Chapter 1

Public Administration:
Evolution of a Discipline

Learning Objectives
• To explain the meaning, nature, and scope of public adminis-
tration
• To trace the evolution of public administration as a discipline
• To figure out the new trends unfolding in the discipline

A dministration is a part and parcel of our daily lives. The food

we eat, the clothes we wear, the goods we buy, the streets and
highways on which we travel, the automobiles in which we ride,
and the many services we enjoy—education, medical care, housing
facility, entertainment, protection of our lives and property,
and many others—are made possible by administration. Our
high standards of living, progress in the field of agriculture and
industry, communication, travel, medicine, education, and others
have been possible due to the administrative efforts (Corsen and
Harris 1967: 1–2). Thus, administration is everywhere with us from
‘womb to tomb’. This chapter will deal with the meaning, scope,
and significance of the subject; evolution of public administration
as a discipline; and the major approaches to understand public
administration.

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

MEANING OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public administration is a sub-division of the broader concept
of administration. Administration means ‘to serve’, ‘to look after
people’, or ‘to manage affairs’. In this sense, administration means
management of the affairs of an organization. When we add public
to administration, it means governmental administration; it is the
management of governmental affairs and activities. Dimock and
Dimock define public administration as ‘the accomplishment of
politically determined objectives’. However, according to them:

[M]ore than the techniques or even the orderly execution of

programs, public administration is also concerned with policy…
Public administration…must be sufficiently practical to solve
problems and attain society’s goals, but it must also be exploratory
and innovative in its search for better methods based on broader
understandings of what is involved in effective group activity.
(Dimock and Dimock 1969: 3, 11)

Woodrow Wilson, an authority in the field, defines public ad-

ministration as ‘detailed and systematic execution of public law.
Every particular application of general law is an act of administra-
tion’ (Wilson 1953: 65–75). By public administration what is meant,
in common usage, are the activities of the executive branches of
national, state, and local governments (Simon, Smithburg, and
Thompson 1950: 7). According to L.D. White ‘a system of public
administration is the composite of all the laws, regulations, prac-
tices, relationships, codes, and customs that prevails at any time
in any jurisdiction for the fulfilment or execution of public policy’
(White 1955: 2). Public administration is decision-making, plan-
ning the work to be done, formulating objectives and goals, work-
ing with the legislature and citizen organizations to gain public
support and funds for government programmes. To Corson and
Harris, ‘it is the action part of the government, the means by which
the purposes and goals of government are realized’ (Corson and
Harris 1967: i). Public administration according to Pfiffner and
Presthus (1953: 3) is mainly concerned with the means for imple-
menting political values…they define public administration as ‘the

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

coordination of individual and group efforts to carry out public

policy. It is mainly occupied with the routine work of government.
Felix A. Nigro holds that there could not be a condensed definition
of public administration. It can, however, be presented in the form
of a brief summary that will constitute the definition. According to
him, public administration:

• is a cooperative group effort in a public setting;

• covers all three branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—
and their interrelationships;
• has an important role in the formulation of public policy
and thus a part of the political process;
• is different in significant ways from private administration;
and
• is closely associated with numerous private groups and in-
dividuals in providing services to the community. (Nigro
1965, 1971: 21)

Despite the pervasiveness of public administration in our daily

lives, there is hardly any mutually agreed definition of it. In fact,
the discipline is still in search of an agreeable definition. For ex-
ample, even in the latest meet at Minnowbrook (2008) or what
is popularly known as the Third Minnowbrook Conference, at-
tempts have been made by scholars to define public administra-
tion in the context of the twenty-first century. The definition that
emerged out of the Minnowbrook Conference III (2008), warrants
special mention here, as it reflects the evolving nature of the disci-
pline especially the elements, which have so long been avoided by
the scholars in the discipline. Public administration was defined as
‘a socially embedded process of collective relationships, dialogue,
and action to promote human flourishing for all’. Implicit in the
definition was the recognition of an emerging globalized and mul-
ticultural order, within which public administration was supposed
to work.
On the basis of the above definitions, it can be concluded that
public administration is an instrument of translating political deci-
sion into reality, it is the action part of government, the means by

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

which the purposes and goals of the government are realized. The
process of public administration consists of the actions involved in
affecting the intent or desire of a government. It is, thus, the con-
tinuously active, ‘business’ part of the government, concerned with
carrying out the law, as made by legislative bodies and interpreted
by courts, through the processes of organization and management.

NATURE AND SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

There are two broad views regarding the nature of public adminis-
tration: managerial and integral view. According to the managerial
view, administration comprises of the work of only those persons
who are engaged in performing managerial functions in an orga-
nization. Luther Gulick, Henry Fayol, Herbert Simon, Donald W.
Smithburg, and Victor Thomson are the main supporters of this
view. Gulick has summed up the managerial activities in the ac-
ronym POSDCORB. It stands for the seven functions of the chief
executive: P-Planning, O-Organizing, S-Staffing, D-Directing,
CO-Coordinating, R-Reporting, and B-Budgeting. According to
the managerial view, those who are performing these managerial
functions are only part of administration. The clerical, manual,
and technical activities of the staff are excluded from the purview
of public administration. This view regards administration as get-
ting things done, not doing things. This view is also known as the
narrow view of administration. As opposed to the managerial view,
the integral view proposes that administration is the sum total
all the activities—manual, clerical, or managerial—which are un-
dertaken to realize the goals of an organization. As per this view,
all the acts of the government officials from the peon to the secre-
tary are part of public administration. The successful accomplish-
ment of any task in an organization requires contribution from
all the employees. The main supporters of this view are Woodrow
Wilson, L.D. White, Marshall E. Dimock, and John M. Pfiffner.
This view is a wider perspective of the organization and takes it as
a whole in the fulfilment of its objectives.
As in the case of its nature, there is also much debate between
the followers of the traditional and modern views over the scope of

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

public administration. By scope, we mean the major concerns and

areas of the public administration. The traditional writers restrict
the scope of public administration to the executive branch of the
government. The modern writers have extended the scope of pub-
lic administration to all the three branches of the government. Ac-
cording to them, public administration is the whole government
in action. They argue that the activities of the legislature and the
judiciary also affect and shape the functioning of public adminis-
tration considerably. Thus, the study of public administration in-
cludes the activities of the executive branch as well those aspects of
the legislative and judicial activities that have considerable impact
on the functioning of public administration. This view is more ac-
ceptable today. In India, we cannot accept the restricted view of
public administration. So much is the mutual dependence and so
intensive is the interaction between all the three branches of gov-
ernment that public administration must be defined in a broader
sense. Necessarily, it is to be studied as a part of the larger political
processes in a country.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION

One of the interesting debates concerning the nature of public ad-
ministration is public versus private administration. The similari-
ties and differences of public and private (business) administration
concerns an almost unavoidable topic in textbooks on public ad-
ministration. The interpretation given to the differences has im-
plications for ideas about people and organizations. Based on the
nature of the distinction, authors, for example, argue for different
core values guiding action, or having a different relevance. Paul
H. Appleby, Herbert A. Simon, and Peter Drucker have made a
distinction between public and private administration. The differ-
ences sketched here indicate some of the distinguishing character-
istics of public administration.
The prime purpose of public administration is to serve the pub-
lic, of private administration, to produce a profit for the owners of
the business. This provides the private administration with a single
objective criterion to measure the performance of the enterprise.

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

The drive for profits forces the private administration to watch

costs, to seek improvements in operations, to discharge incompe-
tent employees, and to maintain responsibility of subordinates for
results. On the other hand, the primary purpose of public orga-
nizations is to provide services to the people and promote social
goods. First, they are not oriented towards making profits for the
government. The government, very often, has to provide even un-
profitable and costly services, namely, food, health, education, and
defence for the public interest. In this sense public administration
is really ‘public’. Second, the public administrator’s activities are
fixed by law, he may not undertake others without legislative au-
thority. The business executive, on the other hand, is free to select
those activities that promise to be profitable and to discontinue
others which fail to show a profit.
The discretion and freedom of action of the public adminis-
trator is markedly limited. Numerous laws, regulations, and re-
views exercised by the legislature, by political executives, and by
central staff agencies limit his discretion and his choice of meth-
ods as to how and what he shall do. Such controls are designed
to ensure that public activities are carried on in accordance with
legislative and executive policies and to prevent abuses or misuse
of political power or of public funds. Although private admin-
istration is subject to certain governmental regulations, these
regulations are not comparable to those which apply to the con-
duct of government activities. Public sector employees generally
enjoy greater job security than their counterparts in the private
sector. Employee protections in government include such ame-
nities as the Civil Service Commission’s merit system, hearing
procedures for grievances, employee associations, and union and
pension plans. To date, labour organizations in the private sector
have had a far more turbulent history than have unions in the
government sector.
Public accountability is the hallmark of public administration.
The public administrator carries on his work in a ‘glass bowl’. His
actions are exposed to public review and criticism at all times. His
mistakes tend to be widely publicized and his achievements often

