Key Points

The main definitions of public administration (PA) focus on action, the executive branch, organization, formulation and implementation of policy, and management.

P. A. is distinguished from private management by constitutional arrangements (e.g., the separation of powers, individual rights), commitment to the public interest as opposed to profit seeking, less dependence on free quid pro quo economic markets, sovereignty, and a political nature. Public administrators are active in all phases of the public policy cycle today.

Public administrators are engaged in providing a mix of services and regulations. In providing services to the public, administrators often place constraints on the behavior of individuals or corporations, making service and regulation inseparable.

There are three distinct underlying approaches to the field of American P. A. These are: the managerial approach (which includes 2 subsets--traditional and New Public Management [NPM]), the political approach, and the legal approach. These approaches collectively reflect the separation of powers and assignment of functions to the different branches of government. Each approach tends to emphasize different values, different organizational arrangements, different methods of development knowledge, and distinct views of the individual citizen. [Students should be thoroughly familiar with these approaches and their characteristics.]

The managerial approach has been the dominant one in American P. A. It is inherent in "classical" or "orthodox" public administration. It values efficiency, economy and effectiveness. It relies on organizational specialization, hierarchy, impersonality, a cost-benefit approach to budgeting, and rational-comprehensive decision making. Its cognitive approach is scientific.

The New Public Management (NPM) subset of the managerial approach has been prevalent since the early 1990s. The NPM approach was most notably used in Vice President Gore's National Performance Review (NPR). It favors an organizational structure that is decentralized and businesslike in order to promote responsiveness. The NPM's customer-driven approach is also largely theory-driven, borrows heavily from the public choice approach to public policy, and relies on observation and measurement to test theories. Its decision making structure is decentralized, and its approach to budgeting is flexible, performance-based, and market-driven. It is unclear whether the NPM will actually replace the traditional approach to P. A. at this time. To learn more about the NPR over the internet, click here: www.npr.gov .

The political approach values representativeness, responsiveness, and accountability to the electorate. It favors pluralistic organization and treats individuals as members of groups such as farmers, veterans, women, or minorities. It views public opinion as an important source of information and approaches budgeting and decision making in an incremental fashion. This approach characterizes much of P. A. in practice today.

The legal approach values a robust interpretation of individual rights, due process, equal protection, and equity. It is concerned with constitutional integrity, as in maintenance of the separation of powers. It favors adjudication as a means of making decisions, and organizes idiosyncratic motives, intentions, and attitudes. It makes considerable use of inductive and normative reasoning and is reluctant to apply broad social scientific generalizations to specific individuals. The legal approach is not new, but it has become more pronounced in recent years, as the courts have played a greater role in public administration, often referred to as judicial activism.

Each of the three approaches is fully legitimate and none is better than any other. All three are grounded in American political culture and our constitutional structure. A single approach to understanding and explaining American P. A. is inadequate. The challenge for P. A. is trying to make itself satisfy all three approaches.