Theory and Practice of Public Administration and Governance (GS250)
Reporter
Course
Date
Topic
: Maria Isabel B. Ongpauco
: Master in Public Administration
: August 4, 2018
: Public Administration as Political Science (1950s to 1970s)
The evolution of public administration as a separate
discipline can be traced in the following paradigms:
PARADIGMS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
(NICHOLAS HENRY)
1. The Politics Administration Dichotomy (1900 – 1926)
2. Principles Of Public Administration (1927 – 1937)
3. PA as Political Science (1950 -1970)
4. Public Administration as Management (1956 – 1970)
5. PA as Public Administration (1970 to present)
6. Governance (1990 to present)
Public Administration as Political Science
(1950s to 1970s)
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As a consequence of the rejection of the two
defining pillars of early administrative theory –
politics–administration dichotomy and the principles
approach, the discipline of public administration
faced a crisis of identity.
The scholars of public administration reacted to this
crisis by re-establishing the linkages of Public
Administration first with Political Science and then
with the Management.
John Gauss in his famous article “Trends in the
Theory of Public Administration‟ (1950) made
famous observation that: “A theory of public
administration means in our time a theory of politics
also”.
Further, Roscoe Martin wrote an article in 1952
calling for continued “dominion of Political Science
over Public Administration”.
Martin Landau observed in 1962 that, “PA is
neither a sub-field of Political Science nor does it
comprehended it. It only becomes a synonym”.
According to him, 1950s writings, spoke of the field
as an “emphasis”, “an area of interest” or even as a
“synonym” of political science.
William Siffin had also noted in 1956 that, “the
study of PA in US is characterized by absence of
any fully comprehensive intellectual framework”.
Herbert A. Simon’s Administrative Behavior: A
Study
of
Decision-making
Processes
in
Administrative Organization (1947). His work
contained a searching critique of the older Public
Administration, particularly of its use of “principles.”
These so-called principles, he observed, are similar
to maxims of folk wisdom and, in fact, given the
loose and unscientific way in which they have been
derived and stated, cannot be regarded as more
than proverbs (International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, 1968)
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Farazmand
(2002)
remarks
that
public
administration during this period “emphasized
institution
building,
bureaucratization,
nationalization, and a wide variety of organizational
and administrative capacity building for national and
economic development.”
Refocused PA on government and political
science. This led to the growth in the use of case
studies in teaching and comparative administration
studies.
While comparative studies called for
practical application, it also sought to create
theories of PA and sought knowledge for the sake
of knowing (Henry, 2004)
Two developments took place –the growing use
of the Case Study Method and the rise and fall of
Comparative and Development Administration.
So far as the rise of Comparative and Development
Administration is concerned, it may be pointed out
that prior to the abandonment of the principles of
administration, it was assumed that cultural factors
did not make any difference in administrative
settings.
But later on, scholars like Robert Dahl and Dwight
Waldo pointed out that cultural factors could make
public administration on one part of the globe quite
different on the other part.
As a result of this revised thinking, the study of
Comparative Public Administration started in
Universities and Colleges.
However, the real impetus came in 1960 when
Comparative Administrative Group was founded
which received liberal grants from Ford Foundation.
The Foundation„s emphasis on the Third World led
to a semi-autonomous sub-field of the Comparative
Public Administration called the Development
Administration.
This period also saw the rise of Fred W. Riggs who
“through his macro, systemic, ecological and
structural functional models of the administrative
systems opened new vistas for cross-cultural
administrative research.
In 1967, Heinz Eulau, the then President of APSA
said that political science seems to have less utility
in the education of public administrators. Political
science
educates
for
“intellectualized
understanding” of public administration, whereas
public administration educates for “knowledgeable
action”.).
Public administration naturally was in search of an
alternative, and this was available in the form of
administrative science.