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

pass unnoticed. Thus, public administration is held accountable for

its activities through legislative oversight and judicial review. On
the other hand, public accountability is not a value affecting private
administration. The public administrator must also maintain a
high degree of consistency in his actions. He must serve the public
without discrimination, if he makes an exception in applying the
traffic or tax laws to one man; all are entitled to similar treatment.
The private administrator is subject to no similar requirement,
indeed, it may be poor business to treat the small customer and
large customer alike (Corson and Harris 1967: 14)!
The political character of public administration differentiates
it from private administration. Public administration is sub-
ject to political direction and control. It implements the poli-
cies made by the elected members of the legislature and politi-
cal executive. Private administration, on the other hand, is not
subject to political direction. It functions largely directed by the
market forces. Finally, public administration is much wider in
scope than private administration. Paul H. Appleby puts forth
that the organized government impinges upon and is affected
by practically everything that exists or moves in society. Pub-
lic administration provides each and everything to the people,
namely, food, health facilities, education, housing, transporta-
tion, and so on. On the other hand, private administration deals
only in those sectors where it can earn profits. Thus, it cannot
claim the breadth of scope, impact, and consideration of public
administration.
Even though, they differ in certain respects, there are many
similarities between public and private administration. Adminis-
trative thinkers like Henry Fayol, M.P. Follet, Luther Gulick, and
Lyndall Urwick do not make a distinction between public and pri-
vate administration. The managerial techniques and skills of plan-
ning, organizing, coordinating, budgeting, and so on, are same in
public as well as private administration. Both are organized on the
basis of principles of hierarchy or scalar chain. In modern times,
private businesses are also subjected to many governmental rules
and regulations. Both have similarities so far as the problems of

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organization, personnel, and finance are concerned. In the new

public management model, the public sector is expected to follow
the principle of efficiency, economy, and profitability as practised
in the private sector. These days outsourcing, contracting out, and
voluntary retirement schemes are common in the public sector
units. In many ways, the differences between public and private
enterprise are diminishing. There is now considerable flow of per-
sonnel between the two, especially at the higher management lev-
els, and with increased governmental intervention in the areas of
subsidies, taxes, regulations, and contracting, distinctions between
public and private are no longer clear cut. These days governments
are taking much interest in public–private partnership (PPP) in
implementing its policies and projects. The successful function-
ing of the Delhi Metro is a good example of the PPP model. Thus,
public and private administration are co-operating and comple-
menting each other.

SIGNIFICANCE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public administration plays an important role in the modern so-
ciety. First of all, it is an instrument for providing services. It pro-
tects the life and property of people by maintaining law and order.
It provides a number of services for the people like public health,
education, housing, social security, amongst others. The various
services provided by public administration affects the life of every
citizen from birth to death. In fact, it will not be possible for us to
enjoy various governmental services if there were no public ad-
ministration. Public administration is also responsible for imple-
menting the laws and policies of the government. It is the public
administration which translates the decisions of the government
into reality. By implementing public policies and programmes, it
delivers the promised goods and services to the intended benefi-
ciaries. By delivering goods and services to the people, public ad-
ministration maintains harmony and cohesion in society. In this
way, it maintains stability in society. In India, during the period
of Emergency (1975–77), there was no elected government. It was
the bureaucracy which provided goods and services to the people

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

and maintained law and order. In that way, it provided stability in

society.
Public administration is also an instrument of socioeconomic
change. The Third World nations which emerged in the post-Second
World War period faced the problems of poverty, unemployment,
and social and economic backwardness. Public administration in
these nations emerged as an instrument of change. The massive
developmental drive by the bureaucracy in these nations led to
the implementation of poverty eradication programmes, employ-
ment assurance schemes, community development programmes,
electrification of remote villages, road construction, and all areas
of infrastructural development. This has transformed the face of
the erstwhile colonial backwardness both in physical and attitu-
dinal spheres. In India, the credit for successful implementation
of the various programmes like poverty eradication, employment
schemes, rural development, land reforms, green revolution, in-
dustrial development, and infrastructure development goes to its
bureaucracy.
Public administration is an instrument of national integration.
Indian administration played an important role after Partition. It
helped in the rehabilitation process of the refugees. It also helped
in integrating the princely states with the Indian territory.
India is a nation of diversity. It has a number of castes, class-
es, and religious communities. Despite these differences, India is
an example of unity in diversity. The credit for this goes to the
Indian bureaucracy. It has successfully implemented the goals of
the Indian constitution which believes in equality, fraternity, and
social justice. Today, India is an example of the largest successful
democracy. We have regular elections, independence of judiciary,
and freedom of press. This has been possible due to the smooth
implementation of rules and regulations and efficient provision of
services to the people by the Indian administration. Thus, it has
provided stability to the Indian democracy.
In the era of liberalization and privatization, there is a decrease
in the scope of the functions of the state. It brings about shrinkage
in the administrative apparatus as well as the size of the bureau-
cracy. Under these circumstances, the role of the bureaucracy has

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

changed. Now, it is supposed to promote, encourage, and moti-

vate the private sector. It has also to see the operational side of the
private market. It is the duty of the state to prevent the earning of
greater profits through illegal means. Hence, it is the duty of the
state to prevent such practices in the larger interests of the society
as a whole. The role of the state as a regulator requires the existence
of a regulatory mechanism to protect and promote public inter-
est by imposing regulations upon the private enterprises. Thus, in
the era of the free market economy, public administration has to
regulate the private sector in order to protect public interest. The
absence of good administration would make a mockery of the new
economic system.
To sum up, public administration plays an important role in
modern society. It is an instrument to formulate and implement
public policies. It maintains law and order. It is an instrument of so-
cial change and economic development. It provides various goods
and services to the people. It also promotes national integration. In
the era of liberalization and privatization, there is a change in the
role and scope of public administration. Now it has to promote,
encourage as well as regulate the private sector in order to protect
public interest.

APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
As public administration is a generalized human activity con-
cerned with the ordering of men and materials required to achieve
collective social ends, it has drawn widely from the various so-
cial sciences. Since its birth, the study of public administration
has been growing in different directions and today it involves
complex concerns and functions. There have been numerous at-
tempts by different scholars to explain the different aspects of
public administration. The result is that the public administra-
tion consists of relatively distinct approaches that grow out of
the different perspectives that shape its structures and functions.
Each approach gives a particular point of view of administrative
activity. These different approaches are best regarded as ways in
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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

which to approach the study of public administration. There are

a number of approaches to the study of public administration:

Institutional Approach
Perhaps, the earliest approach to public administration may be des-
ignated as the institutional approach. This approach is largely based
on the legal rights and obligations of the government. It tends to
emphasize formal relationships and the separation of powers
among the three branches of the government. Policy and admin-
istration are often separated, with the assumption that the role of
administrators is almost entirely confined to merely carrying out
policies designed by the political arms of the government. The gen-
eralizations of this approach were often based upon formal analyses
of organizational structure and the constitutional delegation of au-
thority and responsibility to the three branches of the government.
A major emphasis of this approach is upon the normative question
of responsibility. The focus is upon the ways and means of keeping
public administration responsible to the elected branches of gov-
ernment and to the average citizen (Presthus 1975: 7).

Structural Approach
This approach was much influenced by scientific management and
the success of American corporations that tend to focus upon or-
ganizational structure and personnel management. The support-
ers of this approach concentrate their attention on the study of
formal administrative structures, their functions, and the limita-
tions imposed on their activities. They treat public administration
as non-political and a purely technical organization based on cer-
tain scientific principles. They believe that public administration
has nothing to do with politics and policy-making. Its main func-
tion is to carry out politically determined policies effectively and
efficiently. They hold the view that the tasks of an organization are
pre-determined and that, employees have to adjust themselves to
the tasks assigned to them. To some extent, the role of the indi-
vidual and the so-called informal organization was neglected. This
approach has sometimes been criticized for not relating public
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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

administration to its political environment, and not emphasizing

adequately, the fact that organizations are composed of human be-
ings and when decisions are made, they are, in the last analysis,
made by individuals. Thus, this approach is sometimes known as
the ‘organization without people’ approach.

Behavioural Approach
The behavioural approach to the study of public administration
focuses on the actual behaviour of individuals and groups in real
organizations. This approach argues that one cannot understand
the actual functioning of organizations without understanding
why people act as they do. Hence, the behaviouralists have come to
apply the knowledge of social psychology, anthropology, psychol-
ogy and many other disciplines in an effort to secure a better un-
derstanding of the actual human behaviour within organizations.
The main aim of this approach is to establish a body of knowledge
that facilitates understanding, explaining, and prediction of hu-
man behaviour in administrative situations.
In contrast to the earlier approaches, the behavioural approach
tends to focus quite strongly on methodological problems, the use
of survey analysis to determine organizational reality, and is con-
cerned with the human aspects of administration and decision-
making. It attempts to build descriptive and analytical generaliza-
tions about organizations and administration. One of its normative
assumptions is that it is possible to build an administrative science
through careful research on organizations and the behaviour of
those who work in them. Herbert Simon and Robert Dhal have
been among the pioneers of this approach to the study of public
administration.

