NEW DIMENSIONS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

NEW DIMENSIONS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

New Public Administration Development of Administration Comparative Public Administration International Administration

New Public Administration

In 1960s and early 1970s instability and confusion in sciences were well noted

The earlier dogmas of public administration, economy and efficiency were found inadequate and incomplete objectives of administrative activity. It began to be said that efficiency is not the whole of public administration.

Man is the centre-stage of all administrative activity who cannot be subjected to the mechanical test of efficiency.

Development Administration

Science evaluated According to James C. Charles Worth, “Public administration theory has not caught up with emerging problems.

The huge military industrial complex, riots, labour unions and strikes, public school conflicts, still slum the impingement of sciences and developing countries”.

However, the New Public Administration continues to endure as witnessed. The books published in 1980 by H. George Frederickson, Negro and Negro, are of the view that the new public administration has certainly broken fresh ground and seriously jolted the traditional concepts.

It has imparted new substance and a large perspective to the discipline of administration. Since the new public administration emerged, question of values and ethics have remained the major items in public administration.

Meaning of Development Administration

First, they are faced with similar developmental problems, be it social, economic, political or administrative.

ii. Second, they are embarking on the road of modernisation with much stress on raising their national income per capital and improving the well being of their people.

iii. Third, they have realised the importance of development administration as a means of carrying out socio-economic, political change with a view to achieving the goals of nation building and socio economic progress.

Development administration is of recent origin. Edward Weidner defined it as “The process of guiding an organisation toward the achievement of progressive political, economic and social objectives that are authoritatively determined in one manner or the other”.

Merle Fairsoul regarded development administration as “a carrier of innovating values, it embraces the way of the new functions assumed by

developing countries embarking on the path of modernisation and industrialisation. Development administration involves the establishment of machinery for planning economic growth and mobilising and allocating resources to expand national income

”. To Montgomery, development administration connotes “carrying planned change in the economy or capital infrastructure and to a lesser extent in the social services especially, health and education”.

Comparative Public Administration

The World War II is often regarded as the dividing line between the old and new literature on the subject of public administration. As stated earlier, a new discipline under the name of New Public Administration came into being.

Similarly, development administration also was the product of World War II

In the field of comparative public administration, emphasis shifted from general managerial approach to contextual and situational approach.

Public administration, it was argued, is essentially culture-bound and develops its own peculiar characteristics in different cultural areas or environments.

A look at the structure and function of the public administration in different countries revealed that though there is manifest similarity in formal organizations, yet their informal and behavioral patterns possess considerably diversities, each being shaped by its societal culture.

The comparative public administration emphasises that:

i. Organisations must be viewed as embedded in specific cultures and political settings

ii. The principles of public administration are seriously inadequate.

iii. Both the study and practice of administration are pervasively value-loaded and

iv. Any proper discipline must have complementary, pure and applied aspects.

International Administration

There is no international government yet in the sense of supra-national authority whose writ should be binding on all states. The nation states, even the smaller ones, are very zealous to guard their sovereignty and are not willingly to submit themselves to the mandatory control of any supranational organisation.

The League of Nations was the first world organisation to enforce international law and improve the living conditions of the weaker sections like labor.

However, with the replacement of League of Nations in 1945, a new phase in the development of international government began. The United Nations originally consisting of 26 members represents almost universal membership.

The U.N. staff functions in a neutral way without any influence from any government or from any other authority external to the United Nations organisation. They represent only the organisation.