Public Administration: Government and Governance

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Background
Problems of Government Action
Program Analysis
Conclusion
Bibliography
Footnotes

Introduction

For every sovereign state, there is a functioning government, which is responsible for the administration of the state’s affairs. The government comprises of the legislative, executive, and the judicial. The three arms of the government have the responsibility of managing the affairs of the country. However, each arm of the government has separate and indispensable role in the purpose of the government.

The executive government usually comprises of the president and cabinet ministers while the legislative branch comprises of the senate and House of Representatives. The judicial branch members include the Supreme Court and other subordinate federal courts. The main aim of the three arms of the government is to offer checks and balances to avoid cases of monopoly in the administration affairs.

For instance, the legislation has the crucial role of creation and passing of laws that will be applicable to the state. On the other hand, the judicial branch has the primary function of hearing cases that challenge legislation or requiring interpretation of the law made by the legislation. In this sense, there are minimal chances of public administration monopoly. This study paper seeks to explore the issue of governance in governments¹.

The introduction of the paper will explore whether the governments know what they are doing and more so, whether the citizens should trust their actions. For the past years, the demand for skilled governance has been on the rise with various states engaging in debates and even war.

The increased quest for authentic governance is evident in the uprisings, in different countries and oppositions that come up after a certain government has been in power for some time. This study paper will have an in-depth look at the need for governance and not governments.

In understanding governance, one has to realize that this does comprise what the government does. Governance of a state is a wide subject, which covers various aspect of the government’s public administration. Apart from what the government does, governance also comprises of the decision making process. Every decision made by the government undergoes a given procedure that must engage the citizens of the state.

When the government exercises its power as stipulated under the constitution of a state, acts, rules, and created procedures we can term the process as governance². In this case, governance cannot exist without governments or governments cannot function without governance. Governance is the process through which the government functions.

Governments have the role of managing the resources of the state by ensuring that their equitable sharing of the resources in the society. Under public administration, governance will also include the decision making process in terms of exercising power and taking other organizational actions. Most people relate governments with governance and democracy.

This is significant because democracy involves valuing individual citizens regardless of his or her economic and social status. People consider governments democratic because they have the role of providing citizens with the best care in terms of their needs, well-being, and aspirations.

Just as any other form of management, governments face various challenges in their administration process. This makes people have little trust in their actions and decisions. However, there is a need for citizens to have trust in the government because the citizens have the responsibility electing the political leaders to office.

The rife of dissatisfaction and disillusionment comes in when we elect leaders basing on the wrong and improper grounds. Electing political leaders call for choosing the best people who can be efficient in the management and administration of the state affairs. More so, the main objective of elections is so that citizens can decide on individuals who will have their needs at heart and ensure their well-being is at par.

For this reason, there is no reason for having governments without governance and there will be no point in having governance alone. Issues linked to altruistic governance vary in scope and from nation to nation.

The term expedient governance is broadly employed to show the practices and processes that endorse enhanced functioning of the governance mechanism. There are outstanding characteristics, which describe the procedures by which various activities connected to governance are carried out.

The following eight characteristics are the leading indicators of sound governance in any state administration. Equity and inclusiveness, accountability, participation, and consensus orientation form the qualities of exemplary governance. In addition, we have effectiveness and efficiency, rule of law, responsiveness, and transparency

. In the event, the above qualities lack in a given government, then there is no appreciable governance and the state’s citizens will rebel their administration. It is necessary for citizens to ensure that their government possesses the above qualities in order for their needs and well-being to be catered for fully.

Background

The concern of development administration is how thoughts and mechanisms of general administration can be used as elements of social and financial advancement. Public, administrative way of life is transforming to be more flexible, problem solving, innovative, and enterprising. The change in public administration occurs mainly in the ideas and mechanisms that are responsible for the various activities.

In the modern public administration, the focus is on the processes of the different implementations and more so, how the concerned parties will receive and feel about the information. The new ideas and mechanisms look at the processes of actions and these will have a great impact on the financial and social development of the relevant organization.

Social and economic developments are the paramount concerns of individuals and public administration should always strive to achieve these expectations. Social development is equally a broad subject that comprises of multifarious and multifaceted phenomenon. In this aspect, there are both internal and external factors affecting the development of social change.

The public administration ideas and mechanism will have an impact on the environmental, biotic, cultural, demographic, ideological, and technological factors. Proper public administration ideas and mechanisms will have a positive impact on the above aspects of life hence the society’s contentment³.

