From: 12192786 Soo Hye Woo from Public administration
To: Professor Seung Hwan Myeong
Re: Reading public administration
Date: 2020-09-12 (For classes on September 16th.)
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Article title: Leonard D. White. (1926). "Introduction to the Study of Public Administration.”
Brief Summary:
Public administration is the management of men and materials in the accomplishment of the
purposes of the state. This definition emphasizes the managerial phase of administration and
minimizes its legalistic and former aspect.
The objective of public administration is the most efficient utilization of the resources at the disposal
of officials and employees. Public administration is, then, the execution of the public business; the
goal of administrative activity the most expeditious, economical, and the complete achievement of
public programs.
The objective of public administration is the efficient conduct of public business. So within the
boundaries set, it seeks the most effective accomplishment of public purposes.
Even today the main lines of our administrative structure or profoundly influenced by their English
origin. The fact is that the role of administration in the modern state is profoundly affected by the
general political and cultural environment of the age.
In every direction, the task of the modern state is enlarging. In every direction likewise the range
of public administration is being extended.
Discussion & Critics:
At the outset, it seems important to insist that the administrative process is a unit, and to conceive
it not as municipal administration, or state or the ministration, or federal administration, but as a
process common to all levels of government.
As mentioned earlier, The objective of public administration is the most efficient utilization of the
resources at the disposal of officials and employees. In order to achieve this goal, therefore, a lot
of attention should be paid to personnel administration.
Administration must be correlated with other branches of government. That is why a balance of
power between the administration and other ministries is required.
Officialdom was thought a necessary evil, bureaucracy an ever-present danger. The problems with
which officials must grapple are now so varied in scope.
The scientific management movement has had a very important share in stimulating improvement
in the methods of carrying on public business.