The existence and progress of human society depends to a large extent, on the cooperation and utilization of group efforts to accomplish certain societal objectives. In fact, the development of human society and the concomitant increase in the number of societal problems has shown clearly that men have to intensify efforts and ideas to manage and cope with their fast-growing and changing society. Furthermore, from its rudimentary level in the primitive society, cooperative efforts of men have grown to a national level where government bureaucracy ‘is used’ for decision making to achieve certain national objectives. And at present, there is what could be called as internationalization of cooperative efforts in the quest of nations to solve or address certain problems or issues that are of international concern (Simon, 1970). These cooperative efforts of men are geared towards the achievement of public goals and this is called public administration, which is the subject matter of this study. Therefore, it is of intellectual significance to understand not only the meaning of public administration but also its nature and scope.
DEFINITION OF ADMINISTRATION
Administration, also referred to as business administration, is the management of an office, business, or organisation. It involves the efficient organisation of people, information, and other resources to achieve organisational objectives.Information is key to business operations, and people are the resources who make use of information to add value to an organisation.
DEFINITION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Public administration is the implementation ofgovernment policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants for working in the public service. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" whose fundamental goal is to "advance management and policies so that government can function". Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, theanalysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies."
Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programs as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their conduct". Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as municipal budget directors, human resources (HR) administrators, city managers , census managers, state mental health directors, and cabinet secretaries. Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government.
In the United States, civil servants and academics such as Woodrow Wilson promotedcivil service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia . However, "until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Weber 's theory of bureaucracy" there was not "much interest in a theory of public administration".
CHAPTER TWO
THE PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Good governance matters. It has a significant impact on government performance and is therefore essential in building trust in government and delivering necessary structural reforms. A well-functioning public administration requires a professional civil service, efficient procedures for policy and legislative development, well-defined accountability arrangements between institutions and citizens as well as among institutions, ability of the administration to efficiently deliver services to citizens and businesses, and a sound public financial management system.
The Principles of Public Administration for the six core reform areas are accompanied by the analytical and monitoring framework for monitoring and reviewing progress of the countries in enlargement process, using detailed methodology. Ultimately, application of these Principles should indicate the capacity of administration to implement EU requirement, i.e. apply the EU acquis .
Visit PAR Resource Centre section for the full text of the SIGMA Principles of Public Administration, methodology, and progress reports for all Western Balkan countries.
PAR Monitor and the Principles
Having in mind the amount of attention given to the public administration reform (PAR) by the European Commission in the enlargement process, and strict conditions the EU sets before the Western Balkan countries in their ongoing reforms using the Principles, WeBER is using the general framework set out by the Principles to advocate for local demand and support to public administration reform processes in these countries, beyond the EU conditionality. The involvement of civil society and media organisations in PAR monitoring and influencing the dialogue in these countries is, hence, the ultimate aim of WeBER as these organisations are key external stakeholders in holding the administrations accountable, and are capable of increasing and maintaining local demand for better public services and handling of administration. More precisely, WeBER seeks to increase the relevance, participation and capacity of civil society organisations and media in the WB to advocate for and influence the design and implementation of PAR.
In pursuing its goal, WeBER strongly leans on the Principles of Public Administration for creating this pressure, but through the development of own, distinct methodology embodied in PAR Monitor. Main focus of the PAR Monitor methodology is on the involvement of civil society and its role of an “external scrutiniser” of administration. Ultimately, PAR Monitor will create evidence base for the informed dialogue on PAR, and it will produce regional and national monitoring reports.
THE ELEMENTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Public sector organizations strive to provide infrastructural stability, ensuring that the needs of the people are properly met at all times. From providing transportation resources to enacting laws that protect citizens’ rights, public administrators use a range of public policy tools, resources, and strategies to create a secure social and economic structure. Due to the importance of fulfilling the responsibilities associated with this role,
Inter-governmental Relationships
The U.S. government has developed into highly complex networks of organizational entities, with each entity typically featuring a unique function. Comprehending how these inter-governmental entities interact and support one another can help a public administration professional recognize the overall scope of duties performed by each entity. Quite often, the actions taken within a single branch of an organized government will ripple outwards, causing some effect on other inter-governmental entities that have an active relationship with that branch.
Organizational Theory
Organizational Theory involves studying organizations to identify the key factors that allow them to maximize their efficiency and then packaging these factors into ideas and strategies that can be reproduced by practicing public administration professionals to impact policy making as well as other tasks. This process involves engaging in theory-based training that explores the many tested methods of public administration and is typically classified into these four groups:
Classical Theory
This concept implements a highly bureaucratic, scientific approach to the management of an organization and has effectively served as the building block for many of today’s most prominent organizational theories. Many organizations favored this approach during the Industrial Revolution, and it continued being adopted throughout the 20th century. This rigid form of organization administration is commonly associated with the term “micromanagement” and is gradually being phased out of use due to the negative consequences of stripping employees of their autonomy. In the current century, some public administrative organizations still operate under this theory, which is focused intently on monitoring all aspects of the organization’s inputs and outputs.