System Approach
In general, system theory means that the administration is seen as
a system of interrelated and interdependent parts and forces. The
administrative system receives ‘inputs’ in the form of demands
from the people and converts them into ‘outputs’ which takes the
form of goods and services. The system theory owes its origin to
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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

the biologist Ludwig Von Bertalanffy. In sociology, Talcott Parsons

applied system approach to the study of social structures and po-
litical scientists like David Easton and G. Almond have made use of
system analysis in political science and thus contributed much to
the literature on empirical political theory. The system approach is
now being widely used in organizational analysis. It has proved to
be a very useful tool for the conceptualization of the organization
and its internal and external relationships. The system approach
facilitates information exchange between parts of the system. It
is very relevant to the study of complex public organizations that
have huge diversified structures.

Ecological Approach
The ecological approach to the study of public administration
views public bureaucracy as a social institution which is continu-
ously interacting with the economic, political, and sociocultural
sub-systems of a society. Bureaucracy is not only affected by these
environmental systems but also affects them in turn. Thus, this ap-
proach emphasizes the necessary interdependence of public bu-
reaucracy and its environment. Fred W. Riggs is a strong advocate
of this approach. In his opinion, administrative institutions are
shaped and affected by their social, economic, cultural, and politi-
cal environment. Therefore, he emphasizes the fact that in order
to understand better the real nature, operations, and behaviour of
a particular administrative system, one should identify and un-
derstand deeply the various environmental factors influencing it.
The ecological approach determines how an administrative system
operates in practice. Thus, it is useful to understand administrative
realities.

Comparative Approach to Public Administration

The comparative approach to public administration seeks to com-
pare the administrative structures of different nations with differ-
ent cultural settings. The Comparative Administrative Group has
defined it as the public administration applied to diverse cultures
and national setting and the body of factual data, by which it can
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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

be examined and tested. The purpose of such comparisons is to

find out the universal elements in public administration and build a
theory of public administration. Woodrow Wilson was the first who
stressed the need for a comparative study of public administration.
In 1947, Robert Dahl, in his essay, ‘The Science of Public Adminis-
tration: Three Problems’ also emphasized the utility of comparative
public administration to develop a science of public administration.
However, the comparative approach to public administration be-
came popular only after the Second World War with the emergence
of new nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These nations
were facing the challenges of modernization and technological de-
velopment. It was hoped that a science of comparative public ad-
ministration would provide insights into such problems and yield
some useful hypotheses about administrative behaviour in general.
Two important figures in this field are Ferrel Heady and Fred Riggs.
The comparative approach to public administration is not only use-
ful to strengthen the theory-building process in public administra-
tion but also helps us to know whether the administrative practices
in a particular nation are applicable to other nations or not. On the
basis of this, the applicability of the administrative models can be
judged and practised in other political systems.

Public Policy Approach

The public policy approach aims at improving the public policy
process. It is a systematic and scientific study of public policy. The
main concern of policy approach is with the understanding and
improvement of the public–policy-making system. The concept
of policy approach was first formulated by D. Lerner and Harold
Lasswell in their work, The Policy Science in 1951. Public policy
is a significant component of any political system. It is primarily
concerned with the public and their problems. The role of a public
policy is to shape the society for its betterment. W. Parsons while
narrating the role of public policy says that the wider purposes of
public policy is involving enlightenment, the fuller development
of individuals in society and the development of consensus, so-
cial awareness and legitimacy, rather than simply the delivery of

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

goods and services. Public policies, thus, involve improving the

democratic and political capacities of the people, and not simply
the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of services. This
also implies that public policy has a participatory and democratic
character. Public policy has assumed considerable importance in
response to the increasing complexity of the society. Public policy
helps in explaining the causes and consequences of government
activity. Public policies not only help us to understand social ills
but also provide devices and mechanisms for moving a social and
economic system from the past to the future.

Political Economy Approach

Political economy approach is concerned with the moving of politi-
cal science closer to economics in the interest of greater theoretical
coherence and better policy guidance. Economists like Anthony
Downs and Gordon Tullock have applied this interdisciplinary ap-
proach by experimenting with the application of economic meth-
ods to political problems. Thus, public administration as a branch
of political science and on its own has moved closer to econom-
ics. Political economy most commonly refers to interdisciplinary
studies drawing upon economics, law, and political science in ex-
plaining how political institutions, the political environment, and
the economic system influence each other. ‘Traditional’ topics in-
clude the influence of elections on the choice of economic policy,
determinants of electoral outcomes, the political business cycles,
redistributive conflicts in fiscal policy, and the politics of delayed
reforms in developing countries and of excessive deficits. From the
late 1990s, the field has expanded to explore such wide-ranging
topics as the origins and rate of change of political institutions, and
the role of culture in explaining economic outcomes and devel-
opments. When more narrowly construed, it analyses such public
policy as monopoly, market protection, institutional corruption,
and rent seeking. A more classical–liberal approach which dates
from the 1970s that denotes ‘public-choice’ theory type approach-
es which question the benevolence of social planners to maximize
the utility of a representative individual.

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

Both economists and public administrationists understand that

there is a lot we do not know—to the extent that we share a com-
mon interest in efficiency and economy—recognize that we can
learn much from each other by pursuing convergence and inter-
play between economic models and long-standing insights from
public administration.

Public-choice Approach
The public-choice approach to the study of public administration
emerged in the early 1960s. An early reference to this theory is
found in the writings of Vincent Ostrom. The other important sup-
porters of public-choice approach are James Buchanan, Gordon
Tullock, William A. Niskanen, and William C. Mitchell. Public-
choice theory is a method to study the decisional processes for the
allocation of scarce resources in the society. It lays emphasis on the
element of choice, with the citizen in the role of consumer. It is in
favour of the citizen’s choice in the provision of public goods and
services. The advocates of this approach assume that the individ-
ual can make rational decisions about his needs and demands. An
individual will act in accordance with his self-interest in order to
maximize his decision. Thus, the supporters of this approach de-
mand that the actions of the government should be consistent with
the values and interests of its citizens. Vincent Ostrom remarks
that public-choice theory is the most appropriate approach to the
study of public administration. He suggests public administration
scholars to turn away from the traditional bureaucratic approach
towards the public-choice approach.

EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

AS A DISCIPLINE
Public administration is both a field of activity and a field of sys-
tematic study. As a part of government activity, it has existed ever
since the emergence of an organized political system. However, as
a field of systematic study, it is of recent origin. Indeed, there is no
sharp point in history where the story of public administration

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 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

begins. However, an essay by Woodrow Wilson in 1887 is often

taken as the symbolic beginning. Wilson’s article entitled, ‘The
Study of Administration’, published in Political Science Quarterly,
was written at a time when there was a crying need to eliminate cor-
ruption, improve efficiency, and streamline service delivery in pur-
suit of public interest. His advocacy that ‘there should be a science of
administration’ has to be seen in its historical context. Wilson’s basic
postulate was that ‘it is getting to be harder to run a constitution
than to frame one’. Writing against the background of widespread
corruption, science meant, to Wilson, a systematic and disciplined
body of knowledge which he thought would be useful to grasp and
defuse the crisis in administration. While commenting on the do-
main of administrators, Wilson argued that administrators should
concentrate on operating the government rather than on substitut-
ing their judgement for that of elected officials. The administration
was separate from politics and was confined to the execution of poli-
cies. So, there is a dichotomy between politics and administration.
While Wilson gave the call, it was Frank J. Goodnow who
practically fathered the movement for evolving the discipline of
public administration in the United States of America (USA). In
his book Politics and Administration, he also draws a functional
distinction between politics and administration. He writes, ‘The
former having to do with the politics or expression of the state’s
will, the later with the execution of the policies’ (Goodnow 1900:
10–11). Public administration began picking up academic le-
gitimacy in the 1920s, notable in this regard was the publica-
tion of Leonard D. White’s Introduction to the Study of Public
Administration in 1926, the first textbook entirely devoted to the
field. It reflected the general characteristics of public adminis-
tration as non-partisan. Public administration was stated to be
a ‘value-free’ science and the mission of administration would
be economy and efficiency. While not rejecting politics per se,
the public administration reformers of this period sought better
government by expanding administrative functions (planning
and analysing), keeping them distinct from political functions
(deciding). The politics–administration dichotomy emerged as
a conceptual orientation whereby the world of government was

