Dear students, before discussing about the Public Administration, first of all we want to

understand the meaning of the term ‘Administration’. The lives of the people are closely
connected with the administration of their government. It is a complex process involves different
things and a lot of activities. Human beings are living in accordance with the policies and
activities done by the administrators. Administration, as an activity, is as old as the society itself.
Administration is a part and parcel of our daily life. The food we eat, the cloths 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 and many others – are
made possible by administration. Thus administration is everywhere with us from ‘womb to
tomb’.
Meaning of Administration
The term ‘Administration’ has been derived from theLatin word ‘ad’and‘ministare’
which means ‘to serve’. In simple words it means ‘care for’ or to ‘look after’ people, to ‘manage
affairs’. Administration may be defined as“group activity which involves cooperation and
coordination for the purpose of achieving desired goals or objectives.” Any cooperative human
effort towards achieving some common goals is also known as administration. Thus every group
activity involves some kind of administration whether it is in a family, factory, hospital,
company, university or in agovernment department. Thus Administration permeates all
organised human activities.
Definitions of Administration
Pfiffner and Presthus define administration as“organization and direction of human and
material resources to achieve desired ends.”
According to L D White , Administration is “the direction,coordination and control of many
persons to achieve some purpose or objective. Herbert a Simon said “in its broadest sense,
administration can be defined as the activities of groups cooperating to accomplish common
goals”.
E.N.Gladden defined “Administration is a long and slightly pompous word, but it has a humble
meaning, for it means to care for or look after people, to manage affairs……is determined action
taken in pursuit of conscious purpose”.
According to Brooks Adams “ Administration is the capacity of coordinating many, and often
conflicting , social energies in a single organism, so adroitly that they shall operate as a unity”.
Felix A Nigro defined “Administration is the organisation and use of men and materials to
accomplish a purpose”.
Luther Gulick pointed out that “Administration has to do with getting things done, with the
accomplishment of defined objectives”.
F.M Marx said Administration is determined action taken in persuit of a conscious purpose. It is
the systematic ordering of affairs and the calculated use of resources, aiming at making those
things happen which one wants to happen and foretelling everything to the country”.

A brief analysis of the above definitions reveals that the administration comprises two essentials,

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namely (1)cooperative effort,and (2) pursuit of common objectives. Thus administration is a
common process ,common to all group effort; public or private ,civil or military ,largescale or
small-scale.
Broadlyspeaking, the term ‘administration’ appears to bear at leastfour different meanings
or different senses depending upon the context in which it is used. They are:-
1. As a Discipline: The name of a branch of a learning or intellectual discipline as taught and
studied in colleges and universities.
2. As a Vocation: Type of work/trade or profession/occupation,especially one that involves
knowledge and training in a branch of advance learning
3. As a Process: The sum total of activities undertaken to implement public policy or policies
to produce someservices or goods.
4. As a Synonym for word Executive or Government: Such other body of person in
supreme charge of affairs; for exampleNagendra Modi Administration, Donald Trump
Administration etc.
What is Public Administration?
Now let us discuss what Public administration is. Public Administration is an activity as
old as our ancient civilisation. But as an independent discipline or a branch of study public
administration cannot claim for a long history. Public administration gained immense
importance since the emergence of administrative state. The former American President and the
political scientist, Woodrow Wilson published an article in political science journal in 1887titled
as ‘the study of administration’ is considered as the first article mentioning of Public
Administration. Public Administration is government in action.
Definitions of Public Administration
According to Woodrow Wilson, the father of public administration; “Pubic
Administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. Every particular application of
law is an act of administration.”
Encyclopedia Britannica defines public administration as “the application of a policy of a state
through its government”. Therefore, public administration refers to that part of administration,
which pertains to the administrative activities of the government.
L.D. White said “Public Administration consists of all those operations having for their purpose
the fulfilment or the enforcement of public policy”. It includes military as well as civil affairs,
much of the works of the court, and all the special fields of government activity-police,
education, health, construction of public works, conservation, social security and many others.
Luther Gulick defined, “Public Administration is that part of the science of administration,
which has to do with the government and, thus, concerns itself primarily with the executive
branch, where the work of the government is done; though there are obviously administrative
problems also in connection with the legislative and judicial branches.

