Introduction

Public administration is the art and science of management as applied to the affairs of State. The
development of public administration as a means of implementing political values, goals and
objectives has it origin as old as the organised human society. But as a field of study, it started in
the mid-19th century when people and scholars began to be aware of the inadequacy and
dysfunctions of the machineries and agencies of government.

The emergence of public administration as a field of study has been categorise into two phases
which are the era of 1800s to late 1930s which was concern with policy execution, politics and
administration dichotomy, political neutrality and policy advising while the other phase is the era
of 1940s to date.

The major contributors to public administration as a field of study include scholars like
Woodrow Wilson,Luther gulick, Lyndall Urwick, Frintz Monstein, John Piffner, Frank
Goodner, Dimock etc. however this work is more concern with how Woodrow Wilson and
Luther Gulick contributed to public administration as a field of study.

Woodrow Wilson contribution to academic field of Public Administration

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (Dec. 28th, 1856- Feb. 3rd1924) was the 28th president of the United
State, a political scientist, historian and public administrator who lectured the course at Cornell
University U.S.A. As a public administrator by career and profession, he made breakthroughs in
the study of public administration which earned the title: “father of Public Administration”.

Woodrow Wilson a notable exponent of the political and dichotomy thesis in an article “The
Study of Administration”1887 argued that “The policy of government will have no taint of
officialdom in it. It will not be the creation of permanent officials but of statesmen whose
responsibility to public opinion will be direct and inevitable”.

He therefore emphasised the need to study governmental institutions that were responsible in the
discharge of governmental functions with the view of understanding their deficiency.

His major contribution to pubic administration is that, public administration is government in

action; it is the executive, the operative, the most visible side of government and of course as old

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as government itself. He believes that by studying public administration, governmental
efficiency will increase.

Wilson was concern with the implementation of government policies. He disagreed with political
leaders who focused on philosophical issues, the nature of government and dismissed the critical
issues of public administration as mere “practical detail”.

He posited that it is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one. That
implementation of policies is more important and critical than formulating and interpreting it.

He further added the need to strengthen the part of government, to make it business less and
businesslike and to strengthen and purify the government and make it dutiful towards service
delivery.

In addition, he added that administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics and those
general laws which direct these things to be done are obviously outside of and above
administration. He likens administration to a machine that functions independent to the changing
mood of it leaders.

Lastly, he pointed out that, items under the discretion of administration must be limited in scope,
as to not block, nullify, obfuscate or modify the implementation of governmental decree made by
executive branch.

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Luther Halsey Gulick contribution to academic field of Public Administration

Luther Halsey Gulick was perhaps too modern for 30's and 50's. He agreed to Woodrow Wilson's
statement that organizational structure should be established in a way useful to both government
and private administrations, yet was critical of large government and officials who thought of
themselves as experts and often showed lack of interest in hearing the public.

Throughout the years, he changed his views on the size of the government. But by personality,
he was not a flip flopper. He emphasized adjustments and this is what brought changes to what
he preached. In short, he was interested in bringing change according to the demands of the
situations. We can imagine him as someone who to some extent irritated the elite
conventionalists, for his theories were connected to democratic values. Gulick was a public
administrator and professor. In 1937, he was chosen by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to serve
in Brownlow Committee made to revamp the executive branch of federal government. Gulick's
contributions to public administration studies earned him the title of Dean of Public
Administration.

The Cooperative Enterprise

According to Gulick, pluralistic society and democratic government go hand in hand. Together,
they are able to extract a vast number of variables which then bring in a wide variety of ideas for
positive changes. Government equals to security for both rich and poor. It reduces crimes and
clashes. This is what Gulick points out in his writing. According to him, arrogant people can
coexist together only because the government is their mediator. Businesses sometimes take the
wrong path, making the market system fail. The mess can only be cleaned by the government.
After all, every crisis needs intervention. But this does not mean that the power of the
government should remain centralized. Instead, effort should be made in inviting the private
businesses to work with those from public administrations for causes that help all in the country.
He calls it cooperative enterprise.

