The Concept
of Public Administration
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
Institute of Administrative Studies
University of Wrocław
The Concept of Public Administration
The Bible Revised Standard Version.
The Gospel according to John, 1, 1:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
The terms
administration and public administration
are equivocal (= ambiguous) ones.
The Concept of Public Administration
Andrew Dunsire* has identified (in English language) fifteen
different meanings of the term administration.
*A. Dunsire, Administration. The Word and the Science, Martin Robertson, London 1973.
dr hab. Jerzy Supernat
The meanings of administration as listed and explained by A. Dunsire
1. Help or service pure and simple (with no notion of direction).
2. Direction or government pure and simple, expressed colloquially as ‘running the show’, with connotations of service or help
entirely suppressed, or remote.
3. Government or direction in the implementation of a given purpose or end; execution.
4. Direction or execution in the interests of someone else; government as deputy or trustee.
5. Authoritarian service; used in conjunction with ‘of the sacraments’, ‘of medicine’, ‘of justice’, and the like, or in imitation of that
use.
6. Collective noun for the Crown, or the King and his servants engaged in the government of the realm.
7. Collective noun for the King’s Ministers, without the King; the Government of the day.
8. Implementation of laws by non-judicial machinery of civil offices; the creation and maintenance of such machinery, and
provision of information generated by it for legislative purposes.
9. Work of directing, or establishing the principles of, the execution or implementation of the laws, or of public policy, as
contrasted with both the determination of those laws or that policy, and the detailed or routine stages of such execution or
implementation.
10. Collective noun for the non-judicial machinery of civil offices, the complex of government departments headed by
Secretaries of State, other Ministers of the Crown, or Boards, and staffed by permanent civil servants or their like; public administration.
11. The duties of the Administrative Class; work concerned with the formation of policy, with the co-ordination of and improvement
of Government machinery, and with the [administration and] control of the Departments of the public service.
12. Work of analysing, balancing, and presenting for decision complex policy considerations; assigning due weights to each
factor (technical, financial, political, etc.), balancing short-term considerations against long-term considerations; to be contrasted with
the work of giving specialist advice on any one factor; work of persons trained in and experienced in this task, as distinct from
the work of persons trained in a specific professional capacity or technical expertise before entry and employed in such capacity.
13. Ancillary housekeeping and office or desk work in an organisation, or part of the work of an individual, contrasted with but
inseparable from the work of producing the goods or services whose production defines the public role of the organization or individual;
work of logistic support, structuring and programming, procedural record and control, contrasted with direction of production, and with
making of corporate policy, as well with productive operations; collective noun for persons engaged in such work in an
organisation.
14. Work of book-keeping, registration, accounting, and other internal communication of record; clerical work, as
contrasted with the use of such records in control or in policy-making; collective noun for persons engaged in such work.
15. Title of a subject, field, discipline, course, or examination in a school, college, university or other institution of
training or education, whose content is provided by the study of administration in one or more of the foregoing Meanings; an area
of academic and theoretical research, the description and evaluation of the machinery or work associated with one or more of the
foregoing Meanings.
The Concept of Public Administration
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Luther Gulick
Administration has to do with getting things done; with the accomplishment
of defined objectives.
Dwight Waldo
Administration is a type of co-operative human effort that has a high degree
of rationality.
George E. Berkley
Administration is a process involving human beings jointly engaged in working towards common goals.
Keith Henderson
Administration is the arrangement of men and materials in the rational carrying out purposes.
Two essential elements of administration:
 collective effort
 common purpose
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Administration is an universal process and occurs in
diverse institutional settings. Based on its institutional
settings, administration is divided into:
public administration (refers to the administration
which operates in governmental setting)

private administration (refers to the administration
which operates in non-governmental setting)

