KYT102U-INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Chapter 1: Defining Public Administration
Introduction
To put forward a definition of what public administration is, we must first define what the public is. We need to understand what the services or goods produced by the public are and to whom they are offered. Then, it is necessary to understand how these services are financed; how the services will be charged; by whom these services are carried out, and under which rules the management is carried out. Therefore, to define public administration, it is necessary to reveal what its basic concepts are. Then we can describe what public administration means as a political, legal, executive, professional, and academic field. Finally, the comparison of public administration to private administration will reveal its generic management features.
The Basic Concepts of Public Administration
Defining public administration is both an easy and a difficult task. It is easy because it is a situation that we constantly live in our daily life. It is difficult because the scope and boundaries of public administration are not clear and constantly changing. The common definition of public administration is to implement public policy decisions and to provide public services to the public using public resources through public organizations and personnel or other organizations under the supervision of the public administration.
Public
Webster’s dictionary defines the word public in many senses, both as a noun and an adjective as follows: whole, everyone, people, general, openness, community, etc. The word public includes all people living in a country whether they are citizens of that country or not. For example, places within the borders of a country such as parks, roads, and seas are open not only to the citizens of the country but also to everyone living in that land at a certain time. But sometimes laws may limit the use of certain public goods and services such as free health insurance or only offer them to their citizens. In this respect, it is important to define public goods and services.
Public Goods/Service
Public service includes not only the services carried out by public institutions but also the services carried out by the public and private enterprises under the control of the public. Gozubuyuk lists the features of public service as follows:
1. It must be in the public interest. 2. It should be carried out under the principle of equality and impartiality. 3. It can be local or regional. 4. It is determined by a political decision. 5. It is carried out continuously and regularly. 6. It is free.
Along with the change in the state and public administration, the nature of traditional public service has also changed. Public goods are now divided into pure
public goods and impure public goods. Pure public goods are non-rivalry and non-excludable goods and services such as justice and security. For this kind of public goods, there is no competition in consumption and no one can be excluded from their benefits, and an additional consumer who wants to benefit from public goods and services does not create any additional cost.
Public Personnel
Public services are mostly carried out by public personnel working at local and national levels. This personnel is also called public servants or bureaucrats. They operate under the rules of public law but are also subject to their specific laws. Serving the public as a public servant is considered an important and prestigious job in many countries. With the transformation of public administration, the function and definition of public personnel have also changed over time. Nowadays, both private and nonprofit institutions also provide public services under the supervision of public administration. Accordingly, the concept of public personnel expands and differs from its traditional meaning.
Public Policies
Public policies refer to all decisions and policies made by a public authority at the local and national levels. These decisions can be taken by the legislative, executive, or judicial organs. Public policies lead public administrators and personnel who produce public goods and services within the framework of the decisions made.
Public Resources
Public resources mostly consist of taxes paid by citizens. In addition, it includes fees paid by citizens for services and goods. Public administrators and their personnel operate under strict control while using these resources. The principles of equality, impartiality, transparency, and justice require precision in the distribution of these resources.
In this context, it is necessary to mention the Free Rider issue: A person who doesn’t pay his/her taxes but still uses parks, recreation areas, and roads paid out of the taxes of law-abiding citizens. The free rider problem is the inefficient use of goods and services, which can lead to unnecessary and excessive consumption of public resources.
Public Organizations/Institutions
The public administration cannot provide sufficient services without widespread institutional and organizational structure for public personnel to fulfill their duties and use public resources. As a result, national governments are organized both centrally and locally to provide services that concern the entire population.
Definition of Public Administration
Scientists have emphasized different aspects of public administration. Some have considered public administration as equal to politics and claimed that public
administration could not be separated from politics. Others who put forward their pioneering discussions in the distinction between politic-administration saw the administration as a technical application of executive organs separate from politics.
Whether administration and politics are the same has been the subject of long debates in the public administration literature. Even the theme of the first academic article written directly on public administration revolves around politics and administration dichotomy (Wilson, 1887). That is also argued by Goodnow (1900); and Simon (1947) in the context of Simon’s distinctions between facts (management) and values (politics) (Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari, 2016). Another group of scholars led by Waldo (1948) is against this distinction and argues that administration cannot be separated from politics.
Besides, defining public administration as politics, executive or legal action, public administration can be defined as a profession, and an academic field, or refer to public institutions and organizations under the umbrella of government. All these definitions contain a grain of truth and are very important in terms of revealing what public administration is, and how inclusive it is.
Public Administration as Execution
The most prominent aspect of public administration is execution. Public administration is everything that is put into practice by public administrators, from the highest to the lowest official. Every order given by the President, every decision of the Minister of Health, or an operation performed by a doctor in the local hospital is an example. The decisions made by the political power or senior bureaucrats, and then the works carried out by the public personnel reveal the implementation features of the public administration. This reveals the functional and practical side of public administration.