Neo-Classical Theory
This theoretical concept, also called the Human Relations Theory, builds on the concepts of Classical Theory for operations, but extends itself to encompass the human element. Rather than focusing on employees as units that produce consistent outputs, the Neo-Classical Theory considers the uniqueness and varying traits of different people and focuses on more creative ways to manage and motivate them. Developing effective approaches to interpersonal interaction and collaboration is also a key focal point here. Overall the Neo-Classical Theory attempts to account for the fact that employees are thoughtful, creative individuals with potential new ideas that can add value to the organization.
Contingency Theory
This theory emerged in response to the rapid growth and evolution of industries, increasing competition, and the constant change and volatility of the environment that came with it. Perhaps most characteristic of the technology industry, the Contingency Theory focuses on the flexibility of an organization and its ability to respond and adapt to changes quickly. Similar to the Neo-Classical Theory, the effectiveness of the Contingency Theory approach falls on management to properly utilize the human element. Managers must have skills in conflict resolution, the ability to help others understand the fluctuations of the organizational environment, and be able to promote reactive, collective decisions in order for the organization to thrive.
Modern Systems Theory
This theory is rooted in the idea that all organizations must be constantly prepared to adapt to change. The Modern Systems Theory encourages change by highlighting the need for organizations to capitalize on the recent emergence and development of robust data collection and processing systems. A primary characteristic of this theoretical approach is the shift away from viewing the organization as an entity with separate departments with separate goals and functions.
Public Needs
Public administration entities hold the responsibility of providing communities with access to basic necessities, such as shelter, education, and public utilities, and must operate efficiently in order to fulfill this role successfully and sustain highly functional societies. To achieve these goals, professionals in this industry are tasked with closely interacting with community members on a consistent basis in order to understand their concerns and collaborate on formulating solutions.
Governance
Public administrators must have a clear and accurate understanding of governing issues and be able to act in the interest of all parties involved, ranging from the broader public to specific branches of government, in order to help their respective entities properly address pressing social and economic challenges. For example, in a high-crime city, some administrations turn to policy reforms, like aggressive sentencing for lower-level crimes that make a criminal lifestyle less appealing.
Public Policies
Drafting acceptable public policies is an important role for a public administration professional, as these policies determine how organizations interact with and serve the community. Additionally, residents of a given community will use their understanding of these policies to generate their individual expectations for the government and to determine how they should interact with government entities. In the process of drafting public policy, public administration professionals must consider the potential impacts of their decisions from a number of angles. Many decisions require public funds that directly affect tax paying citizens, so understanding how these individuals might perceive the decision to revamp public school transportation practices, for example, would be essential when planning and communicating any proposed changes. Other factors should also be considered, including the availability of funding as well as other public priorities that could be affected or put on hold because of a particular policy or decision.
THE ENGAGEMENT OF THE YOUTH IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
focus on youth, in terms of their engagement in the political arena, is a relatively new priority but extremely timely, particularly in light of recent events and democratic transitions, in the Arab States as well as other regions. The “World Programme of Action for Youth for 2000 and beyond”5 touched upon the importance of youth participation in decision-making, but did not offer concrete interventions at the time. People under the age of 35 are rarely found in formal political leadership positions. In a third of countries, eligibility for the national parliament starts at 25 years or higher and it is common practice to refer to politicians as ‘young’ if they are below 35-40 years of age.6 Youth is not represented adequately in formal political institutions and processes such as Parliaments, political parties, elections, and public administrations. The situation is even more difficult for both young women as well as women at mid-level and decision-making/leadership positions. In order to respond to the needs of young people, and to guarantee that their basic human rights are recognized and enforced, young people’s active and meaningful participation in their societies and in democratic practices and processes is of crucial importance7. Meaningful youth participation and leadership require that young people and young people-led organizations have opportunities, capacities, and benefit from an enabling environment and relevant evidencebased programmes and policies at all levels. Realizing young people’s right to participate8 and be included in democratic processes and practices is also vital to ensure the achievement of internationally agreed development goals and to refresh the development agenda. In a survey conducted by the UN IANYD in August 2012, a majority of 13,000 respondents expressing their voices from 186 countries highlighted that the main challenges for youth were limited opportunities for effective participation in decision-making processes. With limited opportunities and exposure to meaningfully participate in inclusive decision-making processes, young men and women feel excluded and marginalized in their societies and communities. The need for participatory structures and greater trust between youth and institutions and for greater capacity development were also stressed. Efforts should also be made to focus on the most vulnerable of young people, including via specific actions targeting young women. In countries emerging from conflicts, UNDP recognizes that young people can engage in peacebuilding, leading non-violent revolutions, using new technologies to mobilize societies to bring about change. Young people have demonstrated the potential to build bridges across communities, working together, helping to manage conflict and promote peace. Young people are vital stakeholders in conflict and in peace-building, and can be agents of change and provide a foundation for rebuilding lives and communities, contributing to a more just and peaceful society