17
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

to be divided into two functional areas, one administrative, and

another political.
W.F. Willoughby’s book Principles of Public Administration
(1927) appeared as the second textbook in the field and reflected
the new thrust of public administration. These were that certain
scientific principles of administration existed, they could be dis-
covered, and administrators would be expert in their work if they
learned how to apply these said principles (Henry 2007: 27–28).
The work of Frederick Taylor and the concept of scientific man-
agement were to have a profound effect on public administration
for the entire period between the two world wars. Taylor believed
that his scientific principles of management were universally ap-
plicable. He was keen to apply them to public administration and
supported attempts by his disciples to employ scientific manage-
ment techniques in defence establishments. One of the first test
of applicability occurred when the Taft Commission on Economy
and Efficiency undertook the first comprehensive investigation
of federal administration. Its recommendations closely followed
scientific management principles. This period reached its climax
in 1937 when Luther Gulick and Urwick coined seven principles
‘POSDCORB’ (Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordi-
nating, Reporting, and Budgeting) in their essay ‘The Science of
Administration’. Thus, this period marked by the tendency to rein-
force the idea of politics–administration dichotomy and to evolve
a value-free science of management. The central belief was that
there are certain principles of administration, and it is the task of
scholars to discover them and to promote their application. Econ-
omy and efficiency was the main objective of the administrative
system.
If Wilson is the pioneer of the discipline, Max Weber is its first
theoretician who provided the discipline with a solid theoretical
base. His ‘ideal’ type of bureaucracy continues to remain funda-
mental in any conceptualization of organization. Weber’s formula-
tion has been characterized as ‘value neutral’. It simply provides
a conceptualization of a form of social organization with certain
ubiquitous characteristics. It can be examined from three different
points of view, which are not, of course, mutually exclusive. First,

18
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

bureaucracy can be viewed in terms of purely structural charac-

teristics. In fact, the structural dimension has attracted the most
attention in the discussions on bureaucracy. Features like division
of work and hierarchy are identified as important aspects of struc-
ture. Second, bureaucracy can be defined in terms of behavioural
characteristics. Certain patterns of behaviour form an integral part
of bureaucracy. According to Weber, the more bureaucracy is
‘dehumanized’, the more completely it succeeds in eliminating
from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational,
and emotional elements which escape calculation. This is ‘the spe-
cific nature of bureaucracy and its special virtue’ (Weber 1946: 215)
(emphasis added). Third, bureaucracy can also be looked at from the
point of view of achievement of purpose. This is an instrumentalist
view of bureaucracy. As Peter Blau suggests, it should be consid-
ered as an ‘organization that maximizes efficiency in administra-
tion or an institutionalized method of organized social conduct in
the interests of administrative efficiency’ (Blau 1956: 60).
What is distinctive in the Weberian formulation is the attempt
to construct an ‘ideal type’ or a mental map of a ‘fully-developed’
bureaucracy. The ideal type is a mental construct that cannot be
found in reality. The bureaucratic form, according to Weber, is the
most efficient organizational form for large-scale, complex admin-
istration developed so far in the modern world. It is superior to
any other form in precision, stability, maintenance of discipline,
and reliability.
Following the Second World War, many of the previously ac-
cepted theories of public administration came under attack. Under
the crisis decision-making atmosphere of the Second World War,
Washington quickly exposed the politics–administration dichot-
omy as a false division. The rapid pace of mobilization decisions
in a wartime environment quickly demonstrated the necessity for
flexibility, creativity, and discretion in decision-making. The rigid,
hierarchically based proverbs of administrative practice proved
totally ineffective in such an environment. Finally, as a result of
these experiences, now the attempt was reintroduce a focus on
the broader social, moral, and political theoretical effectiveness to
challenge the dogma of managerial effectiveness.

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

In 1938, Chester I. Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive

challenged the politics–administration dichotomy. Dwight Waldo,
a leading critic, questioned the validity of ‘principles’ borrowed
from the scientific management movement in business and
urged the development of a philosophy or theory of adminis-
tration based upon broader study and a recognition of the fact
that public administration cannot be fruitfully studied from its
political and social setting. The most formidable dissection of
principles appeared in Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior:
A Study of Decision-making Processes in Administration Organi-
zation (1947), a volume of such intellectual force that it led to
Simon’s receiving the Nobel Prize in 1978. Simon proposed the
development of a new science of administration based on theo-
ries and methodology of logical positivism. The focus of such
a science would be decision-making. He maintained that to be
scientific it must exclude value judgements and concentrate atten-
tion on facts, adopt precise definition of terms, apply rigorous
analysis, and test factual statements or postulates about adminis-
tration (Corsen and Harris 1967: 1). Simon’s work sets forth the
rigorous requirements of scientific analysis in public administra-
tion. About some of the classical ‘principles’, Simon’s conclusion
was that these were unscientifically derived and were no more
than ‘proverbs’.
The pioneering studies which resulted from the experiments in
the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in the late
1920s also challenged many prevailing ideas about incentives and
human behaviour in groups. Since the Second World War similar
studies have been carried on at a number of universities. These
studies of human behaviour stress the human aspect of adminis-
tration; the need of employees for recognition, security, and ego-
satisfaction; and the importance of the social environment and
group attitudes in work situations. They reach the conclusion that
employee-oriented supervision is more effective than production-
minded, authoritarian supervision (Carson and Harris 1967: 1).
Thus, these studies brought out the limitations of the machine
concept of organization by drawing attention to the social and
psychological factors of the work situation.

20
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

The claim that public administration is a science was challenged

by Dahl in his ‘The Science of Public Administration: Three Prob-
lems’ (1947). He argued that the quest for principles of administra-
tion was obstructed by three factors: values, individual personalities,
and social framework. Dahl argued that a science of public adminis-
tration cannot emerge unless we have a comparative public admin-
istration. He further hoped that the study of public administration
inevitably must become a much more broadly based discipline, rest-
ing not on a narrowly defined knowledge of techniques and pro-
cesses, but rather extending to the varying historical, sociological,
economic, and other conditioning factors.
Thus, dissent from mainstream public administration accelerat-
ed in the 1940s in two mutually reinforcing directions. One objec-
tion was that politics and administration could never be separated
in any remotely sensible fashion. The other was that the principles
of administration were something less than the final expression of
managerial rationality.
In the post Second World War period, the emergence of new
nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have set in a new trend
in the study of public administration. Western scholars, particu-
larly the American scholars, began to show much interest in the
study of the varied administrative patterns of the newly indepen-
dent nations. In this context, they recognized the importance of
the relevance of environmental factors and their impact on the dif-
ferent administrative systems in these nations. This factor largely
accounts for the development of comparative, ecological, and de-
velopment administration perspectives in the study of public ad-
ministration (Naidu, Apparao, and Mallikarjunayya 1986: 22). In
this regard, the contribution of Ferrel Heady, F.W. Riggs, and
Edward Wiedner is significant. The cross-cultural and cross-national
administrative studies have provided the impetus needed for the
extension of the scope of public administration.
The period of the late 1960s was a time of academic foments
that yielded a new perspective which was a distinctly public per-
spective. This was the new public administration. In the late 1960s,
a group of young American scholars voiced strong resentment
against the contemporary nature of discipline. At the Minnowbrook

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

Conference I (1968), they advocated for what is known as new

public administration to make the study and practice of the sub-
ject relevant to the needs of the emerging post-industrial society.
The said conference was truly a wake-up call for the theorists and
the practitioners alike to make the discipline socially relevant and
accountable. It was held in the backdrop of a turbulent time which
was marked by a series of contemporary developments like social
upheavals in the form of ethnic skirmishes across the American
cities, campus clashes, Vietnam War and its repercussions in
American society, and the like. Above developments coupled with
a deep sense of dissatisfaction among the practitioners regarding
the present state of the discipline, especially its obsession with ef-
ficiency and economy, had ushered in a qualitatively improved
phase in public administration, subsequently christened as new
public administration. The Minnowbrook Conference I was famous
for bringing about arguably a new era in public administration
informed with relevance, values, social equity, and change. Public
interest formed the core of the deliberations. Relating adminis-
tration to the ‘political’ was the central focus of the new public
administration school.
Public choice school is another landmark in the evolution of
public administration. Far from accepting bureaucracy as ‘ratio-
nal’ and ‘efficient’, the protagonists of this school have been highly
sceptical about its structure and actual operating behaviour. The
argument of Niskanen, Downs, and Tullock, in this context, is
based on the assumption of administrative egoism. The bureau-
crats are, in their view, individualistic self-seekers ‘who would do
more harm than good to public welfare’ unless ‘their self-seeking
activities are carefully circumscribed’ (Das 1998: 7). This explains
the tendency towards bureaucratic growth that brings in more and
more rewards for the officials and quid pro quo. To mitigate the
evils of bureaucratic monopoly, Niskanen (1971) suggests the fol-
lowing steps:

• stricter control on bureaucrats through the executive or leg-

islature;
• more competition in the delivery of public services;

22
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

• privatization or contracting-out to reduce wastage; and

• dissemination of more information for public benefit about
the availability of alternatives to public services, offered on a
competitive basis and at competitive costs.

