Public Administration and the Future

1
Public Administration and the Future

• Lecture 19 Administrative Processes in
  Government

2
Introduction

• Today, public administration stands at a
  crossroads.
• The immediate problem of American public
  administrative practice and theory is to
  integrate or sort out the values, structural, and
  procedural arrangements associated with the
  traditional managerial, political, legal, and new
  public management perspectives.

3
Complexity Is Here to Stay.

• Contemporary public administration is amazingly
  complex and it is become more complicated all the
  time.

4
Complexity Is Here to Stay.

• Public administrative activities range from trash
  collection to space exploration, from regulation
  of complex economies to helping economies move
  beyond subsistence farming, from biomedical
  technologies to census taking.
• The essence of public administration is dealing
  with relationships among political, economic,
  social, ethical, organizational, managerial,
  legal, scientific, and technological values and
  systems at both the microlevels and macrolevels.

5
Dominant Public Administration Will Be Defined by
Politics

• Historically, American public administration has
  always been defined by dominant political groups,
  parties, or coalitions.
• Government by gentlemen.
• Jacksonian Revolution.
• Progressive movement.
• New Deal.
• Administrative Procedure Act of 1946.
• National Performance Review.

6
Dominant Public Administration Will Be Defined by
Politics

• The reality that politics have always defined
  dominant administrative practice in the United
  States is only thinly veiled by reformers
  typical claims that their programs for change are
  apolitical.
• The successful advocacy of major administrative
  change in the United States has always been part
  of the overall program or vision of those in or
  gaining political power.

7
Dominant Public Administration Will Be Defined by
Politics

• The New Public Management offers one prospect for
  change.
• Another prospect is the reassertion of
  congressional influence over the administrative
  process through the Government Performance and
  Results Act of 1993 and the Small Business
  Regulatory Enforcement Act of 1996.

8
Law Will Continue to Be Central to Public
Administration

• In 1926, Leonard white correctly assumed that
  public administration was more concerned with
  management than law.
• In 2002, the relative importance of law is much
  greater and likely to expand.

9
Law Will Continue to Be Central to Public
Administration

• A great number of administrative practices and
  activities must now be based on and responsive to
  constitutional rights and doctrines, especially
  due process and equal protection.

10
Law Will Continue to Be Central to Public
Administration

• The courts have been deeply involved in the
  operation of some administrative institutions and
  systems.

11
Law Will Continue to Be Central to Public
Administration

• The courts recently have enforced legal rights
  when functions are outsourced Added
  constitutional constraints on administrative
  action Weakened affirmative action Strengthened
  eminent domain, freedom of expression,
  contractors rights, and barriers to gender
  discrimination And strengthened the power of the
  states.

12
Performance

• The New Public Managements emphasis on
  performance is probably a permanent addition to
  the mix of public administrations concerns.
• Driven by two changes
• Tax and expenditure limitations at state and
  local level.
• Globalization makes poor performance more of a
  liability.

13
Performance

• The need for performance is clear, but
  prescriptions for it may be inadequate.
• GPRA enhances legislative direction, but invites
  micromanagement.
• NPR promises to do more with less, but may
  stretch administrative flexibility to the limit.

14
Disaggregation of Public Administration

• Leonard White assumed that public administration
  was a single process.
• Most modern public administrators would disagree.
• Separation of powers and federalism.
• Generalization versus specialization.
• No coherent paradigm or conceptual framework.

15
Decomposition of the Civil Service

• Disaggregation promotes decomposition of the
  civil service.
• The concepts of a unified federal, state, or
  local employers and a unified civil service are
  disappearing.
• The radical decentralization implemented by the
  U.S. Office of Personnel Management in
  conjunction with the NPR places agencies in
  charge of their own personnel systems.

16
Decomposition of the Civil Service

• Many agencies have gained exemption from Title V
  of the U.S. Code, the uniform body of law that
  regulates federal employment.
• Information technology also promotes
  decomposition.

17
The Changing Face of Management

• NPM is premised on the belief that as a function
  management must change.
• NPM regards managers as bottlenecks, placing its
  faith in empowered employees, private-public
  partnerships, and entrepreneurs.
• Information technology is already changing the
  need for managers and their functions.

18
Personal Responsibility

• There is broad agreement that public
  administrators should be held responsible for
  their actions.
• NPM assumes that employees will be held
  accountable for results.
• Contemporary constitutional law makes public
  administrators legally liable for violations of
  constitutional rights.

19
Personal Responsibility

• Ethics codes demand that public employees avoid
  even the implication of impropriety.
• External methods of accountability are being
  reinforced with the belief that administrators
  should have a personal sense of responsibility.
• Often generates conflicts with older, traditional
  managerial standards.

20
A New Administrative Culture

• Whether public administration moves beyond its
  current crossroads, it is likely that a new
  administrative culture will emerge.
• Public administrators of the future will have to
  be more at ease with complexity, law, and
  flexibility.

21
A New Administrative Culture

• They will be performance oriented, have a strong
  service ethic, span boundaries, and be adroit at
  conflict avoidance and resolution.
• The public sector will increasingly manage
  without managers.