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To Wright Waldo “Public Administration is the art and science of management as applied to the
affairs of State.”
M.E. Dimock opined, “Public administration is concerned with ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the government.
The ‘what’ is the subject matter, the technical knowledge of a field, which enables the administrator
to perform his tasks. The ‘how’ is the technique of management, the principles according to which
co-operative programmes are carried through to success. Each is indispensable; together they form
the synthesis called administration”.
According to J.M Priffiner,” Administration consists of getting the work of government done by
coordinating the efforts of people so that they can work together to accomplish their set tasks”.
M. Ruthanaswami defined it as, “when administration has to do with the affairs of a stateor minor
political institution like the municipal or country council(district board), it is called public
administration. All the acts of the officials of the government,from the person in a remote office to
the head of a state in the capital, constitute public administration”.
Corson and Harries defined, “Public administration……is the action part of the government, the
means by which the purposes and goals of the government are realised”.
According to Nicholas Henry, “Public administration is a broad-ranging and amorphous
combination of theory and practice; its purpose is to promote a superior understanding of
government and its relationship with the society, it governs, as well as to encourage public
policies more responsive to social needs and to institute managerial practices attuned to
effectiveness, efficiency and the deeper human requisites of the citizenry”.
The traditional definitions of the public administration reflect the view that the public
administration is only involved in carrying out the policies and programmes of government. It
reflect that it has no role in policy making and also locates the administration only in the
executive branch but today the term public administration is used in a broader sense that it is not
only involved in carrying out the programmes of the government, but it also play an important
role in policy formulation and covers the three branches of the government. In this context, it
may reflect on the definition offered by F.A. Nigro and L.G.Nigro.
According to Nigro and Nigro Public administration:
 -is co-operative group effort in public setting:
 -covers all the three branches-executive, legislature and judicial and their inter-relations
 -has an important role in the formulation of public policy and thus is a part of the policy
process;
 -is different in significant ways from private administration, and
 -is closely associated with the numerous private groups and individuals in providing
service to the community.
NATURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
There are two views regarding the nature of Public Administration, that is
1. Integral view and 2. Managerial view

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 According to the integral view, ‘administration’ is the sum total of all the activities-
manual, clerical, managerial, technical etc., which are undertaken to realize the objectives of
organization. In this view, all the acts of officials of the government from the Attendant to
Secretaries to the government and Head of the State constitute Public Administration. Thus the
activities of the errand boy, the foreman, the gatekeeper , the sweeper , as well as the IT
professionals, the secretary to the government and the managers in an enterprise constitute
administration. It count the work of all persons from the lowest to the highest positions working
in an organization as part of administration.
Henry Fayol and L.D. White are the supporters of this view. According to L.D.White
Public Administration “consists of all those operations having for their purpose he fulfilment or
the enforcement of public policy”. This definition cover a multitude of particular operations in
many fields- the delivery of a letter,, the sale of public land, the negotiation of a treaty, the award
of compensation to an injured workman, the quarantine of a sick child, the removal of litter from
apark, manufacturing plutonium and licensing the use of atomic energy”. Thus it is a broader
view of administration.
On the other hand the managerial view considers the administration in a narrower sense.
According to this view of administration, the managerial activities of people who are involved in
planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling constitute public
administration. It considers only the work of those persons engaged in performing managerial
functions. This view regards things are getting done and not doing things. Managerial view
excludes Public Administration from non-managerial activities such as manual, clerical, and
technical activities.
Luther Gulick, Herbert Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson are the supporters of this view. Luther
Gulick writes, “Administration has do with getting things done , with the accomplishment of
defined objectives”. Simon ,Smithburg and Thomson observe ,”the term ‘administration’ is also
used in a narrower sense to refer to those patterns of behaviours that are common to many kind
of cooperating groups; and that do not depend upon either the specific goals towards which they
are cooperating or the specific technological methods used to reach these goals”.
The two views differ from each other in many ways. According to Professor M. P.
Sharma the difference between the two views is fundamental. Integral view includes the
activities of all the persons engaged in administration whereas the managerial view restricts itself
only to the activities of the few persons at the top. The integral view depicts all type of activities
from manual to managerial, from non-technical to technical whereas the managerial view takes
into account only the managerial activities in an organization. Furthermore, administration according
to integral view would differ from one sphere to another depending upon the subject matter, but
whereas that will not be the case according to the managerial point of view because the
managerial view is identified with the managerial techniques common to all the fields of
administration.
The difference between the two views relates to the difference between management and
operation or we may say between getting things done and doing things. The correct meaning of
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the term administration would however, depend upon the context in which it is used.