The public choice school has been successful in pointing out

that there are alternatives available for the delivery of services to
citizens. The role of the market as a competing paradigm has chal-
lenged the hegemonic position of the state. Also the power of the
bureaucracy has been similarly slashed, opening up possibilities of
non-bureaucratic citizen-friendly organizational options.
The Minnowbrook Conference II, which was held in 1988, is
another landmark in the evolution of public administration. The
outcome of the conference gave birth to the new public manage-
ment (NPM) approach to governance. Its emergence reflected the
changes that took place in the Western nations. State as major dis-
penser of social justice had been increasingly questioned across
the globe since late 1970s. The popular mood was against the state
for its dismal performance in almost every sphere—social, politi-
cal, and economic. Recent changes in the form governance in ad-
vanced Western countries also contributed to the development of
NPM. From late 1980s and early 1990s public sector management
in the advanced Western democracies underwent a sea change.
NPM is depicted as a normative conceptualization of public admin-
istration consisting of several interrelated components: providing
high-quality services that citizens value; increasing the autonomy
of public managers; rewarding organizations and individuals on the
basis of whether they meet demanding targets; making available hu-
man and technological resources that managers need to perform
well; and, appreciative of the virtues of competition, maintaining an
open-minded attitude about which public purposes should be per-
formed by the private sector, rather than public sector.
The main features of the NPM are:

• It proposes a thorough organizational revamping so that

organizational structure will become conducive for organi-
zational leadership. Organizational restructuring includes

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 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

simplifying organizational procedures, flattening of hierar-

chies, and so on;
• one of the major hallmarks of NPM is the empowerment of
citizens. Unlike the traditional public sector, it reconceptual-
izes citizens as ‘active customers’ to be always kept in good
humour;
• it calls for more autonomy for the public sector managers.
It is in favour of greater elbowroom for managerial leader-
ship by providing public managers with greater flexibility in
personnel policy like contractual appointment, workplace
bargaining, and so on;
• application of rigorous performance measurement tech-
nique is another hallmark of NPM;
• it suggests disaggregation of public bureaucracies into agen-
cies, which will deal with each other on a user-pay basis;
• inspired by New Right philosophy, the NPM is in favour of
cost-cutting in public sector;
• it encourages quasi-markets and contracting out techniques
to ensure better management of ailing cash-strapped public
sector; and
• it believes in a decentralized form of governance. It encour-
ages all kinds of organizational and spatial decentralization.

The NPM focuses on the entrepreneurial government. It is a

participatory management and community-owned governance, in
which citizens are considered as active consumers and not as pas-
sive recipients of programmes and policies. The main motto is to
empower citizens.
The publication of Reinventing Government by Osborne and
Gaebler (1992) redefined the functions of the government. The
authors argue in favour of ‘entrepreneurial government’ that is cer-
tain to bring about radical changes by (a) improving public man-
agement through performance, measurement, and evaluation, (b)
reducing budgets, (c) downsizing the government, (d) selective
privatization of public enterprises, and (e) contracting out in se-
lective areas. Thus, the focus is on de-bureaucratization, democ-
ratization, and decentralization of the administrative processes in

24
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

the interest of the citizens. The concept of governance has further

led to the recognition of the role of multiple agencies in organizing
and undertaking public business. In addition to formal govern-
ments, the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and
community-based organizations has been acknowledged as sup-
plementary public agencies.
In the late 1990s, Janet and Robert Denhardt have proposed a
new public service model in response to the dominance of NPM.
A successor to NPM is digital-era governance, focusing on themes
of reintegrating government responsibilities, needs-based holism
(executing duties in cursive ways), and digitalization (exploiting
the transformational capabilities of modern IT and digital stor-
age). Another new public service model is what has been called
new public governance, an approach which includes a centraliza-
tion of power; an increased number, role, and influence of partisan-
political staff; personal-politicization of appointments to the
senior public service; and, the assumption that the public service
is promiscuously partisan for the government of the day.
Globalization is another phenomenon which has brought a par-
adigm shift in the nature and scope of public administration. It has
virtually unshackled the discipline from the classical bondage of
structure and paved the way for a more flexible, less-hierarchical,
and accommodative kind of discipline informed by networks and
collaboration. However, more than two decades down the line,
ever since globalization was first thrust upon the nation states,
public administration did show absolutely no sign of receding. On
the contrary, rendering those dooms-day predictions wrong, pub-
lic administration reincarnated in a readjusted form to cope with
the new set of challenges. In fact, globalization had increased the
urgency of having a more proactive public administration. How-
ever, the traditional notion of public administration with a shel-
tered bureaucracy, rigid hierarchy, and organizational principle
no longer exists today. Both structurally and functionally, public
administration has experienced a metamorphosis of sort. Struc-
turally speaking, thanks to the sweeping socioeconomic–political
transformation under globalization, the rigid, hierarchical, and
bureaucratic form of governance has given way to a more flexible,

25
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

de-hierarchical, and post-bureaucratic form of governance based

on networks and partnership. Similarly, at the functional level pub-
lic administration has witnessed a profound transformation in the
form of delivery of public goods and services. Until recently, the
delivery of goods and services was considered as one of the impor-
tant functions of public administration. But, the onset of global-
ization and the eventual rolling back of the welfare state ushered
in a new collaborative form of public administration, where state
administration has had to readjust itself to deliver public goods
and services in collaboration with the innumerable other players
and NGOs functioning at the societal level.
Hence, public administration in the era of globalization has been
playing a new role of ‘enabler’ or ‘facilitator’ by privatizing the sub-
stantial part of welfare delivery functions. Several methods have
been used to facilitate the privatization of welfare delivery, namely,
contracting out, encouraging private provision, introducing quasi-
markets, mobilizing voluntary sectors, and the like. However, the
shift from the role of a direct provider to a facilitator of welfare de-
livery has not made public administration redundant. In fact, it has
continued to enjoy its key position. The centrality of public admin-
istration is neither denied by the state nor by the market. Though,
the rationale of having a public administration differs widely, for
a state, a vibrant public administration is fundamental for its sus-
tenance. It provides the state with adequate support mechanism
to govern. In a market economy, public administration has a great
instrumental value, which not only facilitates the smooth func-
tioning of the market, but also legitimizes its operations within
a society. Market economy is also anxious to add a human face
by provisioning the key social services. The significance of public
administration will remain despite globalization as Farazmand has
reassured us about its continuity as a self-conscious enterprise and
as a professional field, in the broader sense of the term (Farazmand
1999). Globalization has ‘transformed the nature and character of
state from traditional administrative welfare state to a corporate
welfare state’ with the corresponding changes in the nature of
public administration (Farazmand 1999). In a traditional public
administration set-up, an elaborate administrative mechanism was

26
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

put in place to facilitate the smooth delivery of public services,

which was popularly known as ‘public administration model of
welfare delivery’. This model envisaged an impartial and efficient
administration, informed with five distinctive features, namely, a
bureaucratic structure, professional domination, accountability to
the public, equity of treatment, and self-sufficiency (Butcher 1995).
However, such providential nature of services had come under
severe challenge with the emergence of market alternative advo-
cated by the New Right movement in the West from the late 1970s
to early 1980s. A bold step like the privatization of welfare deliv-
ery was prescribed on the pretext of efficiency and economy. The
introduction of the globalization package under the garb of the
structural adjustment programme (SAP) in the early 1990s had
further accentuated demand mooted by the advocates of the New
Right movement.

THE MINNOWBROOK CONFERENCE III, 2008

In the evolution of public administration as a field of enquiry, the
Minnowbrook Conference III that was held in 2008 was as impor-
tant as the earlier Minnowbrook conferences of 1968 and 1988.
While the Minnowbrook Conference I that took place in 1968
marked the beginning of new public administration (NPA), the
second conference, held in 1988, reflected on the impact of NPA
as a theoretical discourse for the discipline in the context of glo-
balization. The context of the Minnowbrook Conference I is not
significantly different though globalization has manifested itself
in a varied form which was inconceivable for the participants of
the 1988 Minnowbrook Conference. Unlike the first two confer-
ences, the Minnowbrook Conference III was held in two parts:
in the first pre-conference workshop at the original Minnow-
brook site on Blue Mountain Lake, the junior faculty members
presented their views to initiate debates on ‘the problem areas’ of
contemporary public administration; the second workshop was
held in Lake Placid, in which scholars of all ages and degrees of
experience participated. This division of the conference was use-
ful in conceptualizing the difficulties that public administration