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Woodrow Wilson
Public administration is a detailed and systematic execution of law. Every
particular application of law is an act of administration. […] Administration is
the most obvious part of the government; it is the government in action; it is
the executive, the operative, the most visible part of the government.
Edgar N. Gladden
Public administration is concerned with the administration of the government.
Leonard D. White
Public administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose
the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy.
Marshall E. Dimock
Public administration is the fulfillment or enforcement of public policy as declared by the competent authorities. It deals with the problems and powers of
the organizations and techniques of management involved in carrying out the
law and policies formulated by the policy-making agencies of government.
Public administration is the law in action. It is the executive side of a government.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Felix A. Nigro
Public administration: (1) is a cooperative group effort in a public setting; (2)
covers all three branches – executive, legislative, and judicial – and their
interrelationships; (3) has an important role in the formulation of public policy,
and is thus part of a political process; (4) is different in significant ways from
private administration; and (5) is closely associated with numerous private
groups and individuals in providing services to the community.
David H. Rosenbloom, Robert S. Kravchuk
Public administration is the use of managerial, political, and legal theories and
processes to fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial mandates for the provision of governmental regulatory and service functions.
Dwight Waldo
Public administration is the art and science of management as applied to the
affairs of the State. […] The process of public administration consists of the
actions involved in effecting the intent or desire of a government. It is thus
the continuously active, business part of government, concerned with carrying out the law, as made by legislative bodies (or other authoritative agents)
and interpreted by the courts, through the process of organization and management.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Luther Gulick
Public Administration is that part of the science of administration which has to
do with government and thus concerns itself primarily with the executive
branch where the work of government is done, though there are obviously
problems in connections with the legislative and judicial branches.
James W. Davis
Public administration can be best identified with the executive branch of a
government.
William F. Willoughby
The term administration may be employed […] in two senses. In its broadest
sense it denotes the work involved in the actual conduct of governmental affairs, regardless of the particular branch of government concerned. It is, thus,
quite proper to speak of the administration of the legislative branch of the
government, the administration of justice or judicial affairs, or the administration of the executive branch as well as the administration of the affairs of the
administrative branch of the government, or the conduct of the affairs of the
government generally. In its narrowest sense, it denotes the operations of the
administrative branch only*.
* Author made a distinction between executive power and administrative power and restricted the use of the term
administration to the activities of the administrative branch only. In other words he has given administration the
status of a fourth branch of government.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
In the negative concept, regarding the doctrine of separation of powers, the traditional view expressed by German scholars Otto Mayer and Walter Jellinek was that:
public administration („vast remnants”) stays
outside the legislature and the judiciary.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
The Constitution of the Republic of Poland
Art. 10
1. The system of government of the Republic of Poland
shall be based on the separation of and balance between the legislative, executive and judicial powers.
2. Legislative power shall be vested in the Sejm and the
Senate, executive power shall be vested in the President of the Republic of Poland and the Council of
Ministers, and the judicial power shall be vested in
courts and tribunals.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
German public
administration scholar
Lorenz von Stein,
1815-1890,
one of the first
to acknowledge
that the modern state
is an administrative state:
Administration
is what I cannot name.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Polish scholar Janusz Łętowski:
Administration can be described but not defined.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
David H. Rosenbloom, Robert S. Kravchuk
Public administration […] is difficult to define. […] In part, this is because public administration covers such a vast amount of activity.
Public administration jobs range from the exploration of outer space to
sweeping the streets. Some public administrators are highly educated
professionals, who may be at the forefront of their fields of specialization; others possess few skills that differentiate them from the mass of
the citizenry. Some public administrators make policies that have a
nationwide impact and may benefit millions of people; others have
virtually no responsibility for policy making and simply carry out
mundane governmental tasks like word processing, filing, and record
keeping. Public administrators are doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, accountants, budgeters, policy analysts, personnel officers, managers, clerks, keyboarders, manual laborers, and individuals engaged
in a host of other occupations and functions.
[…] public administration as a category is so abstract and varied that it
can only be described in vague, general, amorphous, and somewhat
competing terms.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
Prison – administrative
establishment / public
undertaking
As of the end of August 2007,
Poland officially declared
90 199 prisoners
(13 374 pre-trial; 76 434 serving
sentences; 391 others; 2 743
prisoners were female),
giving an imprisonment rate
per 100 000 inhabitants
of about 234.
In Australian prisons at 30 June 2008
there were 27 615 prisoners
(sentenced and unsentenced) giving
an imprisonment rate of 169
prisoners per 100 000 adult
population.
War cemetery. Lest we should dream that we may die in vain!
The Concept of Public Administration
German scholar Ingo von Münch:
Von der Wiege bis zur Bahre: Formulare, Formulare.
(Całe życie w pewnym wymiarze: formularze, formularze).
(From the cradle to the bier – forms, forms).
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
There is, however, a core of diverse
meanings of terms administration and
public administration, linked with the
origin of the word administration.
Administration has originated from Latin
verb ministrare, strengthened by the
preposition ad-, meaning „to serve”.
Words „minister” and „ministration” also
conform that „servant” aspect of the
derivatives of ministrare.
Therefore, administration always means
a certain service or executive activity,
carried out with respect to somebody
and/or something more important.
Administration is an instrument serving
to achieve a goal and/or to execute a will
of superior. It should not have aims of its
own.
The Concept of Public Administration
Polish scholar Hubert Izdebski:
Public administration is an operational instrument in the
hands of a political power. Serving the political power, public administration in a democracy should serve the people organised in a democratic state. It is, in a sense, an
executive of the executive power.
Public administration is also „public” in the sense that, in
liberal democracy, the only argument for its intervention –
as the intervention of the state power – in the affairs of
the state's subjects (individuals as well as their organisations: business and non-profit ones alike) is the public
good (the public interest).
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Polish scholar Małgorzata Stahl:
Characteristics of public administration:
acting on behalf of the state or another public authority, to
which the state has ceded a part of its power (imperium)
 administrative coercion – performing a function with the possibility of applying public power to enforce decisions
 political nature (the principle of spoils system developed in the
USA), in Poland e.g. when the government is dismissed, the governors of the provinces resign
 acting on the basis and within the limits of law (a rule applicable to individuals – „it is allowed to do everything that is not explicitly forbidden” – is not applicable for public administration)
 a continuous and stable operation
 employing mainly professional personnel (in particular a corps of civil servants)

