Defining Public Administration: Selections from the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration doc

[...]... n a l foci of the field h addition to these, there are various concerns dealing with the environment and context of administration: the constitutional and legal context; the context of the political, ecormornic, and sod.etal skucturc, requirements, and processes; the values, history kaditions, and habits of the society and its components; the values, history, requiremnts, and processes of the organizations,... a good sense of the current state and hterests of the field, as well as some sense of the different emphases from one setting to another, Public Administration as a Cultural and Social Phenomenon The phenomena af public administration are also objects af study for purposes ather than the development of public admhist.ration m a t is, public administration can be the focus of study of other disciplines... characteristic of public administration from the inception of its self-conscious awareness as a field The V1Tilsor.l essay f r c p n t l y cited as an example of the birth of a sctf- aware field of plrblic admhistration in the t"nited States was concerned precisely and explicitly with the question of the identity of a fieId of study and pra"cice- The development of the field as a focus for study and trairling,... scientific and techno:iogicai advmces to public ad mini strati or.^ The dyr~amics the Cold War competition between the United States of allies and the USSR and its allies, and the manifestation of and Westen~ this competition k various forms of techical assistance, aid in economic development, and admkistrative assistmce had m impact upon public admiuristration h the 1960s and 1970s, much of the world of science... of the functional, topical, methodological, and curricular defhition of the field Cnmpariso~~c u r ~ ntextbads with earof t lier ones c m provide a good sense of the changes and developmmt of the field, and comparisox~ textbooks from one country to another can proof vide a sense of how approaches may vary internationaUy There are also many professiod an$ academic joumals of the field wnrlclvvide; these... questions of the line of succession or mystiral or religious indication of the identity of the legitimate ruler For much of the present-day world -and certainly most of the world in which public adrrrinistration would have cmscious identity-tl-te ~esti011 goverlmex~tal of legitimacy turns on the public good (in many cases e x p ~ s e in terms of trhe interest of ihe citizenry or even d the will of the people)... nonmarket), the moveme~~t toward market or marketlike mechanisms for the provision of public goads is increasingly a matter or rhetoric, plaming, ar action W e n these considerations are taken h t a account; public admkistratj,n is prdbably best defined as the practice and study of the professional formulation and influence of public policy and the implementation of such policy on a regular and organized... that all these (and many more) can be viewed as components of a huge matrix where any one (or more) c m be related to any ather ane (or mare), the complexity and variev af the field of public admhistration is suggested A good sense of the present configuration of the ficld can be gained by consultixlg the considemble set of general public administration textbooks in use around the world Pemsal of these... adrninistrati\rely debilitating mmy of the basic cuttural values of his new nation as they pertained to the conduct of public admkist t-ration Viin Rjper may well be c o r ~ ch his identification of Halnilton as the founder of the profession of public- administmion in the United t States, But it is to Jefferson that c ~ d imust be ggitren as the founder of the &adition of American pllblic administration It was Jefferson... either with the functioml and technical specializations of public administration, with specific methods and approaches, or with the phenomena of specific locales and issue areas of public admkistration T%us, ptrblic administration has some subfields which deal with concerns which, k one form or anather, have been part of the field shce its earliest days Budget and fhance (how to provide, handle, and . defined as the practice and study of the professional formulation and influence of public policy and the implementation of such policy on a regular and organized basis on behalf of the publir. techical. and hctional foci of the field. h addition to these, there are various con- cerns dealing with the environment and context of administration: the constitutional and legal context; the. hdividualistic, and on the other hand to the disciplined study of such matters. In this simplest meaning, public admkistration has to do with managing the realm of governmental and other public