27
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

was confronting in a globalizing world in two different and yet

complementary perspectives: one perspective, rooted in the com-
plex texture of globalization, seemed to have governed the effort
at building universal models, and the other related to the quest
for context-specific models, underlining simultaneously the pos-
sible influences from the wider global milieu. It was, therefore, an
occasion to chart the future road map for public administration
by involving both senior academics like Frederickson, Lambright,
and Rosemary O’Leary and as well as their younger counterparts.
By strongly arguing for a context-driven perspective, the younger
colleagues forcefully put their points on the table. And, there is
no doubt that the new scholars’ critique seemed to have set the
agenda for the Minnowbrook Conference III. As it was articu-
lated, the critique reflected the genuine concern of those seeking to
conceptualize public administration as an organic discipline that
was equipped adequately to respond to the new demands of global
human concern. Primarily, the scholars focused on four specific
areas of ‘discomfort’ that appeared to have been critical in contem-
porary research. These four specific areas of concerns relate to (a)
the nature of public administration in the changed environment
of a globalizing world, (b) the complexities of the market-oriented
NPM, (c) the impact of interdisciplinary borrowing on the meth-
odological core of the discipline, and (d) the growing importance
of networked governance and collaborative public management in
re-conceptualizing public administration in a rapidly changing so-
cioeconomic and political milieu. Public administration has, thus,
become a complex area of human endeavour simply because of
the equally complex socioeconomic circumstances in which it is
rooted as a practice. Hence, the scholars highlighted the follow-
ing challenges that needed to be addressed meaningfully to reori-
ent the discipline. Five major challenges seemed to have governed
the discussion in the pre-conference workshops. These are (a) the
challenge of remaining relevant, (b) of understanding public ad-
ministration with the election of the first African–American nom-
inee to the US presidency, (c) of teaching public administration in
Asia given the clear Western bias of the discipline, (d) of creating
a global discourse in public administration, and (e) of retaining an

28
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

independent identity for the discipline since public administration

has reportedly been ‘roofied [drugged] and rolled [mugged]’ by
economics (O’Leary et al. 2011: 9).
Like their younger colleagues, the senior faculty members who
participated in the Lake Placid deliberations identified the follow-
ing key themes that needed a threadbare discussion to reinvent
the discipline, given their dissatisfaction with the market-oriented
approach to public administration and also Weberian command
bureaucracy. As evident in the text that emerged out of the 2008
Minnowbrook Conference, five key themes drew the attention of
the participants (O’Leary et al. 2011: 12). These are:

• How is the field of public administration different in 2008

from 1968 and 1988? What is public administration in
2008?
• Can there be definitive theoretical and empirical conclusions
about the market-oriented NPM that now has a thirty-year
history?
• Given the influx of scholars from many disciplines into pub-
lic administration, is it closer or farther away from develop-
ing a core theoretical base?
• How are new ideas about networked governance and collab-
orative public management changing the way we look at pub-
lic administration, public management, and public service?
Are they changing the practice of public administration?
Should they change what we teach in our programmes?
• How has globalization affected our understanding of the
key challenges that face the study and practice of Public
Administration, Public Management, and Public Service in
the United States, the developed world, and developing and
transitional countries?

The key themes are clearly indicative of a road map for public
administration, both as a discipline and as a practice. Instead of
pondering over the grand theory, the participants focused more
on what works and what does not, while dwelling on the changing
nature of public administration. Theoretically, it is fair to suggest

29
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

that the Minnowbrook Conference III represented both Simo-

nesque and Waldonian perspectives: those upholding the former
perspective were largely drawn to economics, organization theory,
and management and those clinging to Waldonian methodologi-
cal tools seemed to have appreciated frameworks and models from
political science, sociology, philosophy, and history. The prevalence
of two important (and also complementary) perspectives also con-
firms that as a field of study, public administration continues to
be relatively diverse and ‘multi-theoretical’. The advantage is obvi-
ous: as a practical science, public administration is context-driven
and the participants of the last Minnowbrook Conference by being
appreciative of the philosophical concerns of Herbert Simon and
Dwight Waldo strengthened the multi-disciplinary texture of the
discipline, which is not merely a theoretical discourse but also a
problem-solving device. Praxis in character, public administration
is another meaningful effort at comprehending human activities
embedded in myriad socioeconomic forces which are both con-
textual and also historically articulated. By highlighting ‘the
organic nature’ of the discipline, the Minnowbrook Conference III
sought to rearticulate its ‘human face’ that was significantly under-
mined in the Minnowbrook Conference II of 1988, with the un-
critical acceptance of the neoliberal and market-driven structural
adjustment programme to address economic underdevelopment
(except the intense debate that took place between Kurt Zorn [an
economist] and Gary Walmsley [a public administration scholar]
where the latter lambasted the market-driven perspective). In the
debates and discussions, the participants highlighted the impor-
tance of being truly ‘multi-disciplinary’ in order to understand the
complexities in public administration that would remain unad-
dressed within the Simon–Waldo perspective. In fact, this was ‘an
enabling’ exercise that had set in motion a powerful critique of
‘catholicism’ in the discipline.
The 2008 Minnowbrook Conference is undoubtedly a break
with the past for two specific reasons: first, by reiterating some of
the major concerns of the Minnowbrook Conference I, the partici-
pants seemed to have put in place an agenda which was based on
collaboration, interaction, and meaningful engagement with the

30
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

stakeholders. There always existed a perceptible gap between pub-

lic problems and government capacity and also capability. What
was thus required was the goal-driven participatory governance
which is surely an innovative theoretical conceptualization in the
age of the shrinkage of government. In this sense, the Minnow-
brook Conference III reiterates the concern of the first conference
which sought to redesign public administration by insisting on its
‘commitment to responsiveness, social equality and participation’
(Frederickson 1980: 4–12). The peculiar nature of contemporary
public administration created circumstances in which agencies
other than the government became important in solving public
problems. The ‘public’ in public administration is thus redefined
because public administration is no longer understood as mere
government-driven activities. Second, by reaching out to learn
non-Western experiences of dealing with public problems, the
2008 Conference is a counter to ethnocentric public administra-
tion. One should adopt a global approach to public governance in
order to understand the intricate functioning of the institutions
that remain critical in public administration. Given technological
advancement, it is easier for scholars to interact and collaborate
among themselves; it also creates opportunities for broader engage-
ment and learning among a diverse set of communities. In the con-
text of globalization, public administration, despite its contextual
character, is thus well-equipped to meaningfully address human
concerns of varied nature. The discipline has thus become both
a scholarly enterprise and also a well-designed and goal-oriented
device to offer meaningful solutions to human problems.

REDESIGNING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN

THE CHANGING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
In the context of globalization, public administration ceases to be-
come nation-centric since it is open to various kinds of influences
which are rooted elsewhere in the globe. In order to respond to
the ‘new’ demands, the discipline needs to shake off its ethnocen-
tric character. One of the areas that clearly reflects this concern is
comparative public administration (CPA) which is so far drawn

31
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

on structural functionalism of the old variety and system theory.

Instead of drawing theoretical inspiration from Gabriel Almond,
Fred W. Riggs, and Ferrell Heady, contemporary CPA is largely
oriented towards theories of governance and public management.
This means that public administration is truly inter-disciplinary
and appreciates cross-disciplinary borrowing unlike its earlier in-
carnation when it heavily drew on grand theories and remained
‘inflexible’. Besides its substantially altered theoretical perspec-
tives, the focus of CPA has also undergone radical changes. Con-
trary to past practices when bureaucracy remained the primary
focus of attention, public administration in its present articula-
tion is multidimensional in which bureaucracy remains one of the
mechanisms for governance. This is reflected in approaches to
administrative reforms that involve the role of the stakeholders
in governance—an area that was never considered significant in
past conceptualization of the administrative change. One of the
significant outcomes of the Minnowbrook Conference III is the
idea that administrative reform is not a one-time phenomenon; it
is a continuous process, in which role of mechanisms other than
public bureaucracy is equally significant and critical. Simultane-
ously, with such a conceptualization, comes another perspective
critiquing the ethnocentric bias of the erstwhile scholars of CPA:
by highlighting the significance of cross-cultural borrowing, the
conference emphasizes the importance of learning from different
experiences to evolve a meaningful methodology to understand
the contextual peculiarities of public administration in varied
socioeconomic and political circumstances. Being critical of ‘the
top–down model’, the participants seem to have focused more on
‘the reasons for reform diffusion’ rather than attributing the failure
of reforms to the inflexible, if not inept bureaucracy in develop-
ing countries. The fundamental point that came out of the 2008
Minnowbrook Conference is a serious endeavour to capture the
changing nature of public governance in globalizing world when
cross-national experiences are considered most critical in re-
conceptualizing public administration in its present incarnation.
The most powerful voice that was articulated in the conference was
a challenge to the efforts at explaining the diverse nature of public