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Janusz Łętowski added other characteristics of public administration:
a peculiarly monopolistic character: administration acts alone
within its competence

undertaking non-commercial activity, not aiming at gaining profits, which doesn’t mean being gratuitous (= done freely, without reward or payment being expected), sometimes resulting with profit
(but not only a profit)

acting on administrative own initiative or on request of the interested party

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
1/7
Hubert Izdebski
From the functional point of view, public administration can be
defined as an operational function, in any state, independently
of the epoch and of the form of government.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
2/7
It is not, however, the case of public administration approached in institutional terms. Public administration as
•
a specific set of authorities and institutions,
with missions set up in conformity with principles of the horizontal and vertical division of work (constituting the division of
administrative tasks and competences) and
•
•
staffed by professional employees
– is a relatively new phenomenon. Although public administration has been developing since late Middle Ages, it was as late
as in the Enlightenment period, i.e. in the 18th century, that it
appeared in the form comparable to the contemporary ones.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
The absolute monarchies of the 18th century lacked however an important characteristic feature of the contemporary liberal democratic
state. They lacked a strict link between public administration and the
law, especially administrative law.
The contemporary link between public administration and the law
consists in the submission of all the executive power, and public
administration operating there within, to the law. The submission is
the most important aspect of:
 the rule of law, the principle which has been developed in
England since the Middle Ages, and
 the state of law (Rechtstaat / Etat de droit / Estado de derecho /
państwo prawa), the concept introduced in the continental Europe,
especially in Germany in the 19th century, as an overt opposition to
Polizeistaat.
From that point of view, public administration is an instrument of implementation of provisions of the statutes and other sources of law.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
3/7
The Concept of Public Administration
4/7
Such idea, linked with the principle of legality (each action
of public administration must have a legal basis), and the protection of citizen rights against uncontrolled discretion of state
power, has opened room for the judicial control of public administration.
Art. 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland
The organs of public authority shall function on the basis of,
and within the limits of, the law.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
5/7
When taking into account the importance of the legal factor in
organisation and activities of public administration, it should be,
nevertheless, borne in mind that public administration may not
be a simple bouche de la loi, a kind of machinery of law enforcement, as its basic role is providing to the public necessary services in diverse fields of the government’s activity.
Public administration is sometimes defined as an „organisational activity of the government”. Such activity needs an
initiative and certain freedom of action as well, and it cannot be
a passive implementation of orders of the law in any way.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
6/7
In the contemporary liberal democratic state, based upon legality and market economy, public administration belongs to the
most important elements of the whole system of social organisation. The system can be presented – in a simplified way – as
composed of several interactive sub-systems, i.e.




