PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Meaning of public administration

Public administration is referred as governmental administration. But also to understand it’s meaning completely one has to know the meaning of administration and public separately.

The term administration is made by two Latin words AD+MINISTRATE.

                                                     AD: - to look after

                                           MINISTRATE: - to manage

                                                                 -    To serve

Therefore public administration simply refers to look after the people, to manage the affairs of the society and to serve the people. It becomes very clear that public administration is action or decisional part of government so to perform this function Administrator or Bureaucrats are needed,

                                                                                        The term administration is broader or it refers looking after, managing or serving in any field of activity the prefix public narrows it and specifies it is only to the governmental administration.

There are several scholars who try to define the public administration such as:-

LUTHER GULLICK: - “Administration is related with getting thing done.” therefore he related administration only to the executive of the government.

“public administration is that part of the science of administration which has to do with government and thus concern itself primarily with the executive branch where the work of government is done, though there are obviously problems in connection with the legislative and judicial branches.”

NIGRO &NIGRO: - Said that administration performs all the functions related with all the three organs (executive, legislature, and judiciary).with the government and even the function raised due to their interaction.

L.D WHITE:-Opined that public administration is related with the execution of public policies.

WOODROW WILSON:- “public administration is detailed and systematic execution of law. Every particular application of law is an act of public administration.”  He further says “Administration is the most obvious part of the government in action; it is the executive, the operative, the most visible side of the government.”

JOHN A VEIG: administration signifies the organisation, personnel, practices and procedures essential to effective performance of civilian functions entrusted to the executive branch of the government.

FRANK GOODNOW: “administration includes the function  of executing the law as well as the semi-scientific, quasi-judicial and quasi- business or commercial functions.”

E.N. GLADDEN: “Administration is a long and slightly pompous word, but it has humble meaning, to care for or look after people, to manage affairs…. Is determined action taken in pursuit of a conscious purpose.”

“public administration is concerned with the administration is concerned with the administration of the government.”

FLIX A.NIGRO: “administration is the organisation and use of men and material to accomplish a purpose.”

HRBERT A. SIMON: “in its broadest sense, Administration  can be defined as the activities of groups cooperating to accomplish common goals.”

JOHN A. VEIG: “administration is determined action taken in pursuit of conscious purpose. It is the systematic ordering of affairs and the calculated use of resources, aimed at making those thing happen which we want to happen and simultaneously preventing development that fail to square with our intentions. It is the marshalling of available labour and materials in order to gain that which is desired at the lowest cast, in energy, time and money.

PFIFFENER: “administration is the organisation and direction of human and material resources to achieve desirendnds .”

L.D WHITE: “the art of administration is the direction, co-ordination and control of many persons to achieve some purpose or objective.”

“public administration consist of all those operations having for their purpose the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy.”

GEORGE E. BARKLEY: “administration is a process involving human beings jointly engages in working towards common goals.”

BROOKS ADAMS: “administration is the capacity of coordinating many and often conflicting social energies in a single organism, so adroitly that they shall operate as unity.”

KEITH HENDERSON: “administration is the arrangement of man and material in rational carrying out of purposes.”

D. WALDO  : “administration is a type of co-operative human effort that has a high degree of rationality.”

“public administration is the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of state.” he further observes “the process of public administration consists of the actions involved in affecting the intent or desire of a government. It is thus the continuously active,  ‘business’  part of the government, concerned with carrying out the  law as made by legislative bodies (or other authoritative agents) and interpreted by the courts, through the process of organisation and management. The field of study –putatively a science or discipline of public administration focuses upon public administration as a process.”

All the above definitions are showing the very dynamic nature of public administration.

All the definitions are of different kind then also, are unable to define what public administration is.

After the advent of liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation (LPG). In western countries around 80% of the governmental function is being performed by private sector .it makes it clear that in the ambit the public administration private sector is enduring several voluntary organisation and NGO are also involved in the supply of those goods and services that were responsibility of government.

In this context an inclusive definition of public administration is needed if on tries to define it as “all those functions which are financed by public money come under the sphere of public administration” it is a kind of inclusive definition but there are still some threats out of the reach.This is the reason DWIGHT WALDO opined that “defining public administration is by statement or paragraph is not enlightening the discipline but is our mental paralysis”.

 FREDRICK.C.MOSHER:- has said that it is good not to define it.