In the past years, the traditional phenomena of public administration were efficiency, budgeting, effectiveness, and administrative techniques. The development administration is similar to the traditional public administration. However, its concerns are how the government implements its rules, norms, and policies. The two types of administration vary in their objectives, complexity, and scope.

Traditional public administration lacked consistency the implementation of actions and processes. The major features of traditional public administration include monopoly of service provision by a government system of administration. This monopoly had a negative impact on the implementation of the governments’ norms, rules, and policies.

Moreover, the traditional public administration led to bureaucratic administrations with a strong bent on control by rules and guidelines. The similarity in the new public administration comes at the appointment and promotion on professional merits basis. The current society is keen on the performance of its political leaders and in order for this to be possible, the elected leaders have to be professional.

A growing culture of appointing and electing professional leaders is symbolic of people’s need for proper governance. Both traditional and new administrations have clear delineation of authority and jurisdictions that is an indispensable element in governance.

The development administration is the term that usually describes the way a country’s government acts to be able to progress in the development by achieving certain goals. According to its definition, development administration is action oriented goal oriented, and change oriented. The implementers of development administration suggest that the process focuses on plans, policies, programs, and projects.

This focus becomes influential on state building and socio-economic improvement. In addition, application of development administration aims at attaining socio-economic objectives through the talent and proficiency of civil servants. In the past years, traditionalist approach to public administration created delay, rigidness, and procrastination amongst law implementations and creators.

Development approach to state affairs ensures that the change focus is towards a defined direction. There are various reasons, which make development administration more positive than the traditionalist approach to administration. Notable is that every development operations have an objective to attain in a defined period and with allocated resources.

The achievement of these objectives should equally be followed by appropriate management and sharing of available resources in the state. Public administration ensures that every citizen has access to a better life that encompasses all the basis needs like education, shelter, and food.

Analysis in to the administration revealed that this approach linked the means to the ends. This means that for the public administration to be a success, the relevant authorities have to plan and chronological dimension that makes the most prominent feature of the approach⁴.

Planning is helpful in choosing the resources needed for the objective together with determining the period for the goal. Just as, the definition of public administration implies, the approach has innovative aspect meaning it is flexible. Public administration allows for the creation of new procedures, policies, and methods that would save time; add to usefulness and eminence of the outcomes.

There is the popularity of public administration in governance of varied nations because of its positive approach. Managers in this context ought to have devotion to the set policies and programs.

This should not, however, be confused with the leaders dedication to their political parties who have the obligation of enacting policies. The managers under public administration are majorly led by values that should uphold the individual’s profession and qualification. Without forgetting, public administration has an emphasis on the state’s citizens making it client oriented.

Focus on people comes in when the state ensures engagement of people in the administration of the state affairs. This is the only possible way to ensure the administration approach remains client focused.

In the modern society, which comprises of an ever increasing need for proper governance, the best administration approach is one which is people centered. The traditionalist approach had an emphasis on the production and outcome of the administration that led to its failure.

Problems of Government Action

In administration, there are various aspects of government actions, which make satisfactory or inappropriate governance. In this section, we focus on the problems of government actions, which form the basis of people’s judgment. Every government requires guidance in relation to development objectives.

Development objectives require a procedure starting with the creation of the objectives to the implementation and enforcement of the objectives. The reason behind purposeful guidance to government action toward development objectives is so that the state can remain in line to the set actions. Any objectives without purpose have a way of failing to meet the needs of the society.

Guidance in the setting of the objectives will help the government remained focused on its course. This will also help equitable sharing of the resources amongst the people. Countries have wide needs and setting the objectives in administration without planning and guidance may lead to unfair sharing of resources.

For instance, guiding the government’s actions will be helpful in identifying the needs of people in different parts of the country. In so doing, the government will also identify the resources to help meet the identified needs of the society. This guidance comes from various sections of the society.

Non-governmental organizations, groups, associations, international organizations, and even individuals can be instrumental in checking the government’s actions in terms of public administration. The arms of the government can also play as checkers of each other in terms of their administration. In this case, the judicial branch of the government has the mandate to advise and correct the executive in the event of any wrongdoing.

The government actions face the challenges of taking in to account the many and complex interdependencies of societal change. As discussed earlier, societal change is a complex and multifaceted process that may be difficult even for the government. Societal changes come with varied reliance on the government.

These reliance’s on the government maybe through requiring financial support and even material resources to facilitate the societal and economic change. The factors influencing societal change maybe internal or external all these will look up to the government for support. In this case, various areas and regions of the country will call for these supports.

