KYT102U-INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Chapter 2: Evolution of Public Administration Theory
Introduction
Management as a set of practices has thousands of years of history. In ancient civilizations, management practices such as planning, controlling, and coordinating were applied in various areas of social life. After the industrial revolution, management as an idea and a process shifted towards the concepts of division of labor, expertise, discipline, and efficiency.
The basic principles of modern bureaucracy were formulated by German sociologist Max Weber (1864- 1920). Names such as Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856- 1915) and Henri Fayol (1841-1925) revealed basic assumptions and features of classical public administration thought. The behavioral school developed from research on group dynamics, motivation, and informal groups in organizations with the Hawthorne experiments carried out in the USA.
Organization theory and public administration theory intersect at certain points. Leading management theorists have made significant contributions not only to private companies but also to governmental and non-governmental agencies. Taylor and Fayol, pioneers of classical management thought, were originally members of the engineering chambers. However, Max Weber, a leading scholar of bureaucracy theory, was a sociologist with expertise in economics and law. Although his name is not well-known in organizational theory, Woodrow Wilson (1856- 1924) made a significant contribution to public administration theory, specifically regarding the politics- management distinction.
Traditional Public Administration
Traditional public administration, also known as classical or old public administration, emerged in the late 19th century, became formalized between 1900 and 1920, and remained almost unchanged until the last quarter of the 20th century (Hughes, 2003: 17). Traditional public administration approach has been shaped by the views of Woodrow Wilson and Frederick Taylor in the United States, and Henri Fayol and Max Weber in Continental Europe.
Politics-Administration Dichotomy: Woodrow Wilson
Traditional public administration depends on the politics- administration dichotomy, which addresses the difference between administrative and political issues. The distinction between politics and administration was mainly expressed under the concept of cameralism in the 16th century. Cameralists living in Prussia and France published studies on the separation of politics and administration.
However, the science of administration remained in the shadow of administrative law in the later centuries in Continental Europe. Woodrow Wilson (1887: 202), one of the former US presidents, who pointed out this problem, noted that French and German professors had developed the science of administration in the European continent.
Wilson (1887: 210-212) explained why public administration should be seen as an autonomous scientific field in the USA. He considered the administration as a field of business. It is far from the hurry and conflict of politics. The administration also departs from the controversial ground of constitutional studies. Administration studies aim to rescue executive methods from the costs and complexity of empirical experience and to put them on more stable foundations.
According to the administration-politics dichotomy, public administration implements directives and instructions. Political leadership has the authority to set strategies and public policies. In this sense, the relations between politicians and bureaucrats are not always based on mutual interaction and cooperation (Hughes, 2003: 20). Public administration plays a more systematic role in the formulation of public policies. The policy-making role of public officials is most clearly manifested in the adoption of secondary regulations.
As a reflection of the distinction between politics and public administration, there is a need for a neutral bureaucracy that works in accordance with the lifelong principle and serves every politician with the same impartiality. A public official is expected to have no political affiliation and to maintain serving even if governments change. Of course, public officials may have a political view on certain issues, but they are not expected to act disloyally towards a government because of their partisan views (Peters, 1996: 4). The distinction between politics and public administration also reveals the control of politicians over administrative organs.
One-Best Way Management: Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Taylor is one of the leading members of the scientific management movement that emerged in the United States at the end of the 19th century. Taylor, a mechanical engineer, collected his fundamental ideas on scientific management in the book ‘The Principles of Scientific Management’ in 1911.
Taylor believed that every organization was governed by a set of rules that could be revealed through observation and experimentation. If these rules are known, it is possible to organize the work to achieve maximum efficiency in order to arrange the factors of production and other activities. Thus, Taylor asserted that scientific knowledge would replace intuition and the rule-of-thumb method in organizational behavior (Mouzelis, 2013: 95).