Public Administration as Politics
Since public administration is directly affected by the political sphere, it is common to define it as politics. Public administration is involved in the public policy-making process through parliament, ministries, or consultancies. For example, politicians ask bureaucrats to analyze the issue before making decisions such as the salaries of public servants or the tax rate to be collected. Politicians often make decisions in accordance with these analyzes made by bureaucrats. In this process, the involvement of public bureaucrats in the creation of public policies means that they are directly involved in the field of politics.
Public Administration as Legal Action
Public administration is the enforcement of laws. The laws made by the parliament, the decisions taken by the judiciary, and the regulations of the ministries gain value only when they are put into action by public bureaucrats. Most countries have specific laws regarding public administration. The main task of the public administration
is to implement these laws. Public officials thus ensure public order by applying the rules of law.
Public Administration as Profession
Public administration can also be defined as a profession. The public personnel regime has been designed as a separate profession. Hiring, promotion, rewards, penalties, careers, and layoffs are all subject to different legislation. A person working in the public sector presents herself as a specialist, an engineer, or a teacher as well as public personnel.
Scholars argue that to understand if public administration is a profession, it is necessary to test whether it has certain features of traditional professions. They list these features as follows:
1. A collection of academic and practical knowledge applied for service to the community. 2. A theoretically measured standard of success by serving the needs of society rather than pursuing purely personal gain. 3. A system of control over a professional practice that regulates the training of new members and both maintains ethical rules and enforces proper sanctions.
Public Administration as Academic Field
Public administration is also an academic field. As a scientific and academic field of study, it is relatively new, compared to very old academic fields such as sociology, political science, philosophy, economy, and law. Its emergence as an academic field is in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has long been considered a sub-branch of administrative law or political science. Public administration is an interdisciplinary science.
Public Administration as Organization
Public administration structurally refers to organizations of the state. The organization does not only involve bringing tangible and intangible resources together but also necessitates the establishment of a hierarchical order among personnel. Management principles such as the chain of command, separation of duties and powers, specialization, and departmentalization are necessary to establish this order.
Public and Private Administration
One of the methods used when defining public administration is to show its difference from other types of administrations. In this regard, many scholars have discussed the similarities and differences between public and private administration.
Similarities
Classical management theorists, such as Henri Fayol (2012), Urwick and Gullick (1937), who tried to establish universal management principles and functions, did not see much difference between public and private administration. Similar views were put forward by the famous Greek
philosopher Socrates centuries before these scientists. Socrates revealed the characteristics of generic management in his dialogue with the successful general Nicomachides. According to Socrates, there is no fundamental difference between the leadership functions of a family leader and a statesman.
Points of Similarities
1. Management Functions: Both public and private administrations have certain management functions, which are developed by scholars such as Fayol (2012), Gullick and Urwick (1937). According to Fayol, there are five functions: planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling. 2. Management Principles: Both public and private administrations are organized according to the principles of administration, even if they differ in degree. 3. Management Techniques: Both public and private administrations use similar management techniques to be successful in implementing the tasks. 4. Management Problems: Both public and private administrations are faced with similar problems. 5. Management Style: The transfer of senior managers from the public to the private sector or vice versa has led to the emergence of similar leadership types in both administrations. 6. Management of Public-Private Partnership: Globalization and rapidly developing technology have made things much more complex and interrelated. This development has increased the interdependence of both public and private sectors. As a result of this, mutual resource and knowledge transfer between the two sectors have become necessary.
Differences
Despite the general similarities mentioned above, scholars have mostly argued that public administration is different from private administration (Appleby, 1945; Simon et al., 1991). According to Appleby (1945:125), public administration differs from private administration in three aspects: The breadth of its scope, its impact and evaluation; public accountability; political character.
Points of Differences
1. Goals: The main purpose of public administration is to provide public service and public benefit. On the other hand, private enterprises do not have to serve for public benefit. The only goal of private management is to take actions that will maximize its profits. 2. Revenues: The main sources of income for public administration are taxes. As for the private administrations, the only source of income is the revenues they get from sales or the services they provide.
