external groups. Control systems are employed to see whether plans are being
executed as intended, to monitor goal-oriented behavior, and to make corrections when behavior or results
veer from planned goals. This monitoring is essential because organizational goals, quite simply, often get
lost. This happens in part because organizations, as artificial entities, cannot have true goals; only people
can. And people, despite the fact that they create or join organizations with professed goals, all too often
have goals of their own that do not coincide with the ostensible goals of the organization.

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The more an organization’s stakeholders—the people affected directly or indirectly by the organization’s
activities—work toward their own separate goals, as opposed to the “official” goals of the organization, the
more incompetent the organization must necessarily become. Organizational goals get displaced when
employees become more concerned with what they can get out of, as opposed to what they must contribute
to, the organization. Thus, the most essential task of a manager— indeed, the “function of the executive,” as
organization theorist Chester I. Barnard (1938) asserted—is to maintain the “dynamic equilibrium” between
the needs of the organization and the needs of its employees.

3. Strategic Management in the public sector

3.1. What is Strategic Management?
Strategy, the ancient art of generalship, is the employment of—the management of—overall resources
(classically soldiers) to gain an objective. Tactics are the use of a subset of these resources to gain a part of
the overall objective. Strategic management is the modern application of this ancient art to contemporary
business and public administration. It is the conscious selection of policies, development of capability, and
interpretation of the environment by managers in order to focus organizational efforts toward the
achievement of preset objectives. These objectives necessarily vary. In the private sector it could be the
doubling of annual dividends to stockholders within so many years. In the nonprofit sector it could be the
creation of a repertory theater or a significant increase in attendance at symphony orchestra concerts. In the
public sector it could be a reduction in the crime rate, an increase in the high school graduation rate, or
victory in the war against terrorism.

All strategic management efforts take an essentially similar approach to planning where an organization
wants to be by a future target date. These are the six features that identify a strategic, as opposed to a
nonstrategic, management approach:
 The identification of objectives to be achieved in the future (these are often announced in a vision
statement).
 The adoption of a time frame (or “planning horizon”) in which these objectives are to be achieved.
 A systematic analysis of the current circumstances of an organization, especially its capabilities.
 An assessment of the environment surrounding the organization—both now and within the planning
horizon.
 The selection of a strategy for the achievement of desired objectives by a future date, often comparing
various alternatives.
 The integration of organizational efforts around this strategy.

The overall strategy chosen is in essence the package of actions selected after analyzing alternatives,
assessing the outside environment, and determining the internal capabilities of an organization to achieve
specified future objectives through the integration of organizational effort. The strategic management
process is often conducted by a strategic planning unit within the organization. Eventually, its findings are
presented in a detailed document known as the strategic plan. Many of the core elements of strategic
management just listed have unique considerations when they are applied to public sector organizations.

3.2. Objectives
The public sector was slower than the private sector in embracing strategic management notions. This is
because, traditionally, public administrators were expected to focus not on their objectives—what they were

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trying to achieve—but on their functions and responsibilities—that is, the duties assigned to them by law.
Indeed, public administration was traditionally defined as the enforcement or implementation of public
policy—that is, the law. This emphasis on the responsibility to discharge ongoing functions set down by law
has been the focus of traditional public administration. The seniority principle in promotions often
accompanied this attitude. After all, if detailed knowledge of how to administer the laws in a certain
functional area were critical, it logically followed that it must be better to have a more senior—and therefore
more knowledgeable—employee than to hire someone fresh, who might take years to acquire a parallel
level of knowledge. Job descriptions even emphasized knowledge of laws and regulations as a key selection
criterion.

In contrast, today’s most sophisticated selection officers tend to look for a record of achievement, as
opposed to highly specific knowledge of this kind. A world in which public administrators take
responsibility for unchanging functions still exists in some corners of the public sector in most countries, but
it is increasingly being replaced by a focus on objectives. No longer do we begin by asking a public
administrator, “What do you do?” (i.e., “What is your function?”) Today the question is more likely to be
“What are you trying to achieve?” (i.e., “What are your objectives?”).

Nonetheless, many public sector organizations still produce separate statements of their functions (or
responsibilities) and objectives. You can broadly distinguish the language of each. Since a statement of
functions is about what an organization is responsible for under law, it broadly answers the question “What
do we do?” The answer is normally a static description, timeless and without directionality. A statement of
objectives (often called a mission statement), however, answers the question, “What are we trying to
achieve?” Instead of a static description, this normally implies a direction being pursued, along with specific
measures so that we will know when we get there. A statement of functions might say, “We are in charge of
child care”; a statement of objectives might say, “We intend to provide a preschool place for every child in
the community by 2020.” A statement of objectives should be the following:
 Succinct, and limited to the organization’s sphere of influence.
 Directional, with specific future states to be achieved.
 Time limited, with indications of when each objective is to be achieved.
 Measurable, so that achievement or progress can be evaluated.

