Foundations of Public Administration: An Essay in its Paradigms

123 Pages·2014·2.28 MB·English

by  I.Th.M. Snellen

Foundations of Public Administration
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F P a
oundations oF ublic dministration
An Essay in its Paradigms
I.Th.M. Snellen
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Contents
Introduction 7
Prologue 11
1 Paradigms in Public Administration 25
1.1 The Meaning of ‘Public Administration’ 25
1.2 Public Administration as a Borrowing Discipline 28
1.3 Paradigms as Conceptual Lenses 29
1.4 The Late Development of Public Administration Paradigms 30
1.5 The Politics-Administration Relation as a Practical and
Theoretical Problem 34
2 Public Administration as a Submissive Instrument of Politics 39
2.1 Wilson’s Introduction of a ‘Foreign Science’ 39
2.2 Max Weber’s Elaborations on the Paradigm 46
3 Public Administration as an ‘Out-sourceable’ Policy
Production System 53
3.1 Policies and Administration from a Systems Perspective 53
3.2 Systems Approach and the Make-ability of Society (the 1960s) 56
3.3 Paradigmatic Problems and Solutions: a Case Study 59
3.4 Public Sector Management Systems and Ethics 64
4 Demand and Supply Paradigm of Public Administration 69
4.1 Public Choice Theory: An Optimistic and a Pessimistic Scenario 70
4.2 Solutions to the Problems as Viewed Through the Paradigmatic
Lens 74
4.3 ‘Re-inventing Government’ and Other Practical Proposals 76
4.4 Exogenous and Endogenous Criticism of the Demand and Supply
Paradigm 78
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6 Foundations of Public Administration
5 The Modernist Paradigm: Public Administration as
Scientification of Politics 81
5.1 Rational Science and Irrational Politics 82
5.2 Policy Theory as the Core of Policy Sciences and Policy Analysis 85
5.3 Problems and Solutions Suggested by the Modernistic Paradigm 89
5.4 The Infinite Quest for (Scientific) Rationality 91
6 Public Administration in a Multirational Perspective:
a Post-Modern Paradigm 95
6.1 A Four-Rationality Model of Public Administration and Politics 97
6.2 The Rivalry Between the Four Rationalities 100
6.3 Distinguishing Properties of the Post-modernistic Paradigm 103
6.4 Some Tentative Solutions 107
Epilogue 113
Literature 117
Author Index 121
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Introduction
The Purpose of this Book
Practically all persons with a function in society are specialized in one particu-
lar part or aspect of the activities in their sector. As a result, their professional
views tend to be dominated by a one-sided orientation mainly, or sometimes
even exclusively concentrating on either political, legal, financial-economic or
technical considerations. The economist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) pointed
out that such a specialization may lead to an attitude of ‘trained incapacity’.
This concept refers to the state of mind in which one’s abilities function as
inadequacies or blind spots. It means that people’s past experiences can lead to
wrong decisions when circumstances change. In a slightly different version the
term implies the tendency of workers in a bureaucracy to become so specialized
that they develop blind spots and fail to notice obvious problems (Wikipedia).
The point here is that professionals in public administrations sometimes tend
to elevate the outcomes of their considerations to the level of a dominating truth
ignoring or rejecting contributions from other specializations. Such an attitude
clearly threatens the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations in the many-
sided field of public administration.
These observations provide a brief indication of the main reasons why this
book has been written. First, it is necessary for public administrators to be
knowledgeable about the various foundations that underlie their field of work.
It facilitates a better grasp of their profession and a more effective communica-
tion with others who may hold different points of view. In addition, this knowl-
edge is particularly important when the lines of operation that a group tends to
follow are critically examined. In other words, the study of the foundations of
public administration assists not only scholars but also practitioners.
By starting at the paradigmatic roots of the different approaches to the public
administration discipline their characteristic properties are revealed. The foun-
dations of recent initiatives in public administration, such as Re-Inventing Gov-
ernment and New Public Management, are clarified, as well as the significance
of the meanings and values they embrace.
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8 Foundations of Public Administration
Numerous attempts have been made over time to bring order to the approach
of public administration. Each endeavour concentrates on those particular
phenomena which are considered most important and identifies the variables
and data, and the relationships between them that seem to have the strongest
impact on these phenomena. A list of such attempts is presented in the Pro-
logue in order to provide a general idea of the possible range of the applica-
tions in the theory and practice of public administration. However, a full-scale
discussion of each is far beyond the scope of this book and only a selection,
labelled ‘overarching paradigms’, will be discussed in some detail in subse-
quent chapters. The list also helps to demonstrate that, despite the diversity of
the various approaches, there are some overall themes in the public administra-
tion discipline that deserve further consideration. The chapter composition of
this book is based mainly on these various themes.
An examination of the foundations of the public administration discipline
will provide some additional insights. In the following chapters, we shall have
ample opportunity to show that the selection of one approach over another will
have specific consequences. This observation is not surprising, because, after
all, the selection of a particular approach implies acceptance of its predilections
in terms of the paradigmatic variables, phenomena, actor groups and data on
which it focuses. Each such choice also expresses a preference for the particular
values embodied by the approach, and agreement with the weights it attaches
to various aspects of public administration. So, each approach adds its own
characteristic colours, concentrates on specific problems, and suggests specific
solutions. A constant awareness of the consequences of selecting a particular
approach is of the utmost importance for all practitioners.
A second objective of this book implies the multi-faceted rationality of pub-
lic administration. This characteristic is insufficiently incorporated in what we
refer to as ‘the modernist paradigm’, according to which the primary goal of
public administration involves the scientification of politics. Appropriately, it
aims for a conciliation of rationalities in public administration and politics. In
our critical appraisal of this approach we, however, emphasize that the politi-
cal, legal, financial-economic and ‘professional’ rationalities should be explic-
itly recognized. We, therefore, introduce the ‘postmodern paradigm’ which sets
out to do justice to the multidimensional questions faced by practitioners of the
discipline, while suggesting ways to deal with the complications that multi-
dimensionality entails.
Finally, it should be recognized that there are systems of meaning from which
the prescriptions for the viability and civility of modern societies are derived.
Ways must be found to coalesce these systems in a decisional framework such
as designed by Herbert Simon and others. This is one of the main assignments
of the public administration discipline for the 21st century.
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Introduction 9
Through Metamorphoses to Trilogy
In the course of the last ten years this book went through several forms and
shapes. I wrote the initial text when I was a visitor at the University of Cali-
fornia at Irvine where Professors Ken Kraemer, Rob Kling and John King had
invited me to participate in meetings with members of their group together
with other guests and visitors from various parts of the world. At the end of
my eight months’ stay a first, preliminary version of the text was available in
English.
In the meantime my German colleagues of the Forschungsgruppe Verwaltungs­
informationen in Kassel had taken an interest in the English text and offered
their comments and suggestions for improvements. Thereafter the revised text
was translated into German. I mention with sincere gratitude Professor Hans
Peter Bull of Hamburg University, who wrote a preface for the German version,
Professor Werner Jann of Potsdam University and Professors Klaus Grimmer
and Hans Brinckmann of Kassel University, Professor Klaus Lenk of Oldenburg
University and Professor Heinrich Reinermann of Speyer University.
When the German text had been published by Springer Verlag, a Dutch version
was prepared on the basis of the English and German texts. It subsequently
came into print in 2007. Later on I returned to the original English text tak-
ing into account the various improvements that had been introduced into the
German and Dutch editions and using the opportunity to add relevant new
literature and other developments, also in my own thinking. It gives me pleas-
ure to be able to present, after a long detour, the result of these transformation
processes.
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