PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

the implementation of government policies. Today public administration is often regarded as including also some responsibility for determining the policies and programs of governments. Specifically, it is the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations. Public administration is a feature of all nations, whatever their system of government. Within nations public administration is practiced at the central, intermediate, and local levels. Indeed, the relationships between different levels of government within a single nation constitute a growing problem of public administration. In most of the world the establishment of highly trained administrative, executive, or directive classes has made public administration a distinct profession. The body of public administrators is usually called the civil service. In the United States and a few other countries, the elitist class connotation traditionally attached to the civil service has been either consciously abandoned or avoided, with the result that professional recognition has come slowly and only partially. Traditionally the civil service is contrasted with other bodies serving the state full time, such as the military, the judiciary, and the police. Specialized services, sometimes referred to as scientific or professional civil services, provide technical rather than general administrative support. Traditionally, in most countries, a distinction is also made between the home civil service and those persons engaged abroad on diplomatic duties. A civil servant, therefore, is one of a body of persons who are directly employed in the administration of the internal affairs of the state and whose role and status are not political, ministerial, military, or constabulary. In most countries the civil service does not include local government or public corporations, such as, in the United Kingdom, the National Coal Board. In some countries, howeverparticularly those unitary states in which provincial administration is part of the central governmentsome provincial staffs are civil servants. In the United States, all levels of government have their own civil services, federal, state, and local, and a civil service is specifically that part of governmental service entered by examination and offering permanent tenure. Certain characteristics are common to all civil services. Senior civil servants are regarded as the professional advisers to those who formulate state policy. In some countries entry requirements for a career in the higher civil service stress qualifications in technical fields such as accounting, economics, medicine, and engineering. In other countries legal training is deemed appropriate, and in others no specific technical or academic discipline is required among candidates for senior posts. Whatever their precise qualifications, senior civil servants are professional in the sense that their experience of public affairs is thought to provide them with the knowledge of the limits within which state policy can be made effective and of the probable administrative results of different courses of action. Civil servants in every country are expected to advise, warn, and assist those responsible for state policy and, when this has been decided, to provide the organization for implementing it. The responsibility for policy decisions lies with the political members of the executive (those members who have been elected or appointed to give political direction to government and, customarily, career civil servants). By custom, civil servants are protected from public blame or censure for their advice. The acts of their administration may, however, be subject to special judicial controls from which no member of the executive can defend them. Civil services are organized upon standard hierarchical lines, in which a command structure rises pyramid-fashion from the lowest offices to the highest. This command implies obedience to the lawful orders of a superior, and in order to maintain this system the hierarchy of offices is marked by fixed positions, with well-defined duties, specific powers, and salaries and privileges objectively assessed. In some countries there may be direct appointment to higher office of persons not previously employed by the service, but even then a recognized system of internal promotion emphasizes the nature of the hierarchical pyramid. This article discusses the growth of public administration through history as well as its development under different political systems. Special attention is paid to the problems of administrative law and bureaucratic structure. For discussion of a subject integral to public administration, see government economic policy. For further discussion of the various regimes under which public administration operates, see political system. Frederick C. Mosher Brian Chapman Edward C. Page those activities involved in carrying out the policies and programs of governments. Modern public administration often involves some responsibility in determining governmental policies, but it entails principally the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations. Public administration is an occupational field common to all systems of government, for all countries require machinery to effect policies. Within nations, public administration is practiced by central and local governments and, in federal systems, by provinces and states as well. Modern public administration is a by-product of the emergence of nation-states from the feudal societies of Europe. The growth and centralization of power in monarchical courts generated the need for a full-time corps of public administrators who specialized in fields of national activity. Four patterns of administrative thought and practice developed: continental European, British, American, and Soviet. The continental system is characterized by a legally oriented bureaucracy that provides permanence and stability despite changes in government. The British system is known for its elitist bureaucrats of general-education background