3.3. The Planning Horizon

Sometimes when you apply for a job, the recruitment officer or selection committee may ask you, “Where
do you see yourself in ten years’ time?” This is often perceived to be a silly question, and, with respect to
the structure of women’s careers, it is possibly a discriminatory one. But in asking this question, a selection
committee is trying to see whether the applicant for the job has a personal career strategy or is drifting in an
opportunistic way without a strategy, without personal objectives, and without a career plan.

The same question is most decidedly not silly when addressed to public sector organizations. It is of the
utmost importance to assess whether or not they have strategic intent—that is, the will to shape their future,
rather than merely reacting to changes driven by others. Any organization’s planning horizon, the time limit
of organizational planning beyond which the future is considered too uncertain or unimportant to waste time
on, is an important factor in assessing its short- as well as long-term viability.

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Long-term planning is inescapable in some areas of public sector activity. Some endeavors clearly require
long-term planning horizons because they need both gradual development and enormous capital investment.
Publicly owned power, water, and transit utilities must operate in this way. They must have long forward
plans and multiyear lead times to complete a new transit system, power station, or water purification plant.
Here, the constraints of traditional short-term government planning cannot apply. Often, such utilities, if
they are not already in the private sector, are placed in semiautonomous public corporations or
commissions. There they have more freedom to think, plan, and operate within a longer-term time horizon
than if they were to operate as traditional government departments. Government-owned utilities, with their
heavy investment and long lead times, illustrate areas of the public sector where long-term strategy and
concomitant long-term planning are inescapable.

3.4. Capabilities
Strategic management has been described, most notably by strategic analyst H. Igor Ansoff (1965), as “a
matching process” in which the variables of strategy, capability, and environment are matched as the
organization seeks to manage change through strategy. As the environment moves from stable to turbulent,
Ansoff argues, the required capability moves from “custodial” toward “entrepreneurial.” In a stable
environment, a custodial, unchanging capability may suffice. But as the environment becomes surprising
and turbulent, a more entrepreneurial and risk-taking capability is needed.

When mismatch exists between environment and capability, management must take action to better match
its human resources capability with the emerging environment. The actions required may include hiring new
employees who are better oriented by disposition or training to a new entrepreneurial environment. Existing
employees could be given additional training. Unfortunately, it is often the case that some employees may
no longer be suited to what the present environment requires. For example, a juvenile correctional
institution moving toward a counseling and support model may find difficulties if its staff capability
exclusively consists of tough custodial officers. Similarly, many organizations in the public sector whose
strengths have traditionally been in technical or professional excellence may find that new requirements for
customer orientation require, at the very least, extra training programs, but more likely the hiring of some
new staff with new attitudes and skills.

What is true of human resources capability is also likely to be the case with systems capability, or financial
capability—indeed, capability in whatever dimension is critical to the organization’s ability to adapt to an
emerging environment. For example, years ago, the task of servicing lighthouses—traditionally a public
sector function—was viewed as requiring a capability to maintain a fleet of tough little ships that could
reach remote areas. This capability later gave way to a capability to service remote locations by helicopter.
Eventually, as global positioning systems developed, that capability in turn became obsolete.

The SWOT analysis—a review of an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats—is a
technique widely used to provide another test of strategic viability. SWOT analysis is often conducted by
consultants or senior management groups in an interactive, brainstorming mode, in which the group turns its
attention sequentially to each aspect of the organization’s position. Analysis of strengths and weaknesses
highlights capability issues, while attention to opportunities and threats turns attention to the opportunistic
as well as the predatory aspects of organizational survival. A SWOT analysis is often undertaken as part of a

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situation audit, an assessment of an organization’s performance in absolute terms or in comparison to a
competing or parallel organization.

3.5. Strategic Management Tools

Strategy is inherently hierarchical. The most general notions come down from the top to be implemented at
various stages leading to the bottom. When the president orders “justice” for America’s enemies, that order
travels down the chain of command until a soldier pulls the trigger on his rifle and administers a full
measure of such justice to an actual person. Strategy sets into action the ways and means by which people
are ultimately shot dead, or given food stamps, or provided health care. Whether the end result is bullets or
bedpans, the strategy involved will travel a similar route toward implementation— from the grand strategic
(the national policymaking) level to the strategic (the highest organizational level) to the operational (the
planning or administrative) level to the tactical (the service delivery) level. Each level accepts strategy from
above but uses discretion to create sub strategies or level-specific strategies that facilitate implementation.
At the same time, each level develops measurement and reporting techniques to assess how well the overall
strategy is being implemented. Three of these tools for measuring effectiveness are best practices,
benchmarking, and management scorecards.

