Public Administration and Governance

Public Administration and Governance

Public administration dates from endeavours to separate public from private and to insist that public institutions should be devoted solely to advancing the general public interest. Its practice and theory have evolved through time to fit the needs and challenges of societies. From the early approach of the politics/administration dichotomy, which concerned itself with the rational implementation of legislative mandates, public administration has come to be seen as a broader domain including all those activities that deal with multiple institutions, actors and processes that characterize and affect policy formulation and implementation. Indeed, the reality is that today we are living in a highly interdependent world in which domestic affairs are continuously affected by many international cooperation agreements.

Introduction

Governance and public administration have are as old as human civilizations. Both concepts have evolved significantly, from government and public administration to governance and administration or management today. Indeed, replacing or substituting governance for public administration has become a fashionable trend in academic as well as practitioner' circles worldwide.

One of the most important issues of the contemporary world is the rapidly changing nature and role of government, and the process of governance and administration, in the age of accelerated globalization. The traditional and historical role of state and government has changed, causing a major alteration in the nature of government under accelerating globalization. This changed nature of government has also altered the nature of the governance and administration processes, and has resulted in a profound transformation of the philosophy, functions, and institutional foundations of governments almost everywhere in the world.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the theories and approaches that have dominated the practice of public administration from the traditional managerial approach to the current governance approach.

Theoretical Constructs in Public Administration

There are many theories in public administration but there are few general theories of public administration (Caiden, 1982:205). Therefore, a common theoretical or applied meaning

of public administration is difficult to come by. The following are some of the many definitions given to public administration.

Public administration can be defined as the management of scarce resources to accomplish the goals of public policy. It involves the coordination of all organized activity having its own purpose for the implementation of public policy. Public administration is also a cooperative effort in a public setting; it covers the executive, legislative and judicial, formulation of public policy and is thus part of the political process. It is different from private administration but works in partnership with private groups in providing services to the community (Stillman, 1984:2).

It follows, therefore, that public administration is about managing public resources, and involves some processes that are generally grouped into six functions: policy-making, organising, determining work procedures, financing, staffing, and control (Cloete, 1998). Public administration is also understood to be the key apparatus for the execution of the functions of the state. It is represented by the executive and its bureaucracy at the national, provincial and local levels together with the various statutory and parastatal bodies that perform a number of regulatory, monitoring, productive, and service delivery functions (Cloete, 1998:88-97).

According to Rosenbloom and Kravchuk (2002:5), there are three main theoretical approaches, namely the managerial, the political and the legal, which have influenced the understanding and practice of public administration. For some people, public administration has been largely seen as a managerial endeavour; for others, primacy has been given to the publicness of public administration, thus emphasizing its political aspects; still others have seen it as a legal matter given the importance of constitutions and regulations in public administration. Below is a brief discussion of these different perspectives.

The Managerial Approach

The argument for a self-conscious, professional field of study of public administration started from a managerial view point. It is widely acknowledged by public administration scholars that Woodrow Wilson (1887) set the tone for the study of public administration in his essay "The Study of Administration". Wilson argued that administration should be separated from politics. It ought to be a science of the execution of public law, not the law itself, thus positing what became known as the "politics-administration dichotomy" (Caiden, 1982:33). According to Wilson, public administration ought to be a field of business, and therefore largely a managerial endeavour. Its core focus should be on what government can properly and successfully do; how it can do these proper things with maximum efficiency (Rosenbloom, 1992:510). Thus, according to the managerial approach, public administration should strive towards maximising efficiency, economy and effectiveness using practices similar to those prevalent in the private sector.

The Political Approach

The political approach to public administration stressed the value of representativeness, political and administrative responsiveness, and accountability to the citizenry through elected officials (Rosenbloom and Kravchuk, 2002:18). These values, which promote transparency and participation in administrative decision-making, were seen as crucial for the maintenance of constitutional democracy. Thus, it was argued that incorporating them into all aspects of government, including public management was a necessity. Accordingly, public administration as a policy- making centre of government must be structured in a way that provides 1992:512).

The Legal Approach

According