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Dimock, Dimock and Koening sum up in the following words:
“As a study public Administration examines every aspect of Government’s effort to discharge
the laws and to give effect to the public policy; as a process, it is all the step taken between the
time and enforcement agency assumes jurisdiction and the last break is placed (but includes also
that agency’s participation, if any, in the formulation of the programme in the first place); and as a
vocation, it is organizing and directing the activities of others in a public agency.”
SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
As we have seen earlier, Public administration has a border view and a narrower view. In
the modern developing age we have to make public administration as a scientific, growing
discipline. For this our approach to the study of public administration has to be broader, modern
and scientific. In the broader terms mutual dependence and the intensive interaction between the
three branches of the government is essential for good administration. Thus, the scope of public
administration is wide enough. By the scope of Public Administration, we mean the major
concerns of public administration as an activity and as a discipline.
SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS AN ACTIVITY
Broadly speaking, Public Administration embraces all the activities of the government.
Hence, as an activity the scope of public administration is no less than the scope of state activity.
In the modern welfare state people, expect many things- a wide variety of services and
protection from the government. In this context, public administration provides a number of
welfare and social security services to the people. Besides, it has to manage government owned
industries and regulate private industries. Public administration covers every area and activity
within the ambit public policy. Thus the scope of public administration is very wide in modern
state.
SCOPE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS A DISCIPLINE
Writers have defined the scope of public administration indifferent terms. The scope of public
administration as a discipline, that is subject of studies, broadly comprises of two views. They
are:
1. POSDCORB view
2. The Subject Matter view

POSDCORB view of Public Administration

This is a narrow view of public administration and takes into account only the executive
branch of the government. In other words this view corresponds with the managerial view.
Hendry fayol ,L.Urwick, Fercey M. Queen and Luther Gulick are the main supporters of this
view.
According to Henri Fayol the main categories of administration are: Planning, Organization,
Command, Coordination and control. L. Urwick fully support Fayol’s view . F.M. Queen says that
the study of administration deals with ‘Men, Materials and Methods’.
Luther Gulick’s view on the scope of public administration is very important because he

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has explained that in detail. He sums up these techniques in the word POSCORB, each letter of
which describe one technique. These letters stands for:

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P= Planning,
O= Organisation,
S=Staffing,
D=Directing,
CO= Co-ordination
R=Reporting
B= Budgeting.
Let us see the real meaning of these terms:-
Planning means the working out in broad outline the things to be done, the methods to be adopted
to accomplish the purpose.
Organization means the establishment of the formal structure of authority through which the
work is sub-divided, arranged, defined, and coordinated.
Staffing means the recruitment and training of the personal and their conditions of work.
Directing means making decisions and issuing orders and instructions
Co-ordination means the interrelating the work of various divisions, sections, and other parts of
the organizations.
Reporting means informing the superiors within the agency to whom the executive is responsible
about what is going on.
Budgeting means fiscal planning, controlling, and accounting.
According to Gulick the POSDCORB activities are common to all organizations. They
are the common problems of the management, which are found in different agencies regardless
of the nature of work they do.
POSDCORB gives unity, certainty, and definiteness and makes the study more systematic. The
critics pointed out that the POSDCORB activities were neither the whole of administration nor
even the most important part of it. The POSDCORB view overlooks the fact that different
agencies are faced with different administrative problems, which are peculiar to the nature of the
services, they render, and the functions they performed. The POSDCORB view takes into
consideration only the common techniques of the administration and ignores the study of the
‘Subject Matter’ with which the agency is concerned. A major defect is that the POSDCORB
view does not contain any reference to the formulation and implementation of the policy.
Therefore the scope of administration is defined very narrowly, being too inward looking and to
conscious of the top management.
The Subject Matter View of Public Administration
This function comprises line functions or services meant for people. We all know that
public administration deals not only with the processes but also with the substantive matters of
administration, such as Defence, Law and Order, Education , Public Heath ,Agriculture, Public
works, Social Security, Justice , Welfare, etc... These services require not only POSDCORB
techniques but also have important specialised techniques of thereon which are not covered by