3.5.1. Best Practices

This may be the oldest idea in war and management—look at what your competitors are doing and imitate
their successful innovations. Long before the age of patents and copyrights, organizations—whether military
or industrial—would simply steal, borrow, or copy the best ideas of others. Remember that the whole thrust
of the scientific management movement was to find the “one best way.” But “best” is inherently temporary.
A successful innovation by reformers is followed by a period of increased effectiveness—at least until
competing organizations adopt similar reforms. But over time advancing technologies and changing
environments allow the innovation to deteriorate relative to other arrangements, first to become less
competent and then to become incompetent. Thus installing and maintaining best practices is quite literally a
matter of organizational life or death.

3.5.2. Benchmarking
This critical question must always be asked: is this organization efficient by industry standards? For public
sector managers, the challenge to maximize operational efficiency is critical because public organizations
may lose their credibility or even their right to exist if their managers cannot operate them in such a way as
to demonstrate acceptable standards of competence.

Despite the problems of measuring performance and productivity in the public sector, an objective baseline
is indispensable if any manager or government wishes to bring about better performance. Almost as
indispensable is a systematic way of comparing how you are doing with the efforts of others working in the
same sphere. This latter problem is not unique to public sector management; it is a problem all managers
face. This technique of comparison, known as benchmarking, was developed in the private sector just for
this purpose. It has now spread around the world and is widely used in the public sector.

3.5.3. Management Scorecards

In essence, a management scorecard is a tally sheet, just as are scorecards in golf or bowling. However,
what is being tallied is the performance not of individual players, but of the individual units or functions of a

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large organization. This allows the managers at the top to get an overview of how well their tactical
managers are playing the “game.” The whole point of the scorecard approach is to allow executives to
instantly scan, by looking at the scores, the status of their organization units.

In the early 1990s “balanced scorecards” first became fashionable in the private sector as a means to
evaluate a company’s performances from several perspectives simultaneously. Traditionally the emphasis
had been on financial performance (the bottom line), but a balanced scorecard complemented financial
performance with data on customer satisfaction, internal processes, and ability to learn—among other
measures. While report cards of this nature are as old as school, the scorecard approach suddenly became
“hot” in government once it was introduced in 2002 as part of the president’s management agenda. All of
the major federal agencies (more than 50 in all) change to were graded on their progress in these five
government-wide management initiatives:
 Strategic management of human capital.
 Competitive sourcing.
 Improving financial performance.
 Expanded electronic government.
 Budget and performance integration.

The grades were color coded so each department is rated red, yellow, or green for the level of success in
implementing each of the preceding initiatives. So what’s the point of these exercises in score keeping? It is
mainly a way of artificially creating the competitive forces inherent in the private sector. To a large degree
this is management by shame—no organization wants to be shamed by its rankings.

4. Ethics and accountability

Ethics and accountability are of paramount importance for the functioning of democratic governance. In
general, accountability can be seen as a system of external control, while ethics can be understood as a
system of internal control.

Accountability can be defined as “a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an
obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgment, and
the actor may face consequences” (Bovens 2007, 450). Accountability is generally understood as legal
accountability: if the actor has not adhered to legal rules and regulations, a court of law will punish the
actor. However, there are also other accountability forums leading to different forms of accountability, such
as political accountability (e.g., minister to parliament, representative to electorate), administrative
accountability (e.g., officials to audit office), professional accountability (professionals to supervisory
bodies) and social accountability (e.g., agencies to civil interest groups). More and more, public officials are
subject not only to legal accountability but also to administrative and professional accountability as well,
including also the ethical aspects of their behavior.

Definition of Official values and Standards of Behavior: Ethics Codes

In the field of ethics, rules and codes are still, by far, the most important instruments. During the last 15
years many countries have introduced new rules and regulations to prevent unethical behavior and to
promote good behavior. Today a well-written and well-implemented ethics code is seen as a useful

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instrument that clarifies the values and standards of official behavior to the extent that no administration can
afford to function without a code.