political system
market economy
law
public administration
each of which having been set within the larger context of civil
society.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
7/7
Political system
Law
Public
administration
Market
economy
Civil society (citizens)
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Polish scholar Jacek Jagielski:
The principle of legality, the fundamental principle governing the functioning of public administration, derives
directly from democratic tenants. This is clearly set forth
in the Constitution, which provides that units of public
authority must operate only on the basis of law and strictly within its bonds (art. 7). This means that every action
of public administration has to be explicitly authorized by
law. The maxim that „anything which is not forbidden is
allowed” does not apply here. Quite to the contrary, only
what is specifically provided by law is allowed.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Public
administration
(1+2+3+4)
Direct public
administration
Indirect public
administration
 Administration of order/imperium
(administracja reglamentacyjna). A special
new category of such administration is
regulatory administration.
 Administration of provision (administracja
świadcząca), assuring provision of public
services in the social field as well as of
services qualified as utilities or public utilities.
 Administration of ownership/dominium
(administracja właścicielska) performing tasks
of management of public property (public
goods, administrative assets and business
assets).
 Administration of development (public
planning in its various aspects).
Public administration
organized in the forms
of private law
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Direct public administration consists of government organs
(authorities). Direct public administration doesn’t comprise
organs of local self-government (local authorities)*.
A government organ is an immanent part of the state and
doesn’t have separate legal subjectivity. Therefore it cannot be
treated as an entity independent of the state, possessing some
rights or obligations against it.
* Local self-government (local authorities) is distinct from purely local administration
whereby services are provided through locally-based staff of central government or
where local authorities act as mere agents of central government. In other words,
local self-government (local authorities) is distinct from local administrators of the
decisions of central government.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Indirect public administration consists of entities which are legally independent of the state
and which have separate legal subjectivity or even separate legal personality.
Otherwise than government organs (authorities), entities within the framework of indirect public
administration are decentralized ones with legally protected independence [decentralization =
independence + supervision]. They include the following:
public law associations/corporations (mostly local self-government – see Art. 15 of the Polish
Constitution) – formally mandatory membership and performance of public tasks

administrative/public establishments (public undertakings) – specialized public institutions
(educational establishments, hospitals, libraries, museums, the Social Insurance Institution*)
whose mission is to provide services in the social field in a broad sense. They don’t participate in
expressing the imperium (which is the task of offices), but they do wield power over their direct
stakeholders (called after the French term destinataries), i.e. persons profiting from its services
(students, patients, readers etc.) based upon statutes and appropriate regulations of a given
establishment. Sometimes they enjoy a specific self- government status (see Art. 70 of the Polish
Constitution). Providing social services in the way which cannot be indentified as a commercial
activity, they are a traditional vehicle for performance of an important part of the tasks of
administration of provision. New trends in public administration, esp. NPM seem to diminish the
role of public establishments, but as the public administration remains responsible for assuring
provision of various social services they are still indispensable as a guarantee of social security and
general access to such services

public law foundations (established by statute: the Ossolineum National Institute, Public Opinion
Research Centre and Zakłady Kórnickie, and by virtue of the international agreement: the PolishGerman Reconciliation Foundation)

* The SII’s mission: Efficient, friendly and reliable customer service provided with respect for the principles of rational and transparent
management of public resources, using modern technologies and human potential. ZUS vision is to become an innovative public trust
organization.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Public administration organized in the forms of private
law consists of entities whose form is determined by
provisions of civil law and commercial law, namely:
 agencies being companies (Polish Press Agency)
 agencies being state legal persons (see the next slide)
 private law foundations (established by a natural or legal
person who makes a declaration of intent in the form of a
deed)
These entities belong to public administration in organizational
and functional sense as they have been established (mostly by
laws) to carry out administrative tasks inter alia in authoritative
(coercive) forms. Nevertheless their organization differs from
the organization of other entities of public administration as in
their case fundamental role is played by private law.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
One example of public administration organized in the forms of
private law is the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development –
state legal person set up by the law of the 9th of November
2000.
The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development is not a part of
indirect pubic administration as:
it is not a public law corporation (it is not an association /
collectivity with mandatory membership)

it is not a public establishment set up for destinataries
(direct stakeholders)