It is assumed that scientific knowledge will be applied after developing within an organization. Taylor assigns managers significant responsibilities for carrying out scientific management. Managers have essential duties in providing scientific management. To employ the scientific method, managers must gather, categorize, arrange, and transform knowledge into rules, laws, and formulas that are useful to workers in their daily work. Additionally, managers carry out the following tasks (Taylor, 1998: 19):
1. Using scientific methods for employee selection, development, and training instead of letting workers choose their own jobs 2. Developing sincere cooperation with employees 3. Instead of leaving most of the responsibility to the employees, take over the entire business in matters that they can do it more effectively than the employees
Functions of Management: Henri Fayol
Henri Fayol, originally a mining engineer, completed his education in France. He wrote the book ‘General and Industrial Management’ in 1916 based on the knowledge he had acquired during his professional career. In this book, he systematically examined the management function. Fayol is recognized as one of the pioneers of the classical theory of administration, and his 14 principles serve as the foundation for functional management.
Fayol categorized the workload in an organization into six parts: technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting, and management. It is possible to see these tasks in various stages of every organization. Among these works, Fayol emphasized the importance of managerial activities and focused on them in more detail.
Fayol asserted five fundamental functions of management as (Fayol, 2013):
1. Planning: Preparing an activity program by trying to predict the future. 2. Organizing: Creating the material and social structure of the business 3. Execution: Mobilizing staff. 4. Coordination: Linking and harmonizing all activities of the organization. 5. Control: To monitor whether the work and operations are carried out in accordance with the enterprise’s substantial order and within the framework of the rules.
Fayol explained the general principles of management as well. The principles are not rigid and clear-cut and can change depending on different conditions and circumstances. These are the most common principles that are applied in organizations (Fayol, 2013):
1. Division of Labor: As businesses grow, division of labor is required. More and better performance is expected depending on the division of labor. 2. Authority: Authority is the right to command and the responsibility to obey. 3. Discipline: Obedience, persistence, diligence, proper behavior, and respect between the enterprise and its employees in line with the provisions of the contract. 4. Command Union: An officer takes orders from only one manager. 5. Executive Union: It is the existence of a single program and a sole manager for all actions that serve the same goal.
6. Preference of General Interests over Private Interests: The interests of an official or a group of officials should not be preferred to the organization’s interests. 7. Personnel Wages: The cost of the work done by the employee should be fair. 8. Centrality: The orders that activate the organs in the human body come from a center, namely the brain. 9. Hierarchy: It is a management order from the top manager to the lower-level employees. 10. Order: To ensure material order, such as cleanliness in organizations, there must be a place peculiar to each job and everything should be in its own place. 11. Fairness and Equality: Fairness in organizations arises from the combination of goodness and justice. 12. Stability in Officials: New officers need time to get used to the job. 13. Initiation: The idea of initiation is the ability to think and act. 14. Unity Among Employees: Harmony and unity among employees are advantages for any organization.
Ideal Type of Bureaucracy: Max Weber
The German sociologist Max Weber, who defined the basic principles and features of modern bureaucracy at the beginning of the 20th century, introduced his analysis of bureaucracy by explaining the main sociological concepts, including establishment, authority, sovereignty, and legitimacy. For Weber, unlike the common use of force, the notion of ‘legitimacy’ is based on the consent and obedience of a third party. The legitimate authority has three pure types (Weber, 1947: 328):
1. Legal-Rational Authority: This refers to the legitimacy of normative rules and the belief that those who come to power based on these rules have the right to give orders. 2. Traditional Authority: This addresses the belief in the sacredness of traditions that have existed since ancient times and that individuals who exercise power pertinent to these traditions are legitimate. 3. Charismatic Authority: This means that followers depend on the unique, heroic, and exemplary qualities of the sovereign or sanctity of orders and rules declared by him.
Legal-rational authority leans on rules and certain jurisdictions. The formal relations in the organization are based on the principle of hierarchy. People who have experienced technical training can be recruited as civil servants. Administrative activities, decisions, and rules are recorded in writing and systematically achieved (Weber, 1947: 329-333).
Weber’s bureaucratic order is egalitarian in nature. The principle of equality is carried out both inside and outside the organization. Personnel management emphasizes that individuals with similar qualifications receive equal pay and benefits.
Public administration is highly specialized and encompasses almost all professional categories in society. Since bureaucracy is defined as a profession, it exhibits a salient level of professionalization.
Public officials are employed based on a competitive exam and/or diplomas that certify technical training. They receive regular monthly salaries and aim at stepping up to higher positions in their career path within the hierarchy. The office is occupied by a free contractual relationship. The officials are not elected; they are appointed by a higher authority.
