The Definition of Public Administration.

The Definition of Public Administration

Public administration, developed in the early 1900s, is a special field of study within the academic discipline of political science. It emphasizes the structure and operation of bureaucracies and organizations, including budgeting, personnel, and formal and informal internal controls. Some public administration programs include study of the special management skills required in governmental (as distinct from private) organizations.

It’s always hard to make a simple, clear and precise definition to academic subjects, this also happens to public administration. Scholars have long been trying to use a simple phrase to define it, but yet after nearly half century of hard work, it still remains in vain. Although making progress, a perfect phrase length definition is still in process.

So what is the problem of defining Public Administration? Some think that it’s multidiscipline characteristics contribute to the absence of a common definition. The studies of Public Administration involve a wide range of function and operation. Public Administration is the whole process of human cooperation; one could definitely say that public administration is everywhere, as it overlaps a number of disciplines including sociology, business administration, economics and even risk management. Therefore, there are numerous of definitions, it would be totally difference when one look into Public Administration through different approach.

Many definitions tend to be preoccupied with, the executive branch of government; the implementation of policies; the production of public service; the involvements of judiciary; its multidisciplinary character and how it is distinguished from private administration. There are several frequently cited definitions (cited from David Rossenbloom (1998), Public Administration, Understanding Management, Politics, and Laws in the Public Sector, 4th edition, Macaw-Hill Inc., Ch1. p4-5)

‘ Public Administration…is the action part of government, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are realized.’

‘…Public Administration can be best identified with the executive branch of government.’

‘…Public Administration as a field is mainly concerned with the means for implementing political values.’

The above definitions clearly imply that Public Administration means different things to different observers and there lacks a significant common meaning. And they each could only point out some of the features of the discipline. For the first definition, it only states the action part of the government but neglect the role of non-government parties, which also contributes in providing public service. It is especially true when government contracts out public service to non-government organization. The second definition states that Public Administration is parallel to the executive branch, it is true to say so, however, it overlooks the importance of legislative and judicial authorities, and their interrelationships in supervising public affairs. For the third definition, it concerns only on the provision of political values but we should mind that public services is also ‘public oriented’, it is in pursuits of fulfilling public interest, in a basic sense which means, it must serve ‘a higher purpose’.

This is a preview of the whole essay

For a better-rounded definition I refer to Rossenbloom’s definition, ‘ Public Administration is the use of the managerial, political, legal theories and processes to fulfill legislative, executive and judicial mandates for the provision of the governmental regulatory and service function.’ This definition unlike the other three mentioned includes all the three branches, executive, legislative and judiciary of a regime. It states the Public Administration is the management of human resources to provide public service according to political and government’s objectives, and laws, serving the interest of public in a rational way. This definition also implies that, although Public Administration is closely associated to private organization, unlike private administration or management, not only the ideal use of resources is emphasized, the realization of political values is also concerned. There is no doubt that decisions carried out by public organization in various forms of political systems are different. Decisions carried out is also varies according to the goal, knowledge, information and other personal conception of public administrators. But in general, they are 3E(economy, efficiency and effectiveness) seeking. However, again the role of non-governmental is ignored. Public services have long been commented as inefficient and not responsive to market needs. And it has also been argued that public services should be provided by governmental organization only, but through contracting out or privatization of public service in order to be more 3E, effective, efficient and economics, it is now also common for non-governmental departments to provide such kind of services, like the postal services in Hong Kong. And also the accountability of government’s officials is also neglected, seniors officials being the decision leaders, they should be accountable to any of their action made concerning on policy making and enforcing. They should be directly accountable to the citizens or more broadly the society when exercising their power.

So I suggest that Public Administration is the process government provides goods and services, create and enforce regulations, and allocating resources in a 3E seeking way through the operation of executive, legislative and judicial branches and their counterparts, while government should be accountable to the public.

Two Public Administration Problems in Hong Kong

Public Administration is everywhere; it is closely associated to all individuals. Keeping away from public administration is not much easier than to avoid drinking water. It’s unavoidable however, it’s also very complex, in fully understanding the impossibility of a perfect Government, Public Administration problem do exist in every country. And I have chosen two problems in Hong Kong to discuss. The first problem is the mother tongue education policy and the other one is the short pile scandal.

Mother Tongue Education Policy

The government’s objective in education policy is to enable students to be biliterate (to master written Chinese and English) and trilingual (to speak fluent Cantonese, Putonghua and English).

