Introduction
Admittedly, it is important to have an effective government for the growth and development of a nation. Equally, it is important to maintain a democratic government. While there are different ways of understanding what constitutes a democratic government, in public administration, democratic government can be viewed as a government that is responsive to the perspectives of its citizens and exhibit responsibility to the citizens. This can be promoted by the public institutions and public administrators (King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). They can use various processes to ensure a democratic government including collaborative governance, decision making, citizen participation, administrative reforms, and budgeting. This paper seeks to discuss and analyze the efforts that the public organizations and the public administrators can make with regards to collaborative governance, citizen participation, and decision making to maintain a democratic government.
Collaborative governance
Public organizations and the public administrators have an important duty of promoting and maintaining democratic government especially by ensuring good governance. Social and economic development can be achieved through good governance. Collaborative governance is a primary component of good governance (Ansell & Gash, 2008). Admittedly, public management reforms are fundamental to improving the abilities of various nations to address issues that touch on democratic government. Some of the
After reading this article, the author gave readers a bunch of ideas about the public policy field. The author illustrated the definition of public policy clearly, explained specifically the broad field of public policy, and absolutely brought out reliable theories. It is a very useful chapter for the novice of public policy or public administration. By all means, this article provides multidimensional fashions to analyze or determine the
The management of an organization plays an integral part in determining the direction and performance of the organization. The manner in which the management of an organization is handled has a profound effect on the organization. The success of an organization is dependent upon a flexible and skilled management and workforce. The management of an organization is responsible for shaping up the organizational behavior and ultimately the culture within the organization. Public management faces a multiple of challenges and opportunities, how the management deals with these issues translates to efficiency in management. The personal judgments and skills of public managers can make a significant impact in public management. If
In Woodrow Wilson’s article “The Study of Administration”, Wilson arguments for a strong and effective public administration were based around two points. First, the fact that the governmental system had expanded greatly from when it first started and as a result had become more complex and had many more parts to it. Second, to split government between politics and administration, as there should not be politics in administration, instead let those who wish to be involved in politics concentrate on politics and those with expertise in the field administer the policies. The case study “The Blast in Centralia No.5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped”, showed that a bureaucracy that is weak has the same affect on its constituents as no bureaucracy at all. As a result, after reading those two articles, I feel that there is a need for a strong and effective public administration system.
In this article, Jennifer Mosley and Colleen Grogan, professors at The University of Chicago, concludes that the more public participation in administrative decision making in different urban areas is an important target in majority of public organizations. The author states that many public agencies develop different strategies on who should be able to participate in open decision making. The strategies determined how they will prevent different type of biases. Often leaders of the nonprofit organizations are asked to serve as representatives of the community in a variety of participatory processes. They came up with something called mixed-methods. Mixed-methods are used in order to address whether residents believe nonprofit
The society is moving towards a large-scale economy and there is an exceptional increase of free trade and exchange all around the world. This fact has brought vast opportunities to build up newer policies, wide-range political programs and methodologies in the field of public administration. I would like to contribute to this challenging environment after completing the necessary education. My intention is to supply well-rounded ideas which would possibly contribute to public administration in my home country. I am determined to provide meaningful and finest solutions to diverse problems of public administration. Consequently, my goal is to successfully complete master of public administration and serve society as a high quality public official.
One way to see public administration in action is by attending a city council meeting, whether it be in an urban or rural area, public administration still has a part in each event. As Kettl (2018; p. 244) referenced in his book, there is not a civil system that would be sustainable without strong leadership. This paper will discuss the author’s description, observation, and reflection during a city council meeting.
Collaborative governance will redesign the policies which will aim to empower, enlighten, and engage the citizens in the process of self-government. Sirianni has done some case studies and empirical analyses of civic engagement and collaborative governance. From the case studies he has extracted eight core principles of collaborative governance. These eight core principles of collaborative governance and policy design are as pointed below:
I'm not too familiar with this field of public administration. However, I'm curious to read any research that you might currently have and perhaps even your class project if it relates to this subject.
On a macro level, public administration and business management are similar in their overall functions. “At the broadest level, some organizational theorists contend that administration is administration whatever its setting, and that the problems of organizing people, leading them and supplying them with resources to do their jobs are always the same (Kettl, 2012, p. 38).” In his paper, “Public and Private Management: Are They Fundamentally Alike in All Unimportant Respects?,” Graham T. Allison explains that in comparing public and administration and business management, “it is possible to identify a set of general management functions (Allison, 2012, p. 4).” Regardless of their end goal, each administration must form strategies by setting goals, priorities and creating procedures. Public and private organizations must manage internal components by organizing staff, defining job responsibilities, hiring and managing personnel and creating budgets. Furthermore, they must manage external constituencies such as other agencies, the press and public (Allison, 2012, p. 5). His observations stem from Wallace Sayre’s famous words, “public and private management are fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects (DiIlulio, 1993).”
In order to ensure fair representation of women and minorities, I would devise the policies where political institutions are required to set specific quotas for women and minorities. These quota seats will ensure minimal representation improving the situation in quickest way possible.
Governmental policies and politics play a critical role in the realization of change in a public agency since the policies are developed and implemented at various levels (Dukeshire & Thurlow, 2002). Since these policies may range from formal regulations and legislation to informal guidelines in an agency, understanding them is important in the achievement of change in a public agency. A Public agency basically functions based on the established policies and politics in the government. Therefore, the accomplishment of the change in a public agency requires an increased understanding of the politics and policies of government.
In the following paragraphs, I will explain the dominant theory in public administration practice and elaborate on the major theoretical assumptions of the Old Public Administration. As stated in the question, the world has transformed through globalization, information technology, and devolution of authority since the latter part of the last century. The dominant theory in public administration has been replaced from the traditional rule-based, authority-driven processes of the Old Public Administration with market-based, competition-driven tactics in the New Public Management, beginning in the 1980s (Kettl, 2000, p. 3). This was an effort to privatize government and streamline public administration to maximize efficiency and productivity. Heavily relying on market mechanisms to guide public programs, public administrators in the New Public Management are encouraged to “steer, not row,” meaning they should not bear the burden of delivering services, but instead define programs that others will carry out, through contracting or other means (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011, p. 13). Core values of the New Public Management include using private sector and business approaches to the public sector, squeezing as many services as possible from smaller revenues, market style incentives, providing customers more choices, and focusing on outputs and outcomes instead of mainly processes.
These 8 propositions provide a basis from, which to explore the ramification of public participation, both as a concept and as a decision-making technique. The need of public participation in planning is more clearly expressed by Bolan (1967), “No matter how we improve our substantive knowledge of how cities function, and no matter how we improve our capabilities in information handling, operations research, and prediction, if there is not a corollary development of community’s capacity for improved decision-making within the framework of democratic process, there is the real possibility that heavy investment in the current forms of city planning techniques will have been in vain.”
Decision making is most important in matters of administration because leaders have to consult widely among experts before coming up with a decision that will enable the best possible conclusion to be made. In administrative circumstances, in such countries as South Africa, it has been found that it is necessary for the public manager to identify and make a definition of the problem so that he knows who and what his decision is going to affect. Moreover, the answers to the problem identified should be well structured so that they can adequately cover the circumstances surrounding the problem hence an accurate decision been made to solve it.