CHAPTER THREE
EFFECT OF GOOD ADMINISTRATION ON A NATIONS’S ECONOMY
Sustaining the incumbent government in powerGenerating goodwill for the government from the majority of the populationProvision of employmentIdentification and Management of ResourcesProvision of social welfare services to the populaceConducting Foreign AffairsNegotiation, Conciliation, and Arbitration The most fundamental and important function of public administration is to maintain the incumbent government in power. This involves certain measures:
Maintaining the ruling class in control of state power.These primary and fundamental functions guide all other functions. They include:
Advising the government on how best to implement programs: On the bases of its long tradition and experiences in handling resources and its store of data on every aspect of life of a society, public administration is in a very good position to advise the government on possible alternative courses of actions and their implications for the government and society.Public administration also performs the function of informing the public at large about government programs and what progress is being made to realize them. The goal here is to avoid any conflict between the people and the government arising from the people’s ignorance of what the government is doing, as well as to help generate support and goodwill for the government. The ministry of information usually performs this function.
A complementary function of public administration is that of informing the government about the attitudes of the people, including various groups in the society, towards government policies and programs. Such information is often necessary to enable the government to order or reorder its priorities. The various field agencies of government ministries and departments often provide it.
An important function of public administration is the provision of employment for the population. This function can be quite crucial in the ex – colonial societies of Asia and Africa where the government is often the largest employer of labor. Most, if not all, of those thus employed work within the public administration. Such employment opportunities include:
National and Regional Ministries like education, health, science and technology, finance, information, sports, defense, external affairs, interior, agriculture, industry etc.
Public enterprises, such as agro – allied industries, petrochemical companies, power generating companies, transport companies, mining industries, communication companies, etc.
Government agencies which include financial regulatory agencies, import and export promotion bodies, anti graft, agencies, human rights bodies etc.
Educational and health institutions at the primary, secondary and tertiary levelsLocal government departments etc.In this way the civil service is a source of the means of livelihood, in the form of wages and salaries, for thousands, if not millions, of the population.Another function of public administration is that of identifying all the resources available to the government from within its territory, and managing these resources adequately. It is the government’s bureaucracy that is responsible for conducting or supervising surveys to assess the existence of:
Various minerals within the countryThe unused agricultural potential of the nation
Resource endowment with respect to the organization of industrial enterprises
The availability of the various categories of labor force andThe various resources that can be procured from external sources, as well as the prices for their procurement.
The government bureaucracy not only identifies all these resources, it also organizes the most profitable and useful way of bringing them into productive activity to the benefit of the ruling class in particular and the population in general.
Such resource management has as its goal the task of ensuring that government programs are tailored to the resources available to the government, and to eliminate all waste in harnessing these resources to the relevant government programs.
Public administration is also very crucial in the organization and provision of social welfare services to the population.It is responsible in many countries for ensuring constant and adequate supply of water, electricity, health care and educational facilities.It is responsible for public works such as urban and other road constructions.The dredging of rivers, the building of port facilities, irrigation facilities, the organization of famine relief when necessary.sanitation, drainage facilities, the control of erosion and other natural disasters.the payment of pension and other labor benefits. In some countries it organizes the provision of housing, day care facilities for pre – school children and publi c transportation.In this way public administration influences directly the standard of living and the life style of the people.Other functions include
The planning of the nation’s economic life in both the short term and the long term,
Taking care of the finances of the society, especially the balance – of – payment function or the foreign exch ange task.
It must gather and store all possible information on every aspect of national life and preserve important documents for future use and scrutiny.
In addition, the civil service must co ordinate all the multifarious activities of its various departments and agencies to ensure that they are not working at cross – purposes.
THE EFFECT OF BAD ADMINISTRATION ON A NATION’S ECONOMY
Leadership is a necessary factor in every sphere of life, especially at the political level where decisions and actions affect the entire members of a nation. Leadership and Development, as defined by the Advanced Learner's Dictionary, is power of leading and the gradual growth of something so that it becomes more advanced and stronger.
This power of leading can be exercised positively for public good, generally seen as good leadership, or negatively, which leads to underdevelopment, depression and conflict - which is bad leadership. When we speak of bad leadership, it is easy to point to obvious factors which cause bad leadership like corruption as an index. A very important factor which is basic to every practice in government is the decision-making process. If the process of decision-making by a leader goes against all the norms of rationality and dictates of conscience, then such a leader qualifies to be classified as a bad leader.
