Summary for mid-term of Introduction to Public Administration

Inhoud
Week 1: What is meant by public?.........................................................................................................2
Politics - administration......................................................................................................................2
State – government............................................................................................................................3
Public – private...................................................................................................................................5
Regimes..............................................................................................................................................7
Week 2: Organisational structures.........................................................................................................8
Government structures......................................................................................................................8
Stability of government structures.....................................................................................................9
Colonies............................................................................................................................................11
French colonies.............................................................................................................................11
English colonies............................................................................................................................11
Spanish colonies...........................................................................................................................11
Organisations....................................................................................................................................12
Management................................................................................................................................13
Organisation theories...................................................................................................................14
Public organisations......................................................................................................................15
Bureaucracy..................................................................................................................................16
The birth of bureaucracy..............................................................................................................17
Week 3: Leadership and management.................................................................................................18
Recruitment......................................................................................................................................19
Management....................................................................................................................................20
Middle management....................................................................................................................21
Top management and leadership.................................................................................................21
Motivation........................................................................................................................................22
Solutions for low morality and motivation...................................................................................24
Public v private management (Alison)..............................................................................................27




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,Week 1: What is meant by public?
Woodrow Wilson started the beginning of PA. It is an applied science since the research is used to
improve the public administration. It uses political science, economics, sociology and also the study
of law. It is to study of what the government can do properly and how to do it the most rationally. It
analyses the effectiveness of public policy, performance of public organisations and the relationships
between political-administrative relationships.

Discipline Used for
Social psychology Decision making
History Long term trends & dynamics
Economics Budgeting process and limitations
Political science Rationality and legitimacy for political conflicts

Recently it is discussed if there are more important factors than rationality? Like inclusion,
citizenship, collaboration, engagement and equity. This means that this value-government is not only
expected to create public value but to ensure normative and unifying elements in public values.

Famous PA researchers:
Ostrom: Tragedy of the commons
Simon: Bounded rationality (not all people are fully rational and use heuristics)

Politics - administration
Politics is focused on the struggle of power and political conflicts, PA is more solution focused.
Goodnow describes politics as the expression of the will of the state and the Administration as the
executer of that will (Goodnow).

Politics Administration
Elected Officials Appointed Civil Servants
Policy making Policy implementation
Ideology Expertise
Principal Agent
Values Facts
Publicity Discretion
Goals Means
Legislative branch Executive branch
Not always clear cut:

 Even small choices have political results
 Confirm distinction
o Council-manager government form (municipalities in the US)
 Disconfirms distinction
o Appointed judges can have political impacts
o Due to complexity of policy and the expertise of the administrator, it will most likely
gets it way
o 3rd world countries can be in both legislative and executive branch
o Ministers make and implement policy in the Netherlands

Politics is about the power struggle
Policy is a problem solving with societal impact: overall plan from administration


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, State – government
A state has the following four preliminaries

 Territory
 Population
 External sovereignty (recognised by UN)
 Government

Population has the

 Same language
 Common understanding
 Having a shared meaning to words
 Common culture

Sovereignty can be divided into internal and external. External sovereignty must be recognised by
other states (and the un). This also mean it has the right to self-govern and be independent. Internal
sovereignty is the authority to rule and make/enforce laws within a region. This authority can be split
into: charismatic, traditional or rational-legal authority. The latter one makes it possible that the
authority is not an individual.

Government is an element of the state and is the totality of the political and administrative
organisations/institutions. These organisations/institutions are authorised to allocate collective
binding values and services. It controls the following

 Economic incentives
o Subsidies
 Public expenditure
o How to tax
o Monopoly of taxes
 Linking government controlled benefits to behaviour
o Unemployment benefits
 Formal regulation
o Legislation to control behaviour
o Monopoly of violence
 Voluntary regulation
o Agreements with other governments
o Marrakesh pact e.g.
 Other duties (from lecture)
o Security/law and order
o Providing basic needs
o Managing external relationships with other governments




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