The major issue in this occurrence is the decision process the government will have to make as it decides which regions to support and which ones not to. Complexities in resource allocation make the government have challenges in terms of developmental change. Taking in to account the factors influencing societal change will call for several intelligences of professionals in the administration.

Societal change can come with the other side effects such as war, ethnic tension, trade unionism, competition for resources, and human rights movement.

These negative side effects will mean that the government increases its input in the public administration in order to curb the occurrence of these influences. Public administration will have to increase its labor and resources, but this will also be a challenge for the government to provide⁵.

Finally, another problem of government actions is to insure that governmental administration is dynamic and innovative. Governmental administration needs to be self-motivated and groundbreaking in order to meet the society’s needs. For the process, of public administration to be effective and successful the relevant authorities will have to involve the citizens in its laws and regulations.

This involvement ensures that people understand the purpose and usefulness of the governmental administration. Dynamism of the governmental administration ensures that developmental changes can occur without the full involvement of the government. People will be responsible in innovation and creation of new developmental changes and reduce the reliance on the government.

In this case, the burden of implementation and enforcement of developmental change will reduce making people be responsible for their own needs. Giving people the power to enforce and implement their own developmental changes poses several challenges to the government.

The government has to put in place proper mechanisms to select the proper individual who can assist in the dynamism of governmental administration. This will, however, call for more resources such as financial and material resources to maintain the employed people.

Program Analysis

There are various functions of the development administration, and in this section, we explore at the functions. Development administration is instrumental in identification of skilled labor. In an effort to ensure dynamism and innovation in development administration, the government has to identify and make use of skilled labor.

In every country, there is the resource of skilled labor, which the administration should employ in the development of its administration. This can available in different aspects of administration, and it is necessary for the government to further train labor that is more skilled. The presence of skilled workers in a country assures the government of implementation and enforcement of developmental administration.

For the process of development administration to be a success, there must be sufficient financial resources. Finances are necessary to facilitate the development of different administration objectives. For instance, the skilled manpower will require remuneration and this will come in monetary terms. Therefore, the government has to equip itself with sufficient finances to oversee the operation of development administration.

On the other hand, finances will enable the acquisition of other relevant resources to facilitate development administration. In addition, the government has to explore logistics of the development administration.

This is an equally necessary element as it ensures the smooth flow of ideas and mechanisms in development administration. Logistics can be from the skilled labor that are in the field and can give clear guidance on the progress of development administration.

The aspect of communication is also necessary in the development administration. For this process to be effective and useful to the users and administrators there, has to be free of flow information. Information department facilitates the physical transmission of data from one region to another. A state is made up of various regions and administration development will have to occur in all these parts.

For this to occur, then there has to be communication between the said parties and regions. Just as, established earlier in the discussion, participation of individuals and groups in the development administration ensures familiarity of the process to every individual. Allowing every citizen to take part in the process will create considerable awareness and hence appropriate help and activation in the process.

Lastly, the government should hand over legitimate power to the relevant parties in the development administration. Delegation of power to different people in the process helps in the enforcement of developmental administration.

Conclusion

It is clear that governments and governance go hand and in hand when it comes to public administration. The transformation of public administration from the traditionalist aspect to the current public administration has been instrumental in improving the governance of various governments.

For this reason, there has been increased demand for skilled governance from citizens, as they understand the relevance of this governance. Good governance is mainly one that allows the participation of people in the state affairs. Public administration allows for the citizen participation that improves the trust people have in their governments and their governance.

Bibliography

Brewer, Lucy. Public works administration: current public policy perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997.

Otenyo, Eric Edwin, and Nancy S. Lind. Comparative public administration: the essential readings. Amsterdam: Elsevier JAI, 2006.

Petroni, Giorgio. New technologies in public administration. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005.

Rathod, Rahul Development administration. New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 2006.

Ripley, Randall B. Public policies and their politics; an introduction to the techniques of Government control. New York: W.W. Norton, 1966.

Footnotes

¹ Rathod, P. B. Development administration. New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers, 2006.

² Ripley, Randall B. Public policies and their politics; an introduction to the techniques of Government control. New York: W.W. Norton, 1966.

³ Brewer, Lucy. Public works administration: current public policy perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997.

⁴ Petroni, Giorgio. New technologies in public administration. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005.

⁵ Otenyo, Eric Edwin, and Nancy S. Lind. Comparative public administration: the essential readings. Amsterdam: Elsevier JAI, 2006.

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