What does Mudalovers know about public administration? Public administration is a social science that studies a country’s constitutional system and everything related to the public which includes public organizations, public policy, public management and public services.
Public administration is the same as other administrations which are carried out for a series of public interests. So, in public administration there are quite diverse definitions and from various kinds of experts.
For example, some academics argue that all work related to government falls into the category of public administration, while others prefer to argue that only the executive aspect of government functions constitutes public administration.
In fact, in this modern era, public administration is often seen as the responsibility for determining government policies and programs. Specifically, it is the planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, and controlling of government operations. Within a country, public administration is practiced at both the central, intermediate and local levels.
Of course, the relationship between various levels of government within a country is an ever-evolving public administration problem. With the aim of clarifying Mudalovers understanding of the meaning of public administration, this article will review how public administration is understood, the nature and scope, theory, function and objectives of public administration.
What is Public Administration?
Public administration is one of the social sciences that examines the state management system which relates to policy, organization, management and services. Public administration is always in contact with the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive.
Apart from that, public administration is closely related to various regulations and policies relating to the public, state goals, development administration, and ethics that regulate the proper administration of the state.
If viewed grammatically, public administration has two constituent words, namely administration and public. Thus, administration can be interpreted as an activity or collaboration of a group of people aimed at achieving predetermined goals. Meanwhile, the word public is defined as the state and citizens or society
In this way, we can define public administration as a process of carrying out decisions or policies for the benefit of the state, citizens or society. We all need to know that public administration, like other administration, is carried out with the aim of the public interest .
Marx defined administration as administration determined by the actions taken to achieve realized goals. This is the systematic arrangement of affairs and the calculated use of resources with the aim of realizing what a person/organization desires.
The next opinion comes from Frederic Lane who defines administration as the organization and maintenance of human and fiscal resources to achieve the goals of a group . A complete definition of public administration is, however, difficult to achieve because of the many tasks included in public administration.
Meanwhile, according to LD White, public administration consists of all operations aimed at fulfilling or enforcing public policy . On the other hand, according to Woodrow Wilson, public administration is the detailed and systematic application of law. It could also be said that public administration is nothing but policies, practices, rules and regulations, and so on.
Today, can public administration be separated from the social and political system? The answer is of course no and therefore another definition emerged given by FA Nigro, who argued that public administration is essentially a cooperative group effort in a public setting.
Second, it covers all three branches of the three principalities of government, namely the executive, legislative and judiciary. Furthermore, it was explained that because public administration plays an important role in policy formulation, it is therefore part of the political process as well, for example Draft Laws and Laws.
Apart from that, Nigro also revealed that public administration is different from private administration in many ways. Furthermore, public administration interacts with various private groups and individuals in providing services to society.
What is the Nature of Public Administration?
Of course, regarding the nature of public administration, there are two views that are popularly known to us, one is the integral view and the other is the managerial view.
The integral view is all-encompassing and consists of the total sum of all managerial, administrative, technical, and manual activities as well as employees at all levels. This view was later supported by LD White and Dimock. This may vary from one institution to another depending on the field of work involved.
On the other hand, according to the managerial view, as the name suggests, public administration only involves managerial activities. This view was then supported by a number of figures, including Simon, Smithburg, Thompson and Luther Gulick. Apart from that, the word administration itself is very contextual and can vary in meaning and definition from one organization to another openly.
Thus, if you want to understand it from the context and setting of an organization, it can be roughly explained that top management or the board decides on the vision, mission, goals, both short and long term, and the head of the business unit then makes an action plan and creates or reforms the process. distribute responsibilities, direct planning, invite people to join, and start working to achieve the goals that have been set and in accordance with the specified guidelines.
In essence, administrators can be government leaders and business units and their teams can be public administrators who are the executors and actually the people running the show too.
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What is the Nature and Scope of Public Administration?
Public administration is the most important aspect of bureaucracy throughout the world; be it a country with democratic, socialist or even capitalist characteristics. Moreover, in a socialist country, because all aspects of citizens’ lives are influenced and determined by the government, the role of the government is very, very strong.
However, there have been major changes in the way public administration was implemented from ancient and medieval times when initiative was no more than sporadic administrative functions such as maintaining law and order and collecting revenue with little or no activity to achieve prosperity.
The people who carried out these public administration activities were chosen by the kings and were no better than their personal servants. As time progressed, the objectives of public administration also changed and in the nineteenth century; an organized approach to civil service and public administration was adopted.
This approach is based on a complete legal framework replacing patriarchal and hereditary functions with deeply entrenched bureaucracy. The existence of a new approach to public administration occurs for a number of reasons. One of the main and most important reasons is the industrial revolution.