32
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

administration with those theoretical models that have grown out

of the US-specific socioeconomic circumstances. So, to remain
meaningful in the present context, there is a need to reinvent pub-
lic administration by underlining the distinctive nature of the dis-
cipline in different national contexts in a global perspective.
The context in which the Minnowbrook Conference III took
place needs special attention. Ours is a network society. The key
driver in the emergence of network society is technology, pri-
marily new information and communication technologies, and
its growth is dependent on the ability of actors and institutions
to perform communicatively and effectively in the emerging net-
works by reaping the benefits of the new technology paradigm. The
network society is ‘new’ in the sense that networks are no longer
relegated to private or social life but have become key to economic
production as well as public–policy-making and implementation.
The network society consists of networks operated by information
and communication technologies that generate, process, and dis-
tribute information on the basis of the knowledge accumulated in
the nodes of the network (Bang, Henrik, Esmark, and Anders). In
such a context, the idea of collaborative governance seems to have
struck ‘organic roots’ which was clearly articulated by the partici-
pants in the conference.
The Minnowbrook Conference III emphasized the importance
of ‘collaborative governance’ as perhaps the best shield against ‘gov-
ernment slackening’ or bureaucratic delay. In an interdependent
world, collaborative governance refers to ways of institutionaliz-
ing coordination and to establish decision-making processes that
works in multi-organizational settings, such as networks of gov-
ernment agencies. Key to an effective decision-making is a mean-
ingful coordination among various institutions involved in making
and also implementing decisions. Furthermore, there has to be
compatibility between policy decisions and government capabil-
ity; otherwise, it will lead to a policy paralysis simply because the
institutional capacity of the government will hardly be adequate
to translate the decisions in deeds. This is a serious impediment
to the growth of Public Administration as ‘a solid science’, as the
Minnowbrook Conference III underlines. In order to address the

33
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

difficulties due to lack of coordination among the governmental

institutions/agencies, the conference introduced a new concept of
‘interoperability’, an idea borrowed from the engineering sciences
which refers to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to
work together. It is about a process of working together by taking
into account all possible social, political, and organizational factors
that impact the outcome. In the wake of revolution in information
and communication technology (ICT), interoperability is a value ad-
dition in public administration through ‘the creation of connected
[or networked] systems that facilitate better decision-making,
better coordination of government programs and enhanced ser-
vices to citizens and businesses’ (Pardo, Gil-Garcia, and Luna-Reyes
2011: 133). The key driver in the construction of interoperability is
technology, primarily new ICTs. As the findings of the conference
identifies, the following list provides examples of how interoperable
systems can contribute to the creation of meaningful and people-
enabled governance:

• Democracy and citizen participation: (a) access to informa-

tion for engaging in political action activities, such as advo-
cating, debating, and voting; (b) creation of new electronic
forums for citizen engagement.
• Transparency and trust: access to integrated, holistic views
of government resources and operations create transparency
and build citizen trust in and allegiance to government.
• Citizen and business services: (a) information about benefits
and services available to citizens that they would otherwise
be unaware of or unable to acquire; (b) easy-to-use, acces-
sible, and geographically distributed citizen and business
services (multichannel access to payment services and ap-
plication forms).
• Government management and economic development: (a) in-
ternal, modernized infrastructure for government operations
to support the back-office processing of citizen and business
services and provide information for financial transparency
and accountability; (b) improved government-wide coordi-
nation for responding to crises such as natural disasters or

34
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

public health problems; and (c) facilitating the creation of

consumer-producer networks and alternative, more sustain-
able markets such as fair trade.
• Government long-term strategy and policy-making: (a) con-
solidated databases and data warehouses provide information
to support strategic planning and policy-making in govern-
ment; (b) stimulate local, regional, and national economies
by attracting investments through an enhanced reputation
for improved government operations and new and innova-
tive services available to citizens and businesses (Pardo, Gil-
Garcia, and Luna-Reyes 2001: 133).

The primary concern of today’s public governance is, as is evident,

to make governments sensitive to a public that has now become
the centre of public administration. Also, interoperability creates a
context for the rise and consolidation of collaborative governance
that characterizes ‘processes and structure of public decision-
making and management that enable constructive engagement
within or across public agencies, levels of government, private
and public interest sectors and the public at large’ (Emerson and
Murchie 2011: 142). Collaborative governance includes, argues
Carlson, ‘a variety of processes in which all sectors—public, private,
and civic are convened to work together to achieve solutions to
public problems that go beyond what any sector could achieve on
its own’ (Carlson 2007: 6). This is not only a step towards se-
rious civic engagement, but also a sure guarantee to consolidate
participatory democracy that both strengthens ‘public voice’ and
improves the responsiveness of the government by ‘providing an
opportunity to embed governance systems and institutions with
greater levels of transparency, accountability and legitimacy’
(Henton and Melville 2005: 5).
Public administration is embedded in a specific socioeconom-
ic milieu. Hence, it is contextual. Collaborative governance is a
meaningful articulation of some specific techniques (which are
again situation-driven) to re-emphasize the ‘publicness’ of public
administration. This is a significant theoretical conceptualization
which is both ‘enabling’ and reflective of a movement towards

35
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

reconfirming the public roots of governance. By laying the foun-

dation for serious public engagement, collaborative governance
is about those practices upholding some of the principles of the
Minnowbrook Conference I of 1968 that sought to project ‘the
human face’ of public administration by emphasizing its concern
for public well-being. It is thus a well-defined practice that is de-
signed to foster more effective engagement or deliberations with
the whole of agencies and stakeholders, including ‘creating condi-
tions (for transparency and coordination) and capacity for people
to engage constructively (by providing resources and skills)’
(Emerson and Murchie 2011: 143).
The other fundamental point that attracted significant attention
concerns the visible decline of democratic ethos and the relative as-
cendancy of bureaucratic ethos in contemporary public–decision-
making which is explained in terms of the failure of ‘deliberative
democracy’ to strike roots in process itself. In the era of gover-
nance, public administration refers to a process-driven act in which
the role of citizen seems to be negligible and thus contrary to the
idea of deliberative democracy which refers to ‘infusing govern-
ment decision-making with the reasoned discussion and collec-
tive judgment of citizens’ (Nabatchi 2011: 159). The reasons are
to be located in the traditional emphasis on bureaucracy-centric
public administration since the publication of The Study of Pub-
lic Administration by Woodrow Wilson in 1887. Luther Gulick’s
1937 conceptualization of POSDCORB (an acronym for planning,
organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and bud-
geting) and Herbert Simon’s notion of bounded rationality (1947)
further strengthen this perspective and public administration as a
discipline remained confined, to a significant extent, to explaining
various dimensions of the involvement of bureaucracy in public–
decision-making. The obvious result is what is conceptualized as
‘citizenship deficit’ which refers to the withdrawal of citizens in
matters of public consequences. As a result, public administration
fails to adequately confront and grasp the issues of public admin-
istration in a democracy where political system acts on collective
choices or decides on the basis of civic engagement. Several new
issues grip public attention which so far have remained peripheral in

36
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

public–decision-making. In the changed socioeconomic circum-

stances of the twenty-first century, public administration is not
merely a face-less function, but an act that embodies ‘a different set
of norms and principles, such as regime values, citizenship, public
interest and social equity’ (Nabatchi 2011: 169). Prominent schol-
ars—those who re-conceptualized public administration within
the theoretical paradigm of democratic ethos—include John Gaus,
Marshall Dimock, Paul Appleby, Norton Long, Frederick Mosher,
and Dwight Waldo. By integrating administrative practices with
democratic values, not only did these authors reinvent public
administration, they also initiated a new debate in the discipline
suggesting the critical importance of the context in understanding
the nature of public administration, an initiative challenging the
effort at building a universal model following the Weberian theo-
retical dispositions. Deliberative democracy is a theoretical design
for the ‘rediscovery’ of democratic ethos in public administration.
Drawn on the basic democratic values of inclusion, equity, par-
ticipation, and public interests, this provides an institutionalized
design for formally involving citizens in the making of public deci-
sions because dialogue among the stakeholders creates a forum for
discussions and deliberations which generally lead a consensual
decision, and in this sense it is a process that is more than mere
aggregation of individual views. Deliberative democracy is, thus,
an effective mechanism to relocate ‘the public in the discipline of
shaping public affairs [and in doing so] provides a way to help bal-
ance the tensions between the bureaucratic and democratic ethos
in public administration’ (Nabatchi 2011: 162).

CHALLENGES AHEAD
Similar to the Minnowbrook Conference II of 1988, the Minnow-
brook Conference III is both a stock-taking exercise and also an
articulation of the future road map for public administration in the
changed socioeconomic environment of a globalizing world. While
reviewing the efforts at ‘repositioning public administration’ in the
context of globalization, the participants agreed that the expecta-
tions remained unfulfilled. As a discipline, public administration

37
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

does not seem to be well-equipped to manage an administrative

state that is jurisdictionally, functionally, and sectorally frag-
mented. This creates possibilities of inter-disciplinary borrowings
to understand the complex articulation of administration, with
reference to the constantly changing global scenario. There is a
serious lack of meaningful theoretical yardstick. The Weberian
model of bureaucracy and management are undoubtedly less
relevant to public administration than they once were, yet they
remain ‘a sharper set of intellectual tools than the still-fuzzy con-
cept of governance [which is] confusing because it lacks a precise
definition’ (Frederickson and Smith 2003: 209). Nonetheless, the
idea of governance cannot be altogether ignored because it for-
mally recognizes the role of the practitioners of public adminis-
tration in re-conceptualizing and also repositioning the discipline
in conjunction with the volatile socioeconomic circumstances
around globe. Public administration has to address this concern
and governance, despite its obvious theoretical limitations, seems
to have provided possible tools to capture the changed reality. The
growing acceptance of governance to mean public administration
also confirms that the discipline no longer remains ‘boundary-
conscious’ and the issues that had emerged in the Minnowbrook
Conference III are reflective of a growing openness to new ideas,
coupled with enduring issues that span the decades. The 2008
conference is thus said to have provided a new attire to public
administration by throwing away its ‘orthodoxy’ that appeared to
have impeded its growing as a discipline with its organic link with
prevalent socioeconomic circumstances.
Despite disagreements among the participants over various
issues, there developed a consensus on some issues which were
likely to set the basic agenda for future research in public admin-
istration. First, the most obvious and important issue that was
addressed in the Minnowbrook Conference III was the impact of
globalization on the field. This is an important change since the
second conference, and certainly since the Minnowbrook Confer-
ence I. The world, today, has become a single entity, at least in its
physical sense. Seeking to capture such an interconnected entity
within the rubric of globalization, participants in the conference

