6:00pm
Faculty introductions, Student introductions
7:30pm
Break
7:45pm
The majority of people take PA for granted. (examples: mirror in the morning, drinking water, driver's liscense, drinking age, voting age, age you can enlist in the military, the food you eat, the width of doorways and bathroom stalls, speed limit, etc.)
You have obviously decided not to take it for granted by getting an MPA degree. This underscores the importance of “praxis.” Praxis is the imbrication of theory and practice- you cannot consider one without the other.
Tonight we will have a very broad discussion about pa and work on honing it into specifics over the quarter.
In 400 B.C. Socrates argued that management was a universal art, not a science but an art. Plato argued for a Republic= rule by government. Plato thought that democracy was dangerous because it put political power into the hands of ignorant and envious people. Therefore, they would only use democracy to promote their own good and not the common good. Aristotle argued for the focus in administration to be about ethics and that were only particular people with five specific character traits who should be public administrators. In the early 1600's Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan and argued that government should be sovreign and all powerful. Alexander Hamilton wanted centralized power in the U.S. for efficient decision making. Thomas Jefferson wanted democratic participation and deliberation. He believed that power should be decentralized to promote a self-reliant citizenry. Warren Bennis argued that managing people is like herding cats.
So, with so many choices and arguments what do we do with them all? We categorize them into paradigms. We discuss shifts in the paradigms as schools of that. Therefore, there is no such thing as one definition of PA. It is contextual. An understanding of PA must be based in time, space and purpose. When we talk about paradigms or the major debates in pa- the main thing that changes from paradigm to paradigm is the focus and objective- the who and the what. (individual, institution, efficiency, effectiveness.)
To help with this, let's start with some basics.
Epistemology: ways of knowing the world.
Theory: concept formulation and hypothesis testing. Speculation as opposed to facts.A proposed description, explanation or model. Example: White's theory that the study of PA should start with management.
Ideology: a generally accepted theory or idea. An organized collction of ideas. A comprehensive vision. Set of ideas proposed to all members of society. Example: Feminism.
Paradigm: when an ideology becomes dominant in form and substance (institutionalized). Thought pattern within a discipline. Ex. Performance measurement or Scientific management (Taylor).
These go in a circle….. each informs the other.
Henry- 1975-Click here to view the article
He wrote about the five paradigms of public administration in order to show that thinking of PA as a synthesized field is relatively new. Paradigms: 1) Politics/Administration dichotomy, 2) Principles of Administration, 3) PA as Political Science, 4) PA as Administrative Science, 5) Developing a common curriculum (home) for the study of PA as its own autonomous discipline. Henry basically tells us that PA has not known what to do with itself for the past 80 years. Specifically, that the locus (the intellectual ‘where' of the field) and the focus (the specialized ‘what' of the field) have lacked unitary direction. We have been fighting amongst ourselves (PA scholars) for too long. However, Henry places time frames next to each paradigm. For example, he shows the politics/administration dichotomy as 1900-1926. This is problematic because this dichotomy still exists in practice and in theory. Perhaps it is not as dominant now as it was in the early 1900's, but the dichotomy is certainly not done with.
HANDOUT TIMELINES
Divide between the classics and the challenge.
Classics: Efficiency, Facts, Science, Objectivity, Administration (Experts), formal authority, sameness (rational model) ….. versus….
Challenge: Effectiveness, Values, Qualitative Analysis, Subjectivity and Politics, informal authority (the faces of power), otherness (difference)
Two debates that are ongoing but don't necessarily fall into one of these categories: Public vs. private. centralization ( Hamilton ) vs. decentralization ( Jefferson )
Defining the Classics:
Efficiency, Science
Wilson- 1887
Borrowed concepts from business administration: public organizations should operate with power located at the top to maximize efficiency. The science of administrative efficiency took over to restrict democratic government institutions. Public administration should be about value free, neutral professionals who are experts that maintain bureaucracy. He advocated the study of PA to reinforce this army of experts.