With the industrial revolution, the government in a country entered trade, which was then followed by isms, namely imperialism, nationalism and internationalism which increased the expansion of the duties and responsibilities of a government.
In this day and age, it is once again much different from what happened a century ago. Apart from that, the scope of public administration has also experienced a shift, including making it difficult to decide whether it is a paradigm or not.
However, as awareness among people, especially in developing countries, increases and knowledge about rights, privileges, and laws among people in developed countries (for example, the debate over the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 ) has raised new challenges for public administrators and policy makers/holders in a government.
The demand for a unified national service, the conflict of interests between different economic sections in a society and with global migration and later globalization; Protection of the interests of multi-ethnic groups in society has kept public administrators busy.
This administration is very important because it is not enough to make policies and laws on white paper alone. Interpreting, translating policies and laws into action and implementing them is not an easy part.
Therefore, public administrators are obliged to play an important role in running government as a running machine. The existence of bureaucracy may often be ridiculed by society, but if administrative work is stopped, nothing really happens.
In almost all countries in the world, the number of people employed in public administration jobs is very large, for example in the superpower United States, the figure is approximately 2,036,000 civilians, not including employees of Congress and the Federal courts. Apart from the United States, in England the figure reaches several thousand and in India there is also a test to become a civil servant.
Of the various important roles played by state administration, the most important is implementing laws and policies well, optimally and obediently, as well as acting as an adjudicator .
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What are the Functions of Public Administration?
There are several functions of public administration, including:
1. Traditional Function
Traditional functions are the main functions in public administration. This function includes general welfare, taxation, foreign relations, domestic order, defense and security, public works, and so on.
2. Nation Development Function
The second function, namely nation building, aims to foster a feeling of love for the country and the Indonesian nation in the midst of a very heterogeneous Indonesian society and unstoppable globalization.
3. Functions of Economic Management
Another function is public administration as a regulator for economic management.
4. Social Welfare Function
The fourth function is the social welfare function which is directly related to the welfare service system for citizens. The government is obliged to intervene in improving social welfare by providing services to citizens or the community, such as public housing, health services and social welfare social security in accordance with the constitutional mandate.
5. Environmental Control Function
The environmental control function aims to prevent damage to the environment due to human greed in exploiting nature. Therefore, control is carried out on the environment, such as research and development, conservation, urban planning, and so on which aim to protect the environment.
6. Function of Human Rights (HR)
The final function is the human rights function which provides democratic guarantees for citizens, so that the government can serve and protect the public well. One of the functions of these rights is the protection of Human Rights (HR).
What is the Goal of Public Administration?
If viewed in general, public administration has several objectives, namely:
- Ensure good public safety
- Ensuring equitable public welfare
- Ensuring justice for all citizens regardless of anything
So, in order to achieve this goal, good cooperation is needed between government institutions and of course citizens or society.
It cannot be denied that the main goal of public administration is to achieve state goals in accordance with the wishes of the public. Some of the public desires are as follows: security, prosperity, justice.
To be able to achieve these public administration goals, several things are needed, such as the following:
1. Social participation
Social participation is the participation of the community in the implementation of public administration so that it is carried out well
2. Social responsibility
Social responsibility is the responsibility carried out by public administration implementers to the community or citizens.
3. Social support
This social support is support provided by the public for the implementation of public administration
4. Social control
This social control is control or supervision carried out by the public on public administration activities carried out by the government.
From here we understand that public administration can participate in determining what development goals are and determine how to achieve these goals. Moreover, those related to public or public services for all Indonesian citizens.
Public administration can develop according to the needs of a country and its conditions. As problems become more complex in a country, new ways will emerge as solutions to these problems as well. That is why the science of public administration develops dynamically in accordance with the development of the times, people and a country.
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What are the theories of public administration?
Public Administration Theory is a combination of history, organizational theory, social theory, political theory, and related studies with a focus on the meaning, structure and function of public services in all its forms.
Public administration theory often explains the major historical foundations for the study of bureaucracy and epistemological issues closely related to public service as a profession and as an academic field at the same time. There are several groups of theories regarding public administration, including:
1. Explanatory descriptive theory
Descriptive theory is a theory that has the nature of providing an abstract explanation of the reality of state administration. An example is a theory that explains administrative incompetence.
2. Normative Theory
Normative theory is a theory that aims to explain a situation with a future, ideally from a condition. An example is the theory of ideal leadership regarding the future.
3. Assumptive Theory
Assumptive theory is a theory that emphasizes preconditions, assumptions about the existence of a social reality behind a theory or proposition. An example is McGregor’s X and Y theory which states that humans have good (Y) and poor (X) abilities.
4. Instrumental Theory
Instrumental theories are theories that focus on “how and when”, more on the implementation or application of the theory. For example, theories about policy, how policies are implemented and when they are implemented.