In September 1997, the government issued The Medium of Instruction Guidance for Secondary Schools requiring all local public sector secondary schools to adopt the medium of instruction according to the ability to their students. In most cases, Chinese has been adopted as the medium of instruction, starting with the Secondary 1 intake in the 1998-99 school year and progressing each year to a higher level of secondary education. Schools satisfying the requirements in terms of student ability, teacher capability and language learning support strategies and programmes may were allowed to teach in English, about 100 school falls into this category. However after appeal of some of the CMI School, it was increased to 113. In the 1998-99 school year, about 300 secondary schools use Chinese as medium of instruction for all academic subjects except English Language. This education reform is carried out through the support of the former Education Secretary LAW Fan Chiu-fan, Fanny. But in 2002, the new Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li believes the issue is not to choose between Chinese or English teaching but to strengthen language education. Therefore he relax the guidance, and allows schools to choose Chinese or English as a medium of instruction. This clearly shows a Public Administration problem. Different political leaders have different conception, they have varied beliefs and they will lay down policy according to their outlook. Although, all of them aims to serve the public interests. However, it’s inevitable to include personal judgments in making decisions. The problems would be clear when a political leader is changed. Like the case in the mother tongue policy, Ms. Fanny Law strictly separated some schools as EMI and some CMI, but the new secretary Mr. Arthur Li tends to let school to choose the medium of instruction on their according to their students need and their teachers ability.

The change in policy creates bad impacts on the educational sector. It takes time and efforts to establish a policy, and changes are costly. Since 1998 CMI school had adapted a Chinese teaching environment, teachers and students get used to way of teaching and learning. When a new policy is laid down, they will face difficulties to change the medium of teaching and learning. One may say that it would be fine if schools do not change the medium of instruction. Yes, it’s true as schools now have the right to choose, however, in fact they do not. Market will drive them to teach in English, as in a overview parents tends to believe that EMI school are more prestigious and learning in English would give their children a better prospects. As English is still the most commonly accepted languages worldwide. Therefore, CMI schools to remain competitive would change to use English as a medium of instruction. And this would cause inconvenience to both teachers and students. It may degrade the performance of students. And the Chinese textbook published would have no markets, and affect the publishers. And this will in turn affects the citizens, that’s

affecting the public interests.

It is clear that when a political leader is changed or a policy is to be changed, it would lead to Public Administration problem if it were not carried out in an equitable manner. The other Public Administration problem may happen when there is a change of political leader. Political leader usually hold their position for only a limited period of time, but the officials work for the government for much longer time. Sometimes it is possible that the staff do not agree with their new political leaders and refuse to cooperate, this is a kind of public administration problem in the aspects of managing resources. Therefore, Administrators should mind not to carry out policy to fast and should do enough research on the impact of a change of a policy.

Short Pile Scandal

In 1998, it was found out that there is a problem of short pile in the public estates in Shatin and Tin Shu Wai. And one of the estates was destructed, as it’s not secure enough to live in. The Housing Authority is given a heavy burden because of this. This scandal states the public administration problem, which is led by the inefficiency of bureaucratic structure of the government. Bureaucracy involves a number of departments, agencies and bureaus in a hierarchical arrangement, in carrying out government activities following strict rules. It is huge and complex, so it’s hard to organize it well. Malfunction of it would lead to a Public Administration problem such as the Short Pile Scandal. The Scandal could be view both as a communication problem and the inefficiency of bureaucracy, which is both a public administration problem.

Specialization requires coordination, and bureaucracy relies on hierarchy to achieve this purposes. Hierarchy would create a chain-liked structure of authority to function. At the top of the departments are the policy appointees, line agencies are the organizations concerned with the direct performance of the functional goals of administrative unit; the staff agencies are those, which, perform advisory function. There are numerous of departments involved between that of making decision and of carrying appointments. Like in the short pile scandal, we are not sure that who should be responsible. As it involves so many officials, it may be cause by the overlook of the most senior staff, the head of the Housing Department Mr. Mui and the head of Housing Authority Ms. Wong Yik Ming (who has resigned due to the scandal). But it’s not merely the senior officials fault as, their job is concerned on paper works only. They are just responsible to examine the reports made by other staff. Or the constructors who’s belong to the lower level of the bureaucracy. The constructor having no knowledge in civil engineering are totally ignorant about the requirements of the depth of the pile, they just follow the instruction given by the seniors.

Because of the complicated structure there are always shadows to hide officials from doing dishonest action, like corruption. It is very hard to take full control of all the officials and staff in the government. And for the same reason, it is hard to examine, where the problem lies. There may be small problems in the all linkage of hierarchy chain or just a big one in one of connection. The scandal also previews the communication problem between different departments. A slight mistake could become a big one through snowballing effects, when there is communication problem.

Public Administration is an extremely complicated endeavour. When it is a discipline to be studied, it concerns on many other disciplines; in a situation it is concerned as the process of provisioning governmental function, it involves numerous of officials. It is complex and easy to make wrong judgement, however, no matter when considering it as a studies or process to provide service, mistakes should be avoided.