Planning must be central to it, but government should not do it in centralized manner. Instead
effort must be made in hearing groups interested in this plan. In other words, planning should be

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done with the help of these private businesses, experts of the field, interest groups and of course,
the public. Working towards something new is challenging especially when it is beyond the
scope of expert's knowledge. That is why, Gulick suggests implementation of adjustment.

Ideal Government

Just like most intellectuals, Gulick had his own definition for ideal government. According to
him, it must have unified management for efficiency and democratic values. This is how he
described it:

Chief executive and his officials design the policy. They create the proposal to be sent to
legislatures.

The legislatures review it for either approval or rejection

If the policy is approved, the executive embarks on making it effective

The citizens are involved in influencing how the policy is designed and approved through
interest groups and political parties.

Role of Administration

Administration can never be separate from government. That is what Gulick preached. In his
words, the idea is impractical and impossible. This is because the administration implements
policies, builds programs, allocates finance, coordinates and even is involved in governmental
auditing process. In every way, all of them prove that administration is fully attached to
government. Do you see the reality now? People during his time were stubbornly preaching that
administration was to be strictly separate from the government. By listing the roles of
administrators, Gulick proved that they were not being practical in their statement.

Yet according to him, politicians are somewhat different from such officials in the sense that
they have the right to take the ultimate decisions about the policies. So it is more like politicians
do the thinking and administrators act on it. For the system to have a flow, there must be a good
understanding of how things work. That is why, he adds that administrators must learn the

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strategies of the political side of the government system. He probably was the first person to
recommend a change in the definition of public administrator.

Roles of Government Officials

Gulick also called for a change in the description of major government officials. How they must
be?
Politician: They maintain the balance in the system by influencing the office holders, knowledge
workers and interest groups to compromise with one another.
Political appointee: This person is creates link between the government knowledge worker and
public.
Administrator: He studies the policy and then interprets, and implements it. Despite the fact that
he takes the action, if the policy fails he is not responsible.
Technician: He deals only with technical concepts.

Principles of Administrative Reform

During Gulick's time, federal problems were solved through electoral process and yes, this
happened frequently. On the other hand, agencies and committees had more than one leader. To
make things worse, people did not think they required a true expert. They believed anyone could
lead. Gulick called this formula flawed because it failed to produce the government people were
hoping for and agencies never got out of the tent of energy deficiency. Simply put, it was a true
situation of too many cooks spoiling the broth. To make things worse, the cooks were
inexperienced. That is the reason why Gulick called for a reform through the 11 principles given
below:
1) All projects that match should have only one unit; 2) Agencies must be combined into a small
number departments; 3) Each unit must have its own skilled, experienced and responsible
leader; 4) The leader's responsibility should match his power; 5) The top portion of every major
department must employ officials to evaluate performance; 6) The functions must be approved
by a special official; 7) Minimize the number of elected officials; 9) Administrative tasks should
not be given to those in the boards and commissions. They are to be connected to only quasi
legislative and judicial projects; 10) An elected chief executive must be the main leader of all

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the administrative tasks. He is responsible to voters or representatives; Administrative
department leaders must be selected or rejected by only chief executive; and 11) The chief
executive must employ a group of officials to research on the departments and look for ways to
bring improvement in operations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the work of Woodrow Wilson stands out as the bases for the demarcation between
public administration and political science as separate fields of study. However political science
is wider in scope than public administration in addition to their areas of convergence.

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REFERENCES

Gulick, Luther and L. Urwick. Papers on the Science of Administration. New York, NY:
Augustus M. Kelley Publishers.*

Hood, Christopher. 1998. The Art of the State: Culture Rhetoric and Public Management.
Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public

Services. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.*

T. John et’ al, “Modern Concept and Theories of Administration”. Sa’ Adeen Press LTD Zaria
2009.

W. Wilson, “The Study of Administration” quoted in L. Adamolekun. “Politics and

Administration in Nigeria”. Ibadan Spectrum Books, 1985:13