Public Administration

When I first thought about ‘Public Administration’, mental pictures of working in a government agency like GSIS where I am presently working, more so leading a public organization, flashed in my head. For instance, being the President and General Manager of GSIS; or being the President of the Philippine Association of Schools Superintendents like my grandmother; or being the President of a country like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Then I thought, ‘Public Administration’ — very tough responsibility, very challenging task. While all these things were swimming in my head, this definition came to mind: “the willful and well thought of process of organizing and mobilizing organizations which are geared towards the service of the general populace in a manner that best serves its function.” That’s my rough definition of those two heavy words which I later found out is not that different from the other definitions given to it. And yes, my definition is also quite general but so did some of the early definitions of Public Administration coined by various scholars of this field. To name some:

-Woodrow Wilson: “Government in action involved in the detailed and systematic execution of public law” (Waldo, 1953);

- Leonard White: “ …the composite of all laws, regulations, practices, relationships, codes and customs that prevail at any time in any jurisdiction for the fulfillment and execution of public policy…(White, 1955)”;

- Waldo: “the organization and management of men and materials to achieve the purposes of government” (Waldo, 1955);

- Fritz Morstein Marx: “…signify primarily the organization, personnel, practices, and procedures essential to effective performance of the civilian functions entrusted to the executive branch of government…”(Marx, 1959);

- Nigro and Nigro: “..a cooperative group effort in a public setting, covers all three branches – executive, legislative and judiciary – and their interrelationships, has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus part of the political process, is different in significant ways from private administration, and is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community.” (Nigro and Nigro, 1955);

- Rosenbloom: “ ..The use of managerial, political, and legal theories and processes to fulfill legislative and judicial governmental mandates for the provision of regulatory and service functions for the society as a whole or for some segments of it…” (Rosenbloom, 1986).

Those were some of the definitions. However, in order to understand Public Administration more easily, we can also dissect the various ways ‘Public Administration’ can be defined.
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