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 School of Distance Education

POSDCORB techniques. For example, if you take Police Administration it has its own
techniques in crime detection, maintenance of Law and Order, etc., which are much and more
vital to efficient police work ,than the formal principles of organisation, personnel management,
coordination or finance and it is the same with other services too. Therefore the study of Public
Administration should deal with both the processes (that is POSDCORB techniques and
substantive concerns).so emphasis on the subject-matter cannot be neglected. We conclude the
scope of public administration with the statement of Lewis Meriam: “Public administration is an
instrument with two blades like a pair of scissors. One blade may be knowledge of the field
covered by POSDCORB; the other blade is knowledge of the subject matter in which these
techniques are applied. Both blades must be good to make an effective tool".
Thus the activities of the Public administration will be wide in scope.Prof. White
supports this view; “in their broader context the ends of administration are the ultimate objects
of the state itself , the maintenance of peace and order, the progressive achievement of justice,
the instruction of the young, protection against decease, and insecurity, the adjustment and
compromise of conflicting groups and interests in short , the attainment of good life”. Thus, it is
obvious that though public administration studies the administrative branch of the executive
organ, yet its scope is very wide and it varies with people’s connection of good life.
We may conclude the discussion with the observation of Herbert Simon who says that
Public administration has two important aspects, namely deciding and doing things. The first
provides the basis for the second. One cannot conceive of any discipline without thinking or
deciding. Thus Public administration is a broad- ranging and amorphous combination of theory
and practice.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: ART OR SCIENCE
Public Administration has two dimensions – as a practice and as a study. As a practice it
stands for a process or activity administering governmental affairs. As a study it stands for an
area of intellectual enquiry. As a practice, public administration is an art, but as a study of
governmental affairs, it is surely a science. It is clear that social sciences which study the
complex human behaviour are not exact sciences like physical sciences. But social sciences are
trying to become more and more scientific by using scientific methods of study.
Woodraw Wilson, the pioneer of Public administration, as a subject of study called it as the
‘Science of Public Administration as early as 1887. He laid emphasis on the study of Public
Administration “to rescue executive methods from the confusion and costliness of empirical
experiment and set them on the foundations laid deep in principle”. W.F. Willoughby,
LutherGullick and L. Urwicketc are contributors who laid emphasis on the Science of
Administration. Willoughby asserted that “ in administration there are certain fundamental
principles of general application analogous to those characterising any science.” In 1939, Charles
Austin Beard spoke of “Philosophy, Science and Art of Public administration”.
The question raised is whether Public Administration is a true science? The most
important features of science are absence of normative (or ethical) value, predictability of
behaviour and finally universal application. All these three factors are not fully present in public
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 School of Distance Education

administration. Values cannot be fully eliminated from public administration. Public Administration
is ultimately a politics and normative values cannot be completely sacrificed. On the other hand
science is value- free or has no ethical content.
Yet another issue is that public administration, like any other social science, studies
human behaviour. As Robert Dahl remarked, the concern with human behaviour limits the
immediate

potentialities of a science of Public administration. To Dahl, no science of Public administration

is possible unless: (1) the place of normative values is made clear, (2) the nature of man is the
area of public administration is better understood and his conduct is more predictable and (3)
there is a body of comparative studies from which it may be possible to discover principles and
generalities that transcend national boundaries and peculiar historical experiences”.
Moreover, public administration has had its growth in the cultural framework of the
West. As such its findings and principles may not be valid in other parts of the world, where
different cultures prevail. Public administration is culture bound. In short, public administration
can be entitled to be called a science only after its principles are directly derived from studies
and investigations made in the different societies of the world-in Asian, Latin, American and
African countries.
Public Administration is not an exact science like Physics. But part of which has already
become mechanized can be classified as science. The impact of computer and the statistical and
Mathematical techniques like operations research, linear programming etc is gradually making
increasing part of public administration scientific.
To conclude the different arguments, Public Administration cannot be called a science
until the following three conditions are fulfilled. 1. The place of normative value should be
clearly identified and made clear. 2.Greater understanding should be gained of human nature in
the field of public administration . 3.there should be developed a body of cross-cultural studies
from which should be derived the principles of administration not suffering from ‘culture
bound’.

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