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Lecture 1

Public administration can be defined from several perspectives including political, legal, managerial, and occupational. It involves the activities undertaken by governments to serve communities through provision of goods and services. Key functions of public administration include planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling governmental operations to achieve public purposes such as protecting citizens, ensuring essential services, and promoting economic growth while balancing environmental and social concerns. Civil servants and professional civil servants both work for the government, with the latter providing technical rather than general administrative support.

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32 views3 pages

Lecture 1

Public administration can be defined from several perspectives including political, legal, managerial, and occupational. It involves the activities undertaken by governments to serve communities through provision of goods and services. Key functions of public administration include planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling governmental operations to achieve public purposes such as protecting citizens, ensuring essential services, and promoting economic growth while balancing environmental and social concerns. Civil servants and professional civil servants both work for the government, with the latter providing technical rather than general administrative support.

Uploaded by

ahmedgalalabdalbaath2003
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Public Administration

Lecture (1)
What is meant by public administration?
There are several definitions of PA., such definitions can be handled from several
perspectives:
✓ Political
✓ Legal
✓ Managerial
✓ Occupational
Public administration from a political perspective:
It is what the government does.
It is working for public interest
It is doing collectively what can’t be done individually
Public administration from a legal perspective:
It is law in action
It is whatever the ruling authority decides to grant
From a legal perspective, the government should not interfere in the life of
the citizens.
Public administration from a managerial perspective:
It is the executive function of the government.
Public administration from an occupational perspective:
It is whatever the public employee does
It is an academic field of applying both the art and the science of
management in the public sector.
Note that:
✓ We can’t rely on one perspective only to reach for better definition of
PA. It should be defined while taking into consideration all the different
perspectives.
From a comprehensive perspective:
Public administration is: all of the activities undertaken by the
governments to serve their communities by working for common good and
creating positive change through the provision of goods and services.
• Public Administration involves taking decisions that affect the use of public
resources for maximum public good.
• Public administration professionals manage at:
✓ All governmental levels (local, state, and federal)
➢ The relationships between different levels of government
within a single country represent a growing problem of
public administration.

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✓ Non-profit organizations.
• Public administration is a feature of all countries, regardless of
their system of government.

Civil servants versus Professional (Scientific) civil servants ?


• Civil servants and professional civil servants work for the government
Civil servants:
• Public administration professionals are known as: Civil servants
• A civil servant is directly employed in the administration of the internal
affairs of the country and whose role is not political, military, or
constabulary.
Professional (scientific)civil servants:
• They are the parties that provide technical rather than general
administrative support.
• EX: police, justice, military

What are the public purposes of the government?


1. Protecting the lives and the properties of the citizens
2. Insuring the supply of all the essential products and services (food \water\
energy\medical care)
3. Providing support for those who can’t care for themselves or have others to
care for them.
4. The promotion of balanced economic growth
5. Environmental protection
6. Maintaining the quality of life
7. Promoting scientific and technological advancement
Note that:
✓ The purposes of the government overlap and reinforce each other.

What are the four main functions of public administration?


1. Planning
2. Organizing
3. Coordinating of the governmental operations
4. Controlling

Planning:
Planning is used to reduce the uncertainty faced by the decision maker by:
▪ Assessing the future
▪ Participating in setting future goals
▪ Setting goals for plan achievement

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The importance of planning in the domain of public administration has
increased due to the rapid technological changes.
Although the future can’t be assessed with 100% accuracy, planners can
identify the choices available for the decision maker and identify the
possible outcomes are associated with each choice.
Organizing:
The function that public administration managers undertake to design, and
arrange the components of internal environment of the public organization to
facilitate attainment of the organizational goals.
Coordinating:
Co-ordination refers to:
Securing co-operation and team work among several employees working in
the organization.
Removing conflicts and working at cross purposes and overlapping
situation.
Controlling:
The purpose of control is to remove the obstacles the ability of the public
organization in achieving its own goals.
Controlling enables the public organization to interact with the environment
around it or the situation that arises within it.
There are several ways to carry out the controlling function.
Allocation of funds is one way of controlling public administration. Every
public administration branch is asked to prepare a budget and show how the
required funds will be spend so that at the beginning of the financial year,
every branch of public administration receives certain amount of funds to
carry out its activities. At the end of the financial year, every department is
bounded to submit reports which contain its achievement.

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