PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
DEFINING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
When people think about government, they think of elected officials. The attentive public knows these officials who live in the spotlight but not the public administrators who make governing possible; it generally gives them little thought unless it is to criticize “government bureaucrats.”
Yet we are in contact with public administration almost from the moment of birth, when registration requirements are met, and our earthly remains cannot be disposed of without final administrative certification. Our experiences with public administrators have become so extensive that our society may be labeled the “administered society”.
Various institutions are involved in public administration.
Much of the policy-making activities of public administration is done by large, specialized governmental agencies (micro-administration). Some of them are mostly involved with policy formulation, for example, the Parliament or Congress.
But to implement their decisions public administration also requires numerous profit and nonprofit agencies, banks and hospitals, district and city governments (macro-administration).
Thus, public administration may be defined as a complex political process involving the authoritative implementation of legitimated policy choices.
Public administration is not as showy as other kinds of politics. Much of its work is quiet, small scale, and specialized. Part of the administrative process is even kept secret. The anonymity of much public administration raises fears that government policies are made by people who are not accountable to citizens. Many fear that these so-called faceless bureaucrats subvert the intensions of elected officials. Others see administrators as mere cogs in the machinery of government.
But whether in the negative or positive sense, public administration is policy making. And whether close to the centers of power or at the street level in local agencies, public administrators are policy
When people think about government, they think of elected officials. The attentive public knows these officials who live in the spotlight but not the public administrators who make governing possible; it generally gives them little thought unless it is to criticize “government bureaucrats.”
Yet we are in contact with public administration almost from the moment of birth, when registration requirements are met, and our earthly remains cannot be disposed of without final administrative certification. Our experiences with public administrators have become so extensive that our society may be labeled the “administered society”.
Various institutions are involved in public administration.
Much of the policy-making activities of public administration is done by large, specialized governmental agencies (micro-administration). Some of them are mostly involved with policy formulation, for example, the Parliament or Congress.
But to implement their decisions public administration also requires numerous profit and nonprofit agencies, banks and hospitals, district and city governments (macro-administration).
Thus, public administration may be defined as a complex political process involving the authoritative implementation of legitimated policy choices.
Public administration is not as showy as other kinds of politics. Much of its work is quiet, small scale, and specialized. Part of the administrative process is even kept secret. The anonymity of much public administration raises fears that government policies are made by people who are not accountable to citizens. Many fear that these so-called faceless bureaucrats subvert the intensions of elected officials. Others see administrators as mere cogs in the machinery of government.
But whether in the negative or positive sense, public administration is policy making. And whether close to the centers of power or at the street level in local agencies, public administrators are policy