Politics vs. Administration
Goodnow- 1900
Served on the Commission on Economy and Efficiency created by President Taft in 1910. He realized that the formal government set forth in law is not always the same as the actual system. Made a clear distinction between politics (legislation that follows the public will and values) and administration (the execution of law by value free experts).
Defining the Challenge:
The aim of the challenge is to show what is wrong with the world and as it is and to help improve it. They question whether an effect is morally or politically desirable. Recognize that social constructions exist= we cannot know “facts” separate from interests. Emphasize the imbrication of theory and practice. The goal of the challenge is to bring about social and political change.
What events brought about the challenge? Government of the classics had three major external forces acting on it: 1) WWI, 2) the depression, and 2) WWII.
The New Deal got us out of the depression and placed public administration in the daily lives of citizens through hands on improvement projects to re-build this country. The aftermath of the war forced public administrators to be human. They could not ignore the gravity of the human atrocities in WWII and realized that it was humans with subjective values that would have to prevent a WWIII. The objective, rational, controlled bureaucracy would have to change. Normally, change in government is very slow. But in these situations, government had immediate and major needs of its citizenry to respond to . So tons of agencies and commissions started cropping up to respond to the real human issues at hand: jobs, hunger, polio, race relations. Government had to help government to help the people. Government still wanted to be efficient, but mainly they wanted to be effective.
What happened? Well the efforts and events of the 1940's through 1970's made bureaucracy and bureaucrats definitely change forever, but they also became completely overwhelmed and inefficient and ineffective. Bureaucracy grew so big, it became the 4 th branch of government. There were so many rule making and regulatory agencies and commissions that the right hand did not know what the left was doing. Because government could no longer handle the work they had created for themselves, they looked outside of government for help. This is where privatization and non-profits came in to assist government in doing what was necessary to meet the needs of an ever growing citizenry.
Trying to find a home for PA: Wilson and Goodnow and Leonard White. Where does the study of PA belong? This is one of the reasons the dichotomies/debates came about. The various “homes” of PA.
Responding to our questions :
I would like to propose to you that the only way to approach these questions is to recognize that pa is contextual and complex.
What is public administration?
Shafritz- Know the simplistic definition of PA: PA is what governments do. Understand the political, legal, managerial, and occupational definitions of PA. Public Administration can be both direct (mail service) and indirect (private contracts to do work). Public Administration exists throughout the problem identification, decision making and implementation phases of policy making. “Public Administration is doing collectively that which cannot be so well done individually.”
- who are the public? (citizens, children, tourists/visitors, prisoners) Simply define by jurisdictional boundaries? What is publicness?
When we say “public” what do we mean? Government and non-profits do not just serve a need to the public at large, sometimes their organization is the public they are serving. We pass laws and form policies to govern ourselves within organizations. The FCC tells the FAA they can't allow passengers to use cell phones in flight. The school district tells each school how much money they are going to get that year.
- what is administration?
-is pa a discipline (interdisciplinary or stand alone or subfield), science (Box argues it is not a science with any clear answers to complex social problems), art, (Lawrence Lynn, Jr.) practice/profession?
-conceptualize aside from what individuals do
-what about the terms of public service and public management? What's the difference?
Who are public administrators?
-Box would argue that they are not politicians, however, we all are political, social beings with values- this effects decision making processes.
-Some thought they were only those public employees (non-elected) in management positions. Others felt public administrators can be elected, non-elected, non-profit, management title or not. There are a lot of assumptions about “who” public administrators are, and, therefore about the work they do.
-I would argue that public administrators are the human capital of the government's executive capacity.
Why does public administration matter? To whom?
What is the power and knowledge nexus? Where is it?
-who do you give power and knowledge recognition to? What institutions, laws or policies do you give power/knowledge recognition to?
-Henry- knowledge and control- pa's are quick to defend their unique knowledge base
8:45pm
Go to seminar groups