What is Public Administration Today

Public Administration
How Public Administrative Discretion Works
1
The main difference between public and private administration is that in the former the administration both administers to the public and is accountable to the public; in the latter, the administration is accountable only to stakeholders, which may or may not include members of the community/public. Other differences include the fact that in private administration, the idea is that the administration is overseeing some business organization that focuses on a goal related to its mission, its business model. Public administration, on the other hand, refers to a political process wherein official administrators are elected or appointed to do a job for the good of the public. They typically control or use public funds; must give a public accounting of how funds are used, and must to all intents and purposes fulfill a mandate given them by the public—though, of course, it is up to the public to hold them accountable and if the public does not do so the administration may very well do as it pleases without suffering any political repercussions (Savoie, 2006). The private administration is a non-governmental operation; the public administration is a government operation. Typically the public administration is organized bureaucratically while the private administration is organized hierarchically or with an egalitarian principle.
The advantages of the public administration are that its orientation is towards the welfare of the public whereas the private administration is oriented towards the welfare of the corporation (Reyes & Pounder, 1993). The public administration seeks to please and better the community through its initiatives. The private administration seeks to please the community through some product or service by the provision of which the company can profit.
The advantage of the private administration is that decision-making is more streamlined and typically more effective so long as the decision-maker is well-versed in the art of leading. In the public administration, decision-making is often by committee and is pluralistic, which can make it difficult for any action to be taken if there is disagreement among members. Debates can be contentious and there can be a great deal of stalling and what appears to be inaction.
The disadvantages of public administration are that it requires taxation in order to have any revenue to fund its projects. That means the people must pay for its existence and they must pay to employ those who serve in the administration, whether they like it or not. This can lead to frustration and anger over the fact that the public is forced to pay for something it does not believe in and does not want to continue to see operating. That sentiment in turn can lead to a drop-off in taxes as people find ways to skirt paying them, which can dry up the revenue streams and cause the public administration to become even less impactful.
The disadvantage of private administration is that it typically lacks transparency and only reveals to the public what it is required by law to reveal—which can be very little in many cases. Unless the private company goes public, for example, it is not bound to release quarterly statements or hold conference calls with investors. So an early investor in a company like WeWork may be thinking his investment will pay off handsomely only to find out when the company is about to go public that its internals are a complete disaster. So the lack of transparency is a major issue with respect to private administration.
2
The significance of administrative federalism from the federal, state and local perspectives ranges from setting quality standards to deciding which projects to put in motion. At every level, administrative federalism means something a little different. For example, at the federal level, it means having the power to set the scope of a project or policy (Rubinstein, 2015). At the state or local level, it means having the power to decide what projects or polices to pursue and what not to pursue based on what the will of one’s constituents appears to be (Schwager, 1999). Thus, for each of the three perspectives, administrative federalism carries a unique significance.
At the federal level, administrative federalism is unique because it provides the federal government with the ability to “make front-line decisions about the scope of federal policy and whether such policy should preempt state law” (Rubenstein, 2015, p. 171). In other words, the federal government gets to lay out a plan or argument for why or whether its will can trump the will or authority of the state. It can look at Constitutional law for guidance but in the end the fact remains that it is in the power of the federal government to make decisions that will ultimately impact states and local jurisdictions in meaningful ways. One of these ways is through HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD can impact states and local jurisdictions in terms of what kind of housing development projects are implemented and where, if the latter wish to obtain federal dollars for funding. The same goes with public education. The Department of Education can set standards that public schools must meet if they wish to received federal aid to keep their operations running, to keep teachers paid, and so on. In this manner, the federal government can hold states and local jurisdictions hostage, to some degree, to the ideas that the federal government wants to promote.
Administrative federalism at the state level is significant because it gives the state a role in the decision-making process. The state has certain rights that are granted it by the Constitution and so it is not merely an active actor in the advancement of its own causes. In fact, the state can pass laws that contradict those of the federal government and a perfect example of this is the passing of marijuana legalization bills in several states in recent years. Marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 narcotic according to the federal government and therefore is viewed as illegal—but the states have rebuffed the federal government’s view and adopted a position that is contradictory and more reflective of the will of the people in their individual states.
This same idea is there for local jurisdictions. They may have the opportunity to avail themselves of federal dollars if they adhere to certain standards put in place by the federal government, but they are under no obligation to accept that money—and if they feel the standards are not ones with which the people of that jurisdiction want to comply then they do not have to enact the policy or program as it has been recommended by the federal government. Therefore, a local jurisdiction may reject the idea of implementing Common Core standards in its schools and rely upon local tax dollars for funding of the school if it thinks it can afford to do so and it is the will of the local community that it do so. The local jurisdiction thus has a lot of power to be its own authority—so long as it chooses to reject the carrot that the federal government offers it through the promise of exorbitant funds for operations. Thus, each of the three will view administrative federalism differently.
3
Reengineering is, simply put, the process of looking at how an organization conducts its business at every level and finding ways to improve the process at each level. Reengineering processes can be and have been applied to the public administration sector in multiple countries around the world. For that reason it is not unheard of to apply what is essentially a business concept to public agencies and have success (Rinaldi, Montanari & Bottani, 2015; Saxena, 1996). For example, in the developing world, Saxena (1996) has shown how emerging nations can apply public administration reengineering process in order to reduce costs of operations, improve the nation’s overall ability to be competitive among other countries in the marketplace, and further sustain growth and development overall.
