Public Administration and the Public

1
Public Administration and the Public

• Lecture 18 Administrative Processes in
  Government

2
The Publics Interaction with Public
Administration

• Every person in the United States is affected by
  some public administrative actions all of the
  time. Six main overlapping categories
• Clients and customers over half of the
  population has had one direct contact with the
  government on employment, job training, workers
  compensation, unemployment compensation, public
  assistance, hospital/ medical care, or retirement
  benefits.

3
The Publics Interaction with Public
Administration

• Regulatees vehicular licenses, traffic
  violations, income taxes, and police matters the
  four most common.
• Participants Direct public participation.
• Litigants lawsuits against public
  administrators.
• Street-level encounters Direct interaction with
  public administrators (police discretion, for
  example).

4
The Individual in the Administrative State

• Public administration thoroughly permeates
  American society. Administrative controls have
  replaced more traditional social controls.
• Public administration has tended to be
  bureaucratically organized despite the NPMs
  successes in changing this to some extent.

5
The Individual in the Administrative State

• Bureaucracy is at odds with society because it
  relies on rationally organized action, rather
  than social action.

6
Bureaucracy vs. Society

• Precision.
• Stability.
• Discipline.
• Reliability.
• Calculability of results.
• Formal rationality.
• Formalistic impersonality.
• Formal equality of treatment.

• Justice.
• Freedom.
• Violence.
• Oppression.
• Happiness.
• Gratification.
• Poverty.
• Illness.
• Death.
• Victory.
• Love and hate.
• Salvation and damnation.

7
The Individual in the Administrative State

• Public administration, bureaucratically
  organized, tends to be in tension or conflict
  with society in terms of styles of action,
  emotional feelings, and overriding concerns.
• The differences between societal and bureaucratic
  values are social interaction versus
  administrative action feeling versus doing and
  belief, randomness, and emotionalism versus
  specialized expertise, systemization, and
  impersonality.

8
The Individual in the Administrative State

• The problem arises when administrative values
  replace societal values in so many public
  functions.

9
The Individual in the Political System

• The individuals role in the political system
  also undergoes major transformation with the rise
  of the administrative state.
• The difficulty elected officials have controlling
  and holding accountable administrative agencies.
• Popular sovereignty is compromised by the
  tendency of the public to become subjects of the
  administrative state.
• Democracy and bureaucracy clash.

10
Democracy versus Bureaucracy

• Equality.
• Rotation in office.
• Freedom.
• Pluralism.
• Citizen participation.
• Openness.
• Community.
• Legitimacy based on election.

• Hierarchy.
• Seniority.
• Command.
• Unity.
• Participation based on enterprise.
• Secrecy.
• Impersonality.
• Legitimacy based on expertise.

11
The Individual in the Economy

• The contemporary administrative state also
  changes the individuals place in the economic
  system.
• Government inevitably gains greater control over
  the nations economic resources.
• Makes individuals dependent on government for
  their well-being.
• The accumulation of wealth in governments hands
  gives government more leverage over the
  individual.

12
The Publics Evaluation of Public Administration
13
The Publics Evaluation of Public Administration

• Clients and customers are satisfied.
• Surveys are unreliable.
• Negative experience lowers expectations, but
  positive is considered accident.
• General taps ideology, specific taps pragmatism.
• Regulation is opposed.
• Contractors are conflicted.

14
The Publics Evaluation of Public Administration
15
The Publics Evaluation of Public Administration
16
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• Traditional managerial approach.
• Maximization efficiency, effectiveness, and
  economy. Result depersonalization.
• Ombudsman.
• Cost effectiveness of public-administrator
  interaction.
• Avoid burden shift of costs to public.

17
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• NPM approach.
• Public as customers.
• Surveys and benchmarking from private sector.
• Downplays utility of traditional political
  channels.
• Clients may not have same preferences as whole
  public.
• Political systems have barriers to majority
  preferences.
• How do you identify which customers to satisfy?
• Identifying customers can be thorny issue.

18
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• NPM approach.
• Contractors as partners in service and goods
  delivery.
• Shift regulations from rules to guiding
  principles.
• Out-sourcing.

19
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• Political approach to the public.
• Emphasizes values of representation,
  responsiveness, and accountability.
• Premium on participation.
• Lack of participation reduces responsiveness and
  representativeness.
• Nonparticipation reduces civic obligation.
• Nonparticipation produces ignorance.
• Nonparticipation increases alienation.
• Participation promotes community.
• Participation promotes legitimacy.

20
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• Political approach to the public.
• Direct participation.
• Public school governance.
• Agricultural administration.
• Environmental administration.
• Client-centered administration.
• Advocates for their clients.
• Coproduction
• Joint provision of services by agency and client.

21
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• Political approach to the public.
• Public interest groups.
• Seeking public goods.

22
Public Administrative Perspectives on the Public

• Legal approach to the public.
• Seeks to assure individuals constitutional and
  statutory rights.
• Administrative hearings.
• Street-level contacts.
• Judicial oversight.

23
Synthesis

• Service.
• Transformation from clients to customers.
• Therapy.
• Requires a more client-oriented, participatory
  approach.
• Regulation.
• Traditional managerial perspective influenced by
  legalistic considerations.

24
Synthesis

• Litigation and street-level encounters.
• Informed by values of the legal approach.
• Participation.
• Dominated by political perspective with some
  overlay from service and therapy.