3. Equity and Efficiency: One of the main objectives of public administration is to provide services that will ensure equality among its citizens. Benefits such as rent, state health insurance, and unemployment benefits are provided free of charge for this purpose in accordance with the understanding of the social welfare state. But the private administration has no such obligation. 4. Performance Measurement: It is very difficult to measure the performance of both public institutions and public personnel since the main purpose of public administration is not to make a profit. On the other hand, it is very easy to measure performance for the private administration. 5. Structure: In many countries, the most complained feature of public administration is its rigid bureaucratic and hierarchical structure. Conversely, the structure of most private sector organizations is more flexible, since the private sector must have a flexible organizational structure to survive in a competitive market. 6. Norms, Laws, Rules: Public administration operates under very strict public laws and rules. On the other hand, the private sector acts under general laws and rules. 7. Coercive Power: Public administration uses public authority over people and private administration in performing its functions. While the public administration has the right to use this power on private and other administrations, private administration does not have such coercive power. 8. Job Security: The job security of employees in public administration is higher than those in the private sector. 9. Scrutiny, Process: The activities of the public administration are closely monitored by the public. The private sector, on the other hand, is only monitored and supervised by its owners or shareholders. 10. Scope: The scope of public administration is quite wide. In its broadest sense, any matter of public interest can be included in the scope of public administration and it often has no freedom to determine its scope. Private management, on the other hand, operates within a narrower area, where they want to do business. 11. Dealing with Social Cost: Public administration has to bear the social cost of externalities. There is no such requirement for private management. 12. Accountability: The public sector and private sector have different forms of accountability. Public management is accountable to the political leadership, parliaments, and the public, whereas private management is theoretically accountable to shareholders.
13. Role of the Media: Because the public administration is open to public scrutiny, everything it does and will do is mostly covered in the media. However, unless necessary, the private sector is not obliged to make a statement to the media about its activities.
Transformation of the State and Public Administration
Although the emergence of modern states is based on the Westphalia treaty signed in 1648, the emergence of states can be traced back to Mesopotamian civilizations, where history began to be recorded (Roskin, 2013; 3). It is no coincidence that Hammurabi, who made the first known written laws in history, was the ruler of Babylon, famous for its wealthy and large cities.
Transformation of the State
The concept of “state” comes from the Latin verbs “stare”, and “status”. This has a static meaning as a station, position, place; a way of standing, posture; order, arrangement, or condition. In Turkish, the word of state is “devlet”, which comes from Arabic, meaning “to move, to turn, to circulate”. Thus, the Latin verb suggests that the state cannot be attributed to the communities that are not settled and are not located in a certain geographical area, the Arabic verb emphasizes the element of “constantly changing and turning political power”.
Apart from its etymological meaning, the definition of the state has changed over time. In ancient times, the state was defined in the context of its classical duties such as collecting taxes, exercising coercive power, and security. However, the change in the functions of the state has also changed its definition over time. Now the state is not only an entity with authority but also a structure with duties.
For many centuries, the basic things expected from the state were to provide justice, maintain the safety of people against internal and external threats, and finance all these expenses with taxes. However, especially after the industrial revolution, great changes occurred in the functions of the states. With the industrial revolution, a huge increase in production, the migration of workers to certain cities, and the rapid growth of these cities have brought many problems to the agenda. Problems such as housing, health, education, security, and transportation began to appear on a scale that did not exist before.
Transformation of Public Administration
Along with the transformation of the state, the public administration, which is the face of the state to the citizens, has also gone through a similar process.
Public Administration in Classic State Era
In the classical state period, the functions of public administration were relatively limited. The main reason for the emergence of the state was to provide justice for individuals and to protect them both against each other and external threats, as argued by the social contract theorists.
According to their underlying argument, the main purpose of people coming together and giving their will to another power was the protection of their rights and freedoms (Laskar, 2013). In addition to the protection of their right to life, people needed the state’s execution power (e.g. public administration) to create a suitable environment for the continuation of their social and economic relations.
Public Administration in Interventionist State Era
The origin of the interventionist state in Europe goes back to the 16th century. Mercantilist (merchant capitalism) economic policies dominated Europe from the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century are accepted as the beginning of the interventionist state. The fact that the feudal system was replaced by urbanization, monetary, and commercialization radically changed economic and social life.
Public Administration in Social State Era
Another period in which the scope and functions of public administration underwent significant transformation is the dominant period of the social welfare state. The social welfare state was born as a result of the economic and political problems experienced all over the world. Especially the economic and political turmoil in the early 20th century caused great problems in social life. The capitalist understanding of economics against the interventionist state, and the turmoil in world politics at the beginning of the 20th century left the masses of people unemployed and without support. The economic depression experienced in 1929 was the bursting point of the problems experienced for several decades. The task of getting society out of this economic and social depression fell on the public administration.
Public Administration in Regulatory State Era
By the 1980s, the social welfare state was under criticism on two counts. First, the public administration’s provision of services in all areas caused public expenditures to be excessive. This resulted in budget deficits, inflation, and waste of resources. The second criticism is that the interventionist state’s excessive intervention in social life has reduced the importance of institutions such as family, state, and religion. The countries led by England and the USA have started to downsize the public administration. In this period, it has been suggested that public administration should be regulating rather than executing.
Thus, in this regulatory period, many public institutions have been privatized. The regulations have been made to facilitate the private sector to produce services in many areas that were previously considered only as the business of public administration, such as health, education, and security. Management approaches such as new public management, reinventing government, strategic and performance management, and good governance emerged in this period.