For analytical purposes it is useful to make a distinction between a code of ethics, a code of conduct and a
code of rules and regulations. A code of rules and regulations refers to legislative acts and other official
regulations, setting clear behavioral expectations and disciplinary consequences. For example, in Finland
the Administrative Procedure Act defines the fundamental principles of good administration such as the
legal principles of equal treatment and impartiality and it regulates the conflict of interests (grounds of
disqualification).

A code of ethics, on the other hand, discusses the ethical principles of official behavior. For example, in the
UK, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has defined Seven Principles of Public Life (selflessness,
integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership) which apply to all aspects of public
life. These principles are not statutory, but many public bodies have incorporated them into their internal
standards as codes of conduct. Codes of ethics are typically rather abstract and short documents (one to two
pages). They are often used to announce fundamental principles, but they usually do not provide detailed
rules or advise on how to adopt these principles in practical situations. For example, most codes of ethics
state that transparency or openness is a core value, but they do not provide guidelines on, for instance, how
open civil servants can be towards the public on matters that are still under preparation. Unlike a code of
rules and regulations, a code of ethics cannot be enforced, although some countries like Australia, Canada
and New Zealand make adherence to a code of ethics a condition of employment which means that there can
be consequences of varying degrees of severity for violation of the code. Sometimes, a code of ethics is also
called a values statement (Boatright 2008).

A code of conduct lies in between these two poles: it contains mid-level norms that set both aspirational
values and expectation values, and therefore, the level of abstractness varies from moderately abstract to
moderately concrete. A code of conduct can be seen as an extended code of ethics that transforms principles
into practice. Most of the ethics codes used by professional associations are codes of conduct outlining not
just general principles but detailed standards of behavior: for example, see the American Political Science
Association's code of conduct. In Europe, a good example for a public service code of conduct is the
voluntary, non-legally binding “Ethics Framework for the Public Sector”. It reflects the basic common
values and standards which the European Union (EU) member states consider important for the proper
functioning of their public services. It comprehensively discusses the general core values, specific standards
of conduct, actions to safeguard integrity and measures on handling situations where there have been
possible violations of ethics. The code of ethics is associated with the “high-road” or integrity-based ethics
regime, whereas the code of rules and regulations is associated with the “low-road” or compliance-based
ethics regime.

The distinctions made between a code of ethics, a code of conduct and a code of rules and regulations is a
heuristic device, but in practice these terms are often used interchangeably.

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 CHAPTER FIVE
COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1. Introduction
Comparative public administration refers to a comparative study of government administrative systems
functioning in different countries around the world. The scope of comparative public administration ranges
from the narrowest of studies to the broadest of analyses. Robert J. Jackson gave a broader, more acceptable
definition of comparative public administration when he defined it as “that fact of the study of public
administration, which is concerned with making rigorous cross cultural comparisons of the structures and
processes involved in the activity of administering public affairs.” Comparative studies, it was believed,
would enhance the utilitarian value of public administration besides widening its conceptual base, in that it
would make the discipline more ‘knowledge based’ and would serve to understanding problems better in
different cultural environments. This was precisely the reason why comparative administration movement
was closely linked to the development administration movement and the ecological perspective to
understanding public administration.

1.1. What to Compare?

In comparative administration studies the unit of analysis is the administrative system. The focus therefore,
is either on the whole of an administrative system or on its various parts. The subject matter of comparison
would be one or all of the following phenomena:
i. Environment of the administrative system.
ii. The whole administrative system.
iii. The formal structure i.e. hierarchy, division of work, specialization, authority/ responsibility,
network, decentralization, delegation, control mechanisms, procedures etc.
iv. The informal patterns existing in an administrative set up including the nature of human groups,
relationships among individuals, motivational system and state of morale, patterns of informal
communication and the nature of leadership.
v. Roles of individuals making up the system.
vi. Interaction between personalities and the organizational system.
vii. The policy and decisional systems of the organization that link its various parts.
viii. The communication system, which also involves the feedback mechanism.
ix. The performance of administrative systems.

1.2. Levels of analytical analysis in Comparative Public Administration

Comparative administrative studies can be conducted at three analytical levels: Macro level, Middle level
and Micro level. Macro studies focus on the comparisons of whole administrative systems in their proper
ecological contexts. For instance, a macro study would involve a comparison of the administrative systems
of Ethiopia and Kenya. In this comparison, a detailed analysis of all importance aspects and parts of the
administrative systems of the two-nations will be made. It will be comprehensive in its scope. Generally, the
relationship between an administrative systems and external environment are highlighted in the macro level
studies.