38
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

focused more on the new dimensions of connectedness, interde-

pendency, knowledge-sharing in governance, and collaborative
public management among government agencies and across in-
ternational boundaries. So, the challenge before the analysts is not
merely to comprehend public administration in the changed en-
vironment, but also to identify its distinctive features which were
hardly visible in the command administration in the Weberian
bureaucracy-driven paradigm. The fundamental question that
was raised related to re-conceptualizing democratic (in the liberal
sense) governance as a means to transparency and accountability,
even in political systems which are not democratically constituted
in the conventional sense.
The second issue that attracted attention related to the effort
at building and also consolidating collaborative governance, as
perhaps a panacea to weak or inadequate administration. Critical
of hierarchical governance, the governance paradigm underlines
the importance of connected forms of administration through
networks, contracts, and a range of information technology inno-
vations in which government is an important institutional actor,
but not the only or most important one. As a result, collabora-
tion is the principal norm in administration and power is ‘diffused
through a number of institutional mechanisms and policy instru-
ments’ which is manifested in the growing importance of manage-
rial tools, such as, ‘facilitation, negotiations, collaborative problem
solving and dispute resolution’ in public administration (Van
Slyke, O’Leary, and Kim 2011: 284). Governance is not merely a
managerial response to public administration; it is a political re-
sponse underlining critical public engagement in societal issues.
The concern was to ensure public participation and public engage-
ment in policy discussion and implementation. In order to make
public administration ‘democratic’ and ‘transparent’, the meaning-
ful public participation in the decision-making is required where
forms may vary though it will create forums for effective dialogue
among the stakeholders. This was a perspective in which NPA was
conceptualized in the context of the Minnowbrook Conference I of
1968. What is new in the third conference is a clear shift in focus:
public always remains, at least conceptually, a critical component

39
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

and hence it is assumed to be a driving force in public administra-

tion. The most important issue, raised in the conference, is one of
when and how best to involve the public in public administration.
This is a recurring problem regardless of circumstances: it is easier
to conceptualize public in its reactive role; but it is difficult to make
public ‘pro-active’ in issues of public governance unless situations
change radically. Nonetheless, the basic point highlighting the im-
portance of public participation in governance is very useful in
relocating public administration in the field of social sciences in
its new avatar.
Public administration is extremely benefitted by the easy avail-
ability of new tools of communication following the Information
Technology (IT) revolution. No one can deny the growing role
of IT tools in the public sector; in fact, it has facilitated decision-
making by ensuring access to a huge array of information which
may not have been otherwise available. One of the most significant
outcomes of IT-enabled public administration is e-governance
that has become an acceptable form in contemporary governance,
not only because it is cost-efficient, but also because it is transpar-
ent and time-saving. A new idea of interoperability which is a mix
of policy, management, and technology has gained precedence in
contemporary governance. This is an era of network governance
which is based on effective coordination among the stakeholders
on the basis of shared information and knowledge from different
sources. There are two ways in which coordination is articulated:
(a) information sharing whereby information is transferred from
one agency to another and (b) information integration which in-
volves not only the transfer of information, but also translation
and transformation of information to evolve new techniques of
collective problem-solving. Both these concepts converge into an
integrated database of inputs that remain very useful in addressing
similar problems in the future. The availability of database, once
inadequate to conclusively solve problems, is likely to provoke fur-
ther research in areas which need attention. So, with the access to
IT-driven techniques, public administration appears to have fur-
ther enriched its theoretical tools which were inconceivable in the
era of command bureaucracy, but have become integrally linked

40
 Public Administration: Evolution of a Discipline

with contemporary public administration presumably because of

the consolidation of a networked global village.
In a way, the Minnowbrook Conference III is a continuity of the
past, in the sense that the principal concern of the participants since
the first conference in 1968 has remained the same. The common
theme that ran across the Minnowbrook conferences across four
decades since it was first convened in 1968 was the challenge of
remaining relevant. There is a clear lack between scholarship and
practice in public administration which, the participants appre-
hend, needs to be meaningfully addressed to make the discipline
relevant in the era of globalization. In other words, the focus is on
the nature of public administration which is different from other
social sciences, given the fact that public administration is largely
a practice-based discourse. Hence the question—how to make
public administration relevant?—seems most pertinent. The entire
discussion revolves around this question and David Rosenbloom,
in his closing plenary remarks, listed the following four proactive
steps to make public administration ‘a stronger and more robust
field’ (Van Slyke, O’Leary, and Kim 2011: 284).
First, supportive of collaborative research, Rosenbloom insisted
on ‘the need to aggregate knowledge in the sense of making it cu-
mulative’. In order to make public administration a meaningful tool
of analysis of real human problems, the scholars, he further argues,
need to develop a common framework on the basis of give-and-take
not only from their counterparts in the discipline, but also from
other disciplines. By being rigidly boundary-conscious, the scholars
have done more harm than what was apprehended. Public admin-
istration needs to be interdisciplinary by shunning its orthodoxy.
The second point, raised by Rosenbloom, is a demand ‘to maintain
methodological and epistemological pluralism’ in public adminis-
tration. The effort here is to welcome pluralism in our choice for
methodology because imposition of a single or hegemonic meth-
odology or epistemology shall ‘narrow and weaken the field’. Third,
one of the sources of weakness in contemporary public adminis-
tration is its failure to understand non-Western administration,
presumably because of its catholicity in clinging to a single set of
values—whether utilitarian, instrumental, egalitarian, libertarian,

41
 Public Administration in a Globalizing World

or contractarian—while addressing contemporary administration-

related concerns. In view of the complex nature of the prevalent
system of administration which is enmeshed with equally complex
socioeconomic and political factors, the theoretical catholicism
may certainly be an impediment in articulating a creative response.
Finally, Rosenbloom is highly critical of boundary-conscious public
administration. He is in favour of promoting boundary spanning.
The discipline shall never be adequately practice-driven unless the
boundary obsession of the scholars disappears, he argues. Accord-
ing to him, serious academic probing in public administration
in comparative perspectives is a significant step towards making
the discipline well-equipped to handle diverse socioeconomic
problems; and also, by being receptive to the developments in
related fields of economics, sociology, business administration,
and political science, the scholars of public administration will
further enhance their capacity to intervene in collective problem-
solving.
As the above discussion shows, while taking stock of the de-
velopments in public administration in contemporary context, the
Minnowbrook Conference III reiterates some of the concerns of
those participating in the Minnowbrook Conference I. The effort
was to make the discipline relevant and meaningful in address-
ing contemporary human concerns. In the changed environment
of the growing ascendancy of market, public administration, in
order to remain relevant, seems to have tilted in favour of private
enterprises. The fulcrum had, it is argued, moved to ‘a position
beyond the center in which government was now in a relationship
not of interdependence but of dependence on private and non-
profit firms to deliver government services’ (Van Slyke, O’Leary,
and Kim 2011: 14). The centre of gravity in governance no longer
remained bureaucracy which became just one of the agencies in
public administration. So, what was required was a new theoreti-
cal parameter to re-conceptualize governance in the changed so-
cioeconomic environment. The Minnowbrook Conference III of
2008 is certainly a meaningful step in this regard. Despite serious
disagreements among the participants, they however came to-
gether by their search for acceptable theoretical designs to explain

42
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complex administrative processes. Public administration therefore

needs to be creative to remain meaningful and relevant in rather
uncertain in these times of our civilization.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Thus, public administration has undergone a sea change in re-
sponse to new inputs from the contemporary socioeconomic and
political scene. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to grasp
the nature of public administration in terms of the Weberian con-
ceptualization underlining its rigid, rule-bound and hierarchic
characteristics. Instead, the preferred form of administration is
one which is accessible, transparent, and accountable, and where
the citizens are consumers. Furthermore, the notion of ‘public’ in
public administration has acquired new dimensions where the
public–private distinction is more analytical than real since there
is a growing support for both cooperation and healthy competi-
tion between these two sectors in the larger interests of societal
development. To sum up, public administration has gone through
various stages in its evolution and growth as an academic disci-
pline. The evolutionary process indicates the shifting boundaries
of the discipline in response to constantly emerging social needs.

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