The public nature of development has a significant number of problems, among which unresolved contradictions in the actions of the state, businesses and the public. Indeed, Russia is typical for the alienation of the public from the state, which is often expressed in civic apathy and deliberate distance of a large part of the population from the administrative decision-making process. This contradiction is reflected in the removal of the management process from the administrative decision-making and implementation phases [5]. It should be noted that one of the main conditions for the resolution of the existing contradiction is the establishment of a public nature of governance based on new models of public administration and mechanisms for their implementation.
It is currently possible to identify the main derivatives of these fundamental contradictions. One of these contradictions is between the need for public administration in a fair observance of its interests and the balance between these needs and interests with a real possibility of meeting them. The existence of various conflicting interests is typical for the object and the subject of public administration. These interests are realized to some extent, which subsequently leads to a clash for the opportunity to participate in the administrative decision-making and decision implementation on most important issues to the community.
The discrepancy between the objective nature of public administration and the subjectivity of ways of its implementation is the second derivative of the fundamental contradictions of public administration. Usually, this discrepancy is caused by the desire of the state to the stable development of the whole society, which is reflected in the dynamics and statics of the state as a kind of structure and is considered from the perspective of partnership. The essence of this contradiction is to define chaos or dynamic disequilibrium, suggesting that changes in external variables of activities of public administration bodies mean that the previous management experience with its debugged stereotypes must be subject to destruction. In this regard, the Government should respond to these changes flexibly through the public administration bodies.
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
Obviously, public administration is a very broad and encompassing area of study. Indeed, drawing a clear map of the area covered by the discipline of public administration is a difficult task to public administrators and this emerged as a result of the dynamics and complexities of the discipline.
One can hardly think of any modern State without a well established bureaucratic organization. In fact, public bureaucracy is the only machinery through which government carries out its responsibilities. Hence, it can be said that public administration has contributed immensely to the political development of Nigeria. Five of such contributions deserve special mention. First, is a collection of data. Public bureaucracy collects data for government decisions. Data is not only collected and assembled by administrators, but they evaluate the same for decision-making. The quality of governmental decision output is generally a reflection of the quality of information possessed by pubic bureaucracy. For instance, in Nigeria, there is the Federal Office of Statistics and National Planning Commission that provide information to the government for decision-making. Second, is investigation. This is one of the important activities performed by government of any nation. In fact, investigation or inspection by public bureaucracy hovers around all aspects of human endeavour. The standard of product of industry will be of low quality without building and factory inspection. Through investigation, and research, there will be discovery and development of new facts and techniques that could pave way for higher productivity.
REFERENCES
References Simon, A. (1970), Public Administration, New York, Vikas Publishing House.
Nwosu, H. (1985), Problems of Nigerian Administration, Enugu, Fourth Dimension.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5014720_Organization_theory_public_administration
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/23/flint-water-crisis-cost-cutting-
Balogun, M.J. (1983), Principles of Public Administration, Ibadan, Malt House.
Mbah, M. (2007), Foundations of Political Science, Onitsha, Rex Charles and Patrick.
http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-
Williams, D. (1985), Public Administration, The People’s Business, Toronto, Little Brown and Co.
White, L. (1986), Introduction to the Study of Public Administration, London, Oxford University Press.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7503e/w7503e03.htm
http://patimes.org/important-job-public-administrator/
MacRea, S. and Douglas, P. (1980), Public Administration: An Introduction, New York, Pitman Publishing
TABLE OF CONTENT
Title page…………………………………………………………….………….…i
Dedication…………………………………………………………….…………...ii
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………….……….….iii
Table of content…………………………………………………………..……… iv
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction………………………………………………………………………...1
Definition of administration ………………………………………………………1
Definition of public administration ………………………………………………..2
CHAPTER TWO
The principles of public administration…………………………………………….3
Par monitor and the principles……………………………………………………...3
The elements of public administration …………………………………………….4
The engagement of the youth in public administration…………………………….8
CHAPTER THREE
Effect of good administration on a nations’s economy …………………………..10
The effect of bad administration on a nation’s economy…………………………12
CHAPTER FOUR
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...15
References………………………………………………………………………...16
PREFACE
The term paper talks about the principles of public administration. How public administration have made nations organized and well developed. Chapter one is the introduction and the definition of terms. Chapter two talks about the principle of public administration, it also discussed at length, the elements of public administration and then, the engagement of the youth in public administration. Chapter three discusses the effect of good and bad public administration on a nation’s economy. Chapter four is the conclusion of the term paper. The work was also have simple and accessible references. Which gives room for more research.
