Assist. Prof. Dr.

Ozer KOSEOGLU
ELEMENTS OF PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
1. People
2. Organization
3. Public policy
4. Laws and regulations
5. Public finance
6. Public servants
TRADITIONAL MODEL OF
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
 Public administration as both theory and practice began in the late
nineteenth century and lasted in most Western countries largely
unchanged until the last quarter of the twentieth century.
 The beginning of the traditional model is best seen in mid-
nineteenth century Britain.
 In 1854, the Northcote–Trevelyan Report recommended the
abolition of patronage and the substitution of recruitment by open
competitive examinations under the supervision of a central
examining board.
 In 1883, the Civil Service Act (the Pendleton Act) was passed
which established a bipartisan Civil Service Commission the
holding of competitive examinations for all applicants to the
classified service
CHARACTERISTICS OF TRADITIONAL
MODEL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
An administration under the formal control of the political
leadership,
Based on a strictly hierarchical model of bureaucracy,
Staffed by permanent, neutral and anonymous officials,
Motivated only by the public interest, serving any governing
party equally, and not contributing to policy but merely
administering those policies decided by the politicians.
Its theoretical foundations mainly derive from Woodrow
Wilson and Frederick Taylor in the United States, Max Weber
in Germany and Henri Fayol in France.
WOODROW WILSON –
POLITICS/ADMINISTRATION DICHOTOMY
There should be a strict separation of
politics from the administration; of
policy from the strictly administrative task
of carrying it out.
Administration lies outside the proper
sphere of politics. Administrative
questions are not political questions.
Politics/administration dichotomy allowed
public administration to emerge as a
28th President of the selfconscious field of study, intellectually
United States and institutionally differentiated from
1913  – 1921 politics.
MAX WEBER: THEORY OF BUREAUCRACY
Charismatic Authority – the appeal of
an extraordinary leader
Traditional Authority – such as the
authority of a tribal chief; and
rational/legal authority
Rational and Legal Authority – ideal
type of bureaucracy
1864 – 1920
PRINCIPLES OF MODERN BUREAUCRACY
1. The principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are
generally ordered by rules (by laws or administrative regulations).
2. The principles of office hierarchy, that is supervision of the lower
offices by the higher ones.
3. The management of the modern office is based upon written
documents (the files) which are preserved.
4. Official activity is concieved something distinct from the sphere of
private life. Public monies and equipment are divorced from the
private property of the official.
5. Office management
6. When the office is fully developed, official activity demands the
full working capacity of the official. (Full time occupation)
7. The management of the office follows general rules.
FREDERICK TAYLOR – SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT
 He advocated a change from the old system of
personal management to a new system of scientific
management.
 standardizing work, which meant finding the one
best way of working and controlling so intensively
as to provide for the maintenance of all these
standards.
 time-and-motion studies to decide a standard for
working,
 a wage-incentive system that was a modification
of the piecework method already in existence.
Frederick Taylor  The idea that management could be systematic
1856 – 1915 remained important in the public sector and clearly
fitted very well with the theory of bureaucracy.
HENRI FAYOL – FUNCTIONS OF
MANAGEMENT
Functions of management
 Forecasting
 Planning
 Organizing
 Commanding
 Coordinating
 Controlling

Fayol was born in 1841

in a suburb of İstanbul,
Turkey.
GULICK AND URWICK-POSDCORB
Planning: goal setting
Organizing: arranging the organizational structure and
processes to achieve the goals
Staffing: recruiting and hiring personnel
Directing: supervising the actual processes of doing the
assignments
Coordinating: ensuring to operate in cooperation with other
units and people in government
Reporting: tracking and communicating within the
organization
Budgeting: fiscal and financial activities necessary to produce
and provide the programmes, services, or activities.
SUMMERY OF THE CHARACTERISTICS
 Depends on bureaucracy, that governments should organize
themselves according to the hierarchical, bureaucratic principles most
clearly enunciated in the classic analysis of bureaucracy by Max Weber.
 there was one-best-way of working and procedures were set out in
comprehensive manuals for administrators to follow. (Frederick Taylor)
 Bureaucratic delivery; once government involved itself in a policy
area, it also became the direct provider of goods and services through
the bureaucracy.
 There was general belief among administrators in the
politics/administration dichotomy, that is, where political and
administrative matters could be separated.
 Public administration is quite different comparing with business
administration.
EMERGENCE OF NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
 Political change
 Rising of the conservative governments
 Economic change
 Decline of Keynesian economic thought
 Rapid change in the private sector
 The moves towards privatization in its various forms – contracting-out,
reducing government spending
 Administrative change
 In the early 1980s there were wide-ranging attacks on the size and
capability of the public sector.
 The ideological fervour of attacks on the role of government, and efforts
to reduce its size, faded somewhat in the late 1990s.
 Social change
 Trust problem
 Changing demands and expectations of the people
WHAT IS NPM?
A management philosophy used by governments since
the 1980s to modernize the public sector.
NPM is generally used to describe a management
culture that emphasizes the centrality of the citizen
or customer, as well as accountability for results. 
One area of reform that illustrates many of the NPM
principles is the creation of semi-autonomous
agencies for service delivery
The main hypothesis in the NPM-reform wave is that
more market orientation in the public sector will
lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments.
CHARACTERISTICS OF NPM
Hood (1991) attributes seven features to the NPM:
Allowing managers to manage (=Let the mangers
manage)
Establishing specific standards and performance
measures,
Emphasising output controls,
Disaggregating units in the public sector,
Increasing public sector competition,
Increasing use of private sector management
approaches in the public sector,
Increasing discipline in resource utilisation.
ONGOING ARGUMENTS
Privatisation of government seems prominent still
however in Australia, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe,
and various Asian and Middle Eastern countries.
Also public organizations still want to employ new
management techniques such as total quality
management, performance management and strategic
planning.
 Governments have a variety of roles, the public sector affects the
entire economy and society.
 Regulations, taxes, permits, infrastructure, standards, conditions of
employment all affect decisions made in private markets.
 The public sector is a large purchaser of goods and services from the
private sector.
 Government redistributes income from better-off members of the
society to those who are not.
 The public sector has a crucial role to play in determining real living
standards which depend for most people on government services
(the quality of schools, hospitals, community care, the environment,
public transport, law and order, town planning, and welfare
services).
INSTRUMENTS OF GOVERNMENT
1. PROVISION
 government provides goods or services through the government
budget
2. SUBSIDY
 the government assists someone in the private economy to provide
desired goods or services
3. PRODUCTION
 governments produce goods and services for sale in the market
4. REGULATION
1. using the coercive powers of the state to allow or prohibit certain
activities in the private economy.
2. Economic regulations (price regulation, quality regulation,
competition policy or antitrust legislation)
3. Social regulations (quality standards, safety levels and pollution
controls)