it is not a public law foundation
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Jan Boć
Public administration, in all its complexities, still consists of only two
general categories of actors, namely:
 organs (authorities),
 employees.
Public administration organs are a basic constructive element of
public administration. These include single-person and collective
organs possessing the following features and characteristics:
1. Being framed within organizational structure of either state or local
government.
2. Having been appointed to execute the provisions of administrative
law in a way and with results specific for this branch of law,
3. Operating within the functional limits prescribed to him/her
(them) by law.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Bearing in mind the range and diversity of administrative tasks
of public administration, and the ratio between the number of
organs and number of employees in the system of public
administration one can justly say that delegation by a public
administration organ of the execution of some of
his/her functions to one or more employees being directly
subordinated to him, is critical and indispensable for the proper
operation of public administration.
Sir Robin Butler – head of the British Civil Service, 1991
The government and Civil Service is a huge and complex organisation, from
social security benefits to vehicle testing to printing passports. That can’t all
be organised by a minister these days. It can’t be organised by me, so the
philosophy behind it is to drive down, to delegate powers to take decisions,
as close as possible to the point of delivery.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
David Oates
A manager is someone who gets things done through other people. That is what
management is all about. It is the ability to delegate that distinguishes the
good manager from the bad. The manager who utilises the skills, aptitudes and
commitment of his subordinates to develop them and broaden their experience is the
one most likely to succeed and become a prime candidate for promotion.
[…] in order to understand the benefits of delegation it is important to grasp the
significance of three terms […] – responsibility, authority and accountability.
Responsibility relates to the ownership of the task that has been delegated. As soon
as a subordinate is entrusted with a project it is his or her responsibility to see it
completed in accordance with the aims and deadlines agreed with the delegating
manager.
The authority is the power that is invested in the subordinate to enable the
responsibility to be successfully discharged. This means ensuring that the subordinate
is authorised to use whatever resources are necessary to perform the delegated task
and that he or she is in a position to make the necessary decisions relating to it.
Nevertheless, senior managers are always accountable for what happens in their
sector of the organisation. Simply because they have passed on responsibility and
authority to the subordinate does not mean that they can abdicate all accountability
when something goes wrong.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Delegation of functions (internal deconcentration)
Poland, The Code of Administrative Proceedings 1960
Art. 268a. A public administration authority may issue written
authorizations for employees of the managed organizational units to
dispose of the matters on behalf of the authority within the specified
scope, and in particular to issue administrative decisions, orders and
certificates.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Delegation of functions (internal deconcentration)
Ireland, The Local Government Act 2001
Art. 154. (2) A manager for a local authority may by order delegate such of his or her
functions as he or she thinks proper to an employee of any local authority for which he or
she is manager and such person shall perform such duties as are appropriate to the
functions so delegated and shall for that purpose and subject to this section act in place of
the manager.
(3) Where a delegation is made under this section —
(a) the employee shall perform the delegated function under the general direction and
control of the manager,
(b) the employee shall perform the delegated function in accordance with such (if any)
limitations as may be specified in the delegation as to the area or period in which or the
extent to which he or she is to perform that function,
(c) a provision of or under this or any other enactment which vests functions in the manager
or regulates the manner in which any function is to be performed (including the making of
an order under section 151) shall, if and in so far as it is applicable to the delegated
function, have effect, for the purposes of the performance of that function by the employee,
with the substitution of the employee for the manager and every such provision shall be
read accordingly.
(4) Where a function is delegated under this section the function shall continue to be vested
in the manager but shall be so vested concurrently with the employee to whom it is
delegated and so as to be capable of being performed by either such manager or such
employee.
(5) The manager may by order amend or revoke a delegation made under this section or
made under any other provision repealed by this Act.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
The Concept of Public Administration
Delegation of functions (internal deconcentration)
EU, Rules of Procedure of the Commission, 2001
Article 13
The Commission may, provided the principle of collective responsibility is fully
respected, empower one or more of its Members to take management or
administrative measures on its behalf and subject to such restrictions and conditions
as it shall impose.
The Commission may also instruct one or more of its Members, with the agreement of
the President, to adopt the definitive text of any instrument or of any proposal to be
presented to the other institutions the substance of which has already been
determined in discussion.
Powers conferred in this way may be subdelegated to the Directors-General and Heads
of Service unless this is expressly prohibited in the empowering decision.
The provisions of the first, second and third paragraphs shall be without prejudice to
the rules concerning delegation in respect of financial matters or the powers conferred
on the appointing authority and the authority empowered to conclude contracts of
employment.
Article 14
The Commission may, provided the principle of collective responsibility is fully
respected, delegate the adoption of management or administrative measures to the
Directors-General and Heads of Service, acting on its behalf and subject to such
restrictions and conditions as it shall impose.
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
Concluding Remark
If it is dangerous to suppose that government is always
right, it will sooner or later be awkward for public administration if most people suppose that it is always wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith
dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat