 | Chapter Outline
(See related pages)
- Public Administration: The people involved in the construction and implementation of policies
- Public administration as a political problem
- Significant part of government power of any state
- Not under close political control
- Characteristics of good public administration
- Honest, accurate translation of political leaders' decisions into more specifically designed policies
- Flexibility in dealing with special cases at the point of delivery
- Flexibility not used arbitrarily
- Feedback of expert advice; active imagination and assertive inquiry on the part of administrators
- Efficiency
- "Bureaucracy": a reform of the 19th century
- Mode of administrative organization
- The most commonly used mode of public administration today
- Features of bureaucracy
- Members appointed and promoted based on qualifications
- Positions have special requirements of training and experience
- Administrative procedures standardized so that little is left to individual biases or passions
- Clear lines of command established from top to bottom
- Public administrators shielded from day to day political pressures
- Bureaucracy versus flexibility
- The problem of protected incompetence
- Adjustments to bureaucracy
- The office of ombudsman
- Freedom of information laws
- "Interference" administration by political leaders
- Pressure from public opinion
- Box: Immigration Services as an example
- Social representativeness of public administration
- Concern about top bureaucrats being unrepresentative of general population (class, race, gender)
- Many governments have made efforts to make public administrators more representative
- Examples:
- The French Bureaucracy
- Bureaucratic Cultures in Europe and Africa
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