The overall purpose of organizational reengineering is to improve the administration’s cost efficiency, improve work cycle times and productivity, reduce operating expenses, and improve innovative inputs. It has been used to increase a sense of responsibility among workers and allow for the achievement of organizational aims and objectives.
Reyes (1998) argues that reengineering is really reengineering just “a reincarnation of Taylor’s scientific management model, which aspired to employ scientific and empirical methods in understanding work at the shop room level” (p. 45). Taylor’s scientific management approach essentially focused on the same concepts—reducing waste in administration, improving efficiency, and formulating processes down to a science so that the administration could operate like a machine without the risk of human error or the human element causing hiccups or problems all along the way, as can happen when an administration is overly reliant upon people to make subjective decisions. However, reengineering is not just about turning the public administration into a machine that crunches the numbers and analyzes the data and makes decisions based on the statistics that come out: it is also about promoting human involvement and getting people in the staff to take ownership of their work.
For instance, in public administration, organizational reengineering can occur by having the process applied at all levels, the top on down to staff workers, to see where there are weaknesses and see what solutions could be given to address those weaknesses. If there is a weak link in the budgeting department, the process allows for a new solution to be implemented that addresses the problem.
In many public administrations across the U.S., reengineering has occurred: from processes used to make purchases in Oregon’s state government to the tracking of probationers by the Department of Probation in the New York City local government; from “the use of public access kiosks for government services in California and Iowa” to “the system for recipients of welfare benefits in Minnesota represent pioneering efforts in reengineering practice” (Reyes, 1998, p. 48). In many cities it has been found to work because it streamlines the efforts that go into administration, reduces the waste, and promotes the efficient processes that get people contributing in a more meaningful way to the end goals of the administration. It can have its drawbacks, including adding more paradigms and structures to already overly-bureaucratized public administrations. However, in the end, the processes do appear to help and so long as they are implemented correctly, the returns can be tremendous just in terms of allowing a department within an administration to achieve objectives more consistently.
4
Administrative discretion in public administration is simply the process of making decisions in accordance with one’s authority in the government, whether at the federal, state or local levels of governance. Public administrators are entrusted by virtue of their office with the flexibility to make decisions on matters that are not clearly regulated by law. Though administrative discretion is meant to facilitate the process of governance, it can be abused. In order for it to be exercised effectively, those who wield it should align their decisions with the values of the community they serve.
At the federal level, administrative discretion has often been observed by presidents who appoint their friends and individuals they trust to positions in the government. For example, Andrew Jackson was notorious for appointing his cronies to powerful positions and instituting what became known as the spoils system. Madison was the same way and so were several other presidents—the reason it has been accepted is that a president has the right to select who he wants to appoint and if he wants people he can trust in certain positions then he should be able to fire federal workers and install new ones as he sees fit (Cann, 2007).
At the state level, the process has been similar. State governors can for example exercise their administrative discretion in terms of working with federal policies and programs: they can determine what they will select to promote and what they will disregard. In many cases the administrative discretion of personnel at the federal and state levels will clash. This can be seen in the case of California and the current federal administration today over environmental policies. States can decide how they will implement laws that are not clear and that is why the EPA (2015) set about defining administrative discretion so that states know what they can and cannot do. As the EPA (2015) points out, administrative discretion is applied most effectively when it relies on the expert advice of professionals who can be trusted.
So the three levels of government can actually work together in administrative discretion. The EPA has a mandate to protect the environment, but it cannot do so without the assistance of state regulators and states have to rely on local organizations and local jurisdictions to facilitate the process. Together they can form an integrative body of administrative discretion, each trusting the other to uphold their end of the bargain of sound governance.
Thus, the federal agency will take advice from local and state agencies, who will in turn heed the recommendations and implement the standards and regulations given by the federal agency. They all share the same goals, which must be identified at the outset—so if these goals are not clearly depicted and there is no communication among the various agencies, then the sharing of administrative discretion is unlikely to be very effective.
Ultimately, the purpose of administrative discretion is to enable the expert opinion of people who have knowledge on the subjects for which they are required to be part of the practice of the government. So if it is a president who wants a national security advisor and trusts his friend who has experience in hostage negotiations to be that person, he has the administrative discretion to appoint that individual. If it is the EPA needing to work with local governments to address a water supply issue, the local government has the administrative discretion to get expert opinion locally and pass it on to the EPA, which has the administrative discretion to accept it.
References
Cann, S. (2007). The Administrative State, the Exercise of Discretion, and the Constitution. Public Administration Review, 67(4), 780–782.
EPA. (2015). Administrative discretion. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/administrative_discretion_nonotesclean.pdf
Reyes, P., & Pounder, D. G. (1993). Organizational orientation in public and private elementary schools. The Journal of Educational Research, 87(2), 86-93.
Reyes, D. R. (1998). Public sector reengineering: Practice, problems and prospects.
Rinaldi, M., Montanari, R., & Bottani, E. (2015). Improving the efficiency of public
administrations through business process reengineering and simulation: A case study. Business Process Management Journal, 21(2), 419-462.
Rubenstein, D. S. (2015). Administrative Federalism as Separation of Powers. Wash. & Lee L. Rev., 72, 171.
Savoie, D. J. (2006). What is wrong with the new public management?. In Comparative Public Administration (pp. 593-602). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Saxena, K. B. C. (1996). Re-engineering public administration in developing countries. Long Range Planning, 29(5), 703-711.
Schwager, R. (1999). Administrative federalism and a central government with regionally based preferences. International Tax and Public Finance, 6(2), 165-189.