The middle range studies are on certain important parts of an administrative system that are sufficiently
large in size and scope of functioning. For instance, a comparison of the structure of higher bureaucracy of

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two or more nations or a comparison of local government in different countries will form part of middle
range studies. Micro studies relate to comparisons of an individual organization with its counterpart in other
settings. A micro study might relate to an analysis of a small part of an administrative system such as the
recruitment or training systems in two or more administrative organizations. Micro studies are more feasible
to be undertaken and a large number of such studies have been conducted by scholars of public
administration. In the contemporary comparative public administration, all the three types of studies co-
exist.

1.3. Range of Comparative Studies

This section outlines the types of comparative administrative studies. Broadly, there are five types of
studies. They are: 1) Inter-institutional analysis: It involves a comparison of two or more administrative
systems. For example, a comparison of the structure and working of the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia
with the Defence Ministry will be a case of inter-institutional analysis. Such comparisons could involve
either the whole of an administrative organization or its various parts. 2) Intra-national analysis: When an
analysis in the comparative perspective is taken up among various administrative systems functioning
within a country, it would be an intra-national analysis. Comparison of district administration in Mekelle
and Bahirdar would be an example of such analysis. 3) Cross-national analysis: When two or more
administrative systems (or their parts) are compared in the settings different nations, this would be cross-
national analysis. For example, comparing the recruitment of higher civil services of China, Ethiopia and
Tanzania would be cross national in nature. 4) Cross-cultural analysis: A cross-national analysis of
administrative system involves countries forming part of different “cultures”, this would be called a cross-
cultural analysis. For instance, comparing the administrative system of the Russian Federation with the U.S.
or comparison between developed and a developing country would be cross-cultural in nature. Thus, the
word "cultural" in the category "cross-cultural" has a broad connotation and involves an aggregation of
distinctive political, economic and socio-cultural traits of a particular system and its environment. 5) Cross-
temporal analysis: Such a comparison involves different time frames for analyses. For instance, a
comparison between the administrative system prevailing during Haileselassie’s reign and the Derge’s,
would be a cross-temporal analysis. Likewise, comparisons, between the administrative systems of ancient
Rome and modem Italy, or between the administrative practices prevailing during the period of Yohannes
IV and Menelik II would fall under the rubric of cross-temporal analysis. A cross-temporal analysis may be
inter-institutional, intra-national, cross national or cross-cultural.

2. Approaches to Comparative Public Administration

There are a number of approaches, models and theories presently characterizing the subject-area of
comparative public administration. Particularly after Second World War, a number of approaches have
emerged in comparative administrative analysis. Much of this effort is based on an adaptation of the
developments in comparative anthropology, comparative sociology and comparative politics. The following
describes the different approaches in comparative public administration.

2.1. Bureaucratic approach

The most influential of the approaches is Max Weber’s ideal-type bureaucratic model. This has structural
characteristics of hierarchy, specialization, role-specificity, and recruitment by merit, promotion by
seniority-cum-merit, career development, training, discipline, separation between personal and official
means, etc. The emphasis in the model is on rationality and efficiency.

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 2.2. Behavioral approach
The behavioural approach focuses on the analysis of human behaviour in administrative settings. It
emphasizes '"facts", rigorous scientific methods of data collection and analysis, quantification,
experimentation, testing, verification and an interdisciplinary orientation.

2.3. Systems approach

The systems approach views an administrative system as a sub system of society. It looks at various parts of
an administrative system (formal organization, informal organization, roles, and individuals) and examines
the inter-linkages among various parts. Besides, the approach analyses the dynamic interactions between the
administrative system and its external environment.

2.4. Ecological approach

One of the most popular approaches in Comparative Public Administration is the ecological approach which
has been stressed by Fred Riggs. This approach examines the interactions between an administrative system
and its external environment. Thus the impact of the political system, economic system, social system and
the cultural system, on the structure and behaviour of the administrative system as well as the influence of
the administrative system on these environmental structures is highlighted in the ecological approach.

2.5. Structural -functional approach

The structural-functional approach is mainly drawn from anthropology and sociology. A structure according
to this approach is a pattern of behavior that has become a standard feature of a social system. Further a
function denotes the impact of a structure on another structure and the interrelationships among the various
structures.

2.6. Development Approach

There is a lot in common between comparative public administration and development administration.
There is an apprehension however that comparative public administration may ultimately be overwhelmed
by the tide of development administration. It should therefore concentrate also on questions other than those
connected with development administration. Development administration is only a facet of comparative
administration and should be seen as such. Generally, this approach focuses on certain characteristics of a
dynamic administrative system, e.g. goal-orientation, change-orientation, progressiveness, innovativeness,
participation and responsiveness.

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