who provide policy advice to ministers. The American system is noted for its egalitarian nature, for the instability of administrative offices because of political patronage, and for the high degree of specialization of its bureaucrats. The traditional Soviet system was characterized by highly concentrated and centralized power, single-party control of administrative agencies, and increasingly technocratic bureaucrats. Efforts to improve public administration have taken different forms in these systems. One of the central goals in the 20th century has been bureaucratic reform, which has been based on the assumption that administrative processes can and should be improved. In the American system, for example, there has been a substantial increase in the number of bureaucrats hired on a merit basis, while in the British system efforts have been made to recruit from a broader range of candidates. Other goals for the improvement of public administrations have included improving their economy and efficiency; improving the structure of their formal organization; and the development of the budget as a principal tool in planning, allocating resources, linking the executive with the legislature, and developing accountability. Additional reading The most comprehensive treatment of public administration is Andrew Dunsire, Administration: The Word and the Science (1973, reprinted 1981). Included among the classics in the field are Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), available in numerous later editions; Henri Fayol, General and Industrial Management, rev. ed. (1984; originally published in French, 1917); and Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, 2 vol. (1978; originally published in German, 4th rev. ed., 1956). Marshall W. Meyer, Change in Public Bureaucracies (1979), is an important quantitative study of the process of change; and E.N. Gladden, A History of Public Administration, 2 vol. (1972), is an informative survey of developments from the 11th century to the present day. For further study, useful information can be found in Jay M. Shafritz, The Facts on File Dictionary of Public Administration (1985); and also in Robert D. Miewald, The Bureaucratic State: An Annotated Bibliography (1984).The traditional approach to public administration and its principles are set forth in Luther H. Gulick and L. Urwick (eds.), Papers on the Science of Administration (1937, reprinted 1987); and L. Urwick, The Elements of Administration, 2nd ed. (1947). Challenges to the principles, as well as efforts to build a theory of decision making as central to administration, appear in Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (1938, reprinted 1979); Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behaviour: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization, 2nd ed. (1957, reissued 1965); and Herbert A. Simon, Donald W. Smithburg, and Victor A. Thompson, Public Administration (1950, reprinted 1971). A thoughtful review of the evolution of public administration in its relation to society is provided in Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration, 2nd ed. (1984). A challenge to the traditional dichotomy between policy and administration is expressed cogently in various works of Paul H. Appleby, most notably in his Policy and Administration (1949, reprinted 1975). Later developments of similar views are found in David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion, 2nd ed. (1971); Emmette S. Redford, Democracy in the Administrative State (1969); and Harold Seidman and Robert Gilmour, Politics, Position and Power: From the Positive to the Regulatory State, 4th ed. (1986). The nature and role of costbenefit analysis is discussed in Peter Self, Econocrats and the Policy Process: The Politics and Philosophy of Cost-Benefit Analysis (1975). The incremental approach to decision making is set out in Charles E. Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy: Decision Making Through Mutual Adjustment (1965); the problems involved in applying techniques such as PPBS and Programme Analysis and Review are discussed in Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process, 4th ed. (1984); and Andrew Gray and William I. Jenkins, Administrative Politics in British Government (1985). The prophet of the human relations movement was Mary Parker Follett, some of whose writings are published in Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, new ed., edited by Elliot M. Fox and L. Urwick (1973, reissued 1982). The derivative movement, now called organization development, is treated in Chris Argyris, Integrating the Individual and the Organization (1964); Rensis Likert, New Patterns of Management (1961, reprinted 1987); and Warren G. Bennis, Organization Development: Its Nature, Origins, and Prospects (1969). A wide-ranging discussion of issues in policy analysis is provided in Brian W. Hogwood and Lewis A. Gunn, Policy Analysis for the Real World (1984). A growing literature has developed since World War II in case studies of actual administrative experience. Pioneered and led by the American Inter-University Case Program, the use of cases has spread to many other countries. An example of the use of cases in comparative analysis is Frederick C. Mosher (ed.), Governmental Reorganizations: Cases and Commentary (1967). John E. Rouse, Jr., Public Administration in American Society: A Guide to Information Sources (1980), is a comprehensive annotated bibliography.On the administrative systems of different countries, see Brian Chapman, The Profession of Government: The Public Service in Europe (1959, reprinted 1980); F.F. Ridley (ed.), Specialists and Generalists: A Comparative Study of the Professional Civil Servant at Home and Abroad (1968); Fred W. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (1964); Morroe Berger, Bureaucracy and Society in Modern Egypt: A Study of the Higher Civil Service (1957, reissued 1969); and Joseph La Palombara (ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development, 2nd ed. (1967). Brian Chapman Frederick C. Mosher Edward C. Page