Public administration is easy to define by those satisfied with simple definitions, because it is apparently no more than the administration of public, as opposed to private, bodies. In fact public administration is far more complicated than this. Public administration it has been said relates to ‘all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy’ (L.D. White, 1948: 3). We will mean by public administration all of those organizationally centred directive activities pertaining to the implementation of public policies and/or the achievement of public goals (Palombara, 1974: 235).

Obviously we will be talking about government...

Governments grow. The history of the West shows that the activities of officials have multiplied in virtually every state, community and nation on earth. The growth of government is the one factor which appears to be a constant, irrespective of ideology or structure. If we take certain European states over a period of time we can observe that they have demonstrated a very strong tendency to increase in size. This is the origin of Big Government. In a century from about 1850–1960, the population of Great Britain has not doubled; in this time however, the number of officials has...

An old, but nevertheless important subject for students of public administration, is that of allocation of functions. This somewhat forbidding sounding title refers to a very important and complex topic which asks: on what basis should tasks be performed within the government machine? A typical example is the control of pollution. Some people see the control of pollution as an environmental matter, but of course the detection of polluters is the responsibility of the police, while an interest in the question of pollution is obviously a concern for the scientists in government as well as for a whole range of...

People are different. Cultures vary. However, we may often wonder whether there is a core knowledge known as public administration, which can be utilized; irrespective of cultural differences. We may hope to discover a body of knowledge, in this case public administration, of universal application. We may moreover hope to utilize at least a technical method of administration. For example, it may be that the principles of such matters as delegation, decentralization, span of control, allocation of functions and, of course, computer studies may have great value in all public organizations.

However, technical matters are not the whole of the...

Many hundreds of thousands of people are professional administrators in the public sector. Some are ‘born’ administrators in that they have the gift of, or feel for organization; some are ‘made’ administrators, almost as it were by accident; some have administration ‘thrust on them’ when they do not wish it. In Sweden approximately 40 per cent of the population are employed in the public sector; in Great Britain the figure is 32 per cent, in the USA about 20 per cent, but in Japan probably no more than 10 per cent.

There is a profession of administration though there is...

The expansion of the administrative profession appears to be one of the great features of the present century. We saw in Chapter 2 how governmental growth has characterized modern states and how according to some critics, productivity and ‘efficiency’ may be difficult to achieve. The question of efficiency is extremely complex when speaking of administration and is not readily defined. Very often the question of what is ‘efficient’ is a matter of opinion, is a value-judgment. In organizations, efficiency appears to be an ideal but many people become aware, on the vaguest grounds that the organization should be, even if...

If administration were purely mechanical then there would be no problem of corruption. Administrators however exercise discretion. Discretion is a serious matter for administrators who are required to weigh up the various factors in any decision before actually making a decision. There are some things that no computer can achieve given that administration is a human activity (Hodgkinson, 1978, 3–4). For the most part to administer, like to govern, is to choose. Such is the essence of discretion.

The terminology associated with the subject of corruption presents many difficulties. For the most part, people use the general term ‘corruption’...

Social scientists need to use a number of approaches, methods and techniques for the better understanding of the various problems which they are called upon to handle. Some social scientists, learn much from studying history, some from the use of scientific, including mathematical, concepts. All however, have something to learn from a comparison of theories and practices in different places, times and cultures. As far as this brief account is concerned, we identify a number of approaches within the broad area of comparative administration. There will naturally be a number of possible approaches, but the scope and variety will depend...

Many commentators point out the differences between post-colonial states on the grounds of their inherited colonial tradition. They speak of anglophone versus francophone traditions, for example, as English administrative theory and practice is often contrasted with French administrative theory and practice. It is believed that the colonial influence in these matters was decisive. In India, the British tradition of educated amateurs lived on in the Indian Civil Service, whereas the French have continued to see their colonies as something akin to administrative regions (departments) integrated in the greater structure of metropolitan France. The French colonies were peopled by French citizens...

One of the most striking features to the analyst of socialist systems is the simplistic view which socialists have of bureaucracy. The overall message is that bureaucracy is a product of the bourgeois order, and that in socialist states administration should be a reasonably straightforward matter. It was Lenin who argued that under socialism the ‘housewife will learn to run the state’.

However the lesson has been reluctantly learned that under socialism, no less than in so-called bourgeois states, there exist bureaucratic problems. We cannot simply reduce public administration to the simplistic levels as set out by the authors of...

Governments can do nothing, and may simply encourage a sense of drift. The famous British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury once said: ‘British foreign policy reminds me of a man floating downstream in a boat and throwing out a boat-hook from time to time to avoid a collision.’ In this sense policy is all improvisation and guesswork. Policy-makers accept inertia and inaction. Salisbury also held that the commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies (Letter to Bulwer Lytton, 1878). Innovation in other words, is nearly always mistrusted.

Other statesmen too have complained that they find it...

Policy-making in developing states differs in a number of ways from that which is carried on in developed industrial states. Western liberal democracies in the ideal sense are supposed to make policies in the light of the expressed preferences of the electorate, using political parties as the chosen instrument of policy. Non-Western states often reject competitive party politics, seeing the need for a single national policy, and possibly also a national ideology. Several possible characteristics may thus be described.

Most developing states use the organs of state government and party where appropriate to develop economic policies. Whereas in the West...

In the West, there is a sound and growing body of knowledge of public administration and public policy analysis. We may describe this as scientific, modern and secular. Such an approach to public policy and administration is, at its best, dynamic, and has produced many new ideas on the subject. Organizations in the West are not ‘sacred’ bodies apart perhaps from the Vatican. Since the end of World War II there has been much interest in organizational theory.

Much modern writing on public administration comes from the USA, where such subjects as policy studies are devoted to ‘the study of...