Getting to Know Public Administrators

1
Lecture 2

• Getting to Know Public Administrators

2
Why Do We Have Public Administration?

• Economic Rationale
• Asymmetry of Information (FDA)
• Transaction Cost (Bureau of Business)
• Negative externality (EPA)
• Public/Collective Good (National defense, public
  safety)
• Free rider problems

3
Why Do We have Public Administration?

• Political/Social Rationale
• Community and nation building (D. of Education)
• Security and order (D of Public Safety, Homeland
  Security)
• Protecting property, social, and political
  rights?
• Social justice (D of Health and Human Services)
• Protecting the weak (Welfare Services)

4
Who Are the Public administrators?

• People Who Study It
• Academic public administration
• Administration is a science
• College professors
• Study different issues in PA role of
  bureaucracy, public-private relations
• Public Administration program and certificate
• Train future civil servants

5
Who Are the Public Administrators?

• People Who Practice It
• Elected officials Chief executives, governors,
  legislators, and mayors
• Appointed officials Political appointees
• Top managers (PA as management specialty)
• Civil servants
• Frontline employees and middle managers
• Administrators of quasi-government entities
• Administrators of NPOs

6
Management in Public and Private Sector

• Different settings fish bowl versus close board
  room
• Different structure and size
• Different incentives
• Public versus corporate accountability
• Personal and professional risk
• Different purposes profit versus public good
• Personnel and recruitment

7
Michael A. Murray

• A blurring distinction between the private and
  public sector
• Objective settings
• Evaluation techniques
• Ethical questions in both sectors
• Formal constraints
• Informal constraints
• Apple and oranges
• Political efficiency versus economic efficiency
• Rational man vs political man (technology)

8
Class Exercise

• Situation
• New administrator for x agency
• Extensive experiences in the private sector
• Tasks
• You are a special taskforce assembled to provide
  a crash course for the new administrator
• Discuss skills that the administrators can bring
  from prior work experiences
• Recommend knowledge, values, skills that are
  uniquely important to run your public agency.

9
What Do Public Administrators Do?

• Interpersonal Role
• Figure head
• Ceremonial or public activities
• Leader role
• Relationships with subordinates and the public
• Liaison
• Organization and its environment
• Politician
• Negotiation and compromise

10
Informational Roles

• Monitor role
• Inside and outside an organization
• Disseminator role
• Public relations
• Relationships with clientele
• Spokesperson role
• Official statement
• Public inquiry

11
Decisional Roles

• The entrepreneur role
• Initiation of change
• Organizational change
• The Disturbance handler
• Conflicts inside and outside an organization
• The Resource Allocator
• Limited resources
• Budget cut
• The Negotiator
• Formal and informal bargaining
• The Policymaker set policies and direction

12
Next Class

• Foundation and evolution of American Public
  administration
• Underlying values of public administration
• Evolution of American public administration as a
  discipline
• Academic origin of American public administration

13
Woodrow Wilsons Article

• The Study of Administration
• Why is this article considered the beginning of
  public administration as a specific field of
  study?
• Why did the topic of public administration
  attract little interest in the study of political
  science? What was the emphasis of political
  science at that time?
• What does Wilson mean by it is getting harder to
  run the constitution than to frame one?
• What are Wilsons views on politics and
  administration? Should they be combined or
  separated, and why?
• Essentially, what should be governments focus?
  (management or law)
• What are Wilsons proposed methods to the
  development of administrative science?