Weber (1947: 337-339) argues that bureaucratic organization has technical advantages compared to other forms of organization. He asserts that the capitalist market economy demands consistent and rapid government machinery.
New Public Administration
Several issues emerged in the USA towards the end of the 1960s, simultaneously bringing to the surface concerns about the discipline of public administration. During this time, the Vietnam War continued, anti-war protests became widespread, minority movements increased, and social problems like inequality, unemployment, and environmental issues affected the country’s politics. These changes also paved the way for the emergence of the New Public Administration Movement (NPA Movement) in the USA.
Unlike other theories in the discipline, the NPA Movement gave importance to normative and subjective assumptions and rejected the positivist approach in social sciences. The advocates of NPA were also opposed to the classical politics/ administration dichotomy (Üstüner, 1995: 63).
The NPA movement emerged with the first “Minnowbrook Conference,” organized at the call of Dwight Waldo, a political scientist. Waldo altered the agenda of public administration theory by launching a debate on issues such as opposition to positivism, personal virtue, and morality, reconciling democracy and public administration, customer-based responsibility, and social equality. “Minnowbrook II,” held in 1988, was overshadowed by the first conference in terms of both the participants and the themes discussed. At this conference, concerns about ethics, social equality, human relations, and other issues in public administration discipline were on the agenda (Özgür, 2003: 191-192).
The traditional public administration approach asserts that public administration is the governing of public services efficiently, economically, and coherently. The NPA
movement contributes to these classical tenets by underscoring the idea of social equity.
The NPA movement assigns bureaucrats five roles: (1) social justice defender, (2) change agent, (3) representative bureaucrat, (4) enabler, and (5) moderator.
New Public Management
After conservative governments came to power in the USA and England in the early 1980s, the size and inefficiency of public administration in these countries have been discussed. The “Financial Management Initiative” in the UK and “Reinventing Government” reforms in the USA emerged as the primary examples of comprehensive public management reforms. The reforms spread rapidly among the countries within the Anglo-Saxon tradition and Continental Europe.
The change, which started with governments’ reform policies and programs, also attracted the attention of the public administration scientific community. Based on the views of Taylor, Fayol, Weber, and Wilson, the traditional understanding of public administration has been heavily criticized. The reform movements undertaken in the early 1980s were seen as a challenge to traditional public administration.
This new approach’s conceptual and theoretical framework was developed after implementing public administration reform programs. Reform practices and policies implemented by governments around the world were labeled differently. The concept of “new public management” (shortly, “NPM”), used by Christopher Hood in an article written in 1991, has been generally accepted in the public administration literature.
According to its founding father, Christopher Hood (1991: 4-5), the main features of NPM are:
1. Devoting the senior executives freedom to manage in the public sector, 2. Performance measurement, 3. Emphasis on outcomes rather than procedures, 4. The division of monolithic and large-scale institutions into small units, 5. Increasing competition in the public sector, 6. The use of private sector management techniques in public administration, 7. Ensuring financial discipline and economic use of the public budget.
Governance
As a result of the separation of the departments that design public policies and strategies from the executive units under the tenets of NPM, coordination, and auditing problems have arisen among central government institutions. Governments began to empower civil society and market actors in the early 2000s. Also, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have become global
policy actors. While the numbers of policy actors increase, their capacity develops as well.
In addition, social problems such as climate change, food crises, the fight against epidemics, and irregular migration have gone beyond the borders of countries and require the cooperation of various governments, market actors, and non-governmental players at the national and supranational levels.
The concept of governance, which has been discussed intensely both at the global and national level in recent years, is a multi-actor-based management approach that depends on consensus, co-production, cooperation, and partnerships, as well as bottom-up participation processes, instead of top-down authority, hierarchical methods, and bureaucratic solutions in the order-command order (Nelissen, 2002: 19).
Governance has been associated with the changing role of the state since the 1990s. The governance approach was developed as the state undertook the arbitrator role and withdrew from the market through privatizations.
There are two arguments explaining the relationship between governance and NPM. According to the first argument, governance is an expansion of NPM. It was developed to combat the side effects of the fragmentation the central government experienced due to NPM reforms. According to the second argument, governance and NPM have different characteristics and assumptions. Governance is derived from political science theories, while NPM is based on organization theories and microeconomic assumptions.