Public administration concerns implementation of principled direction in government action and public service, with the primary objective of developing appropriate policies and management approaches to influence positive functioning in a government. It involves administration of public programs and translation of political processes into positive welfare benefits for citizens, through studies of government decision-making, analysis of policy, and assessments of approaches that contribute towards the production of policy and its alternatives. Beginning in the 20th Century, political scholars recognized the dangers that prevailing government approaches posed for genuine long-term welfare of societies, especially based on the risks and impacts
…show more content…
An expanding bureaucracy and the efficiency problems that it created constituted the primary focus of reforms (Knott & Miller, 1987). John Stuart Mill, a 19th Century English philosopher and Political Economist, considered competence and the participation of citizens to be essential elements of good government. Requirements of competence necessitate representation of nationals in government by the wisest and most skilled and experienced group of people, often the elite, in a society, normally through elected representation. Nevertheless, this requirement implied the development of bureaucracy in government, in which power concentrated among a few. In such government environments, there was the risk of abuse of power and limitations in human creativity, which affected adversely the delivery of government services (Warner, 2001). Related to these problems were the economic crises that occurred frequently in the second half of the 20th Century, due to mismanagement and selfish application of rationality and progress …show more content…
Based on these realizations, post-modern public administration has concerned primary focus on a broad range of reforms in the administrative functioning of government. Such focus evolved from understanding that modernist approaches, which emphasized abstract representativeness, had failed to influence desirable levels of benefits for the community. This approach has focused on deposing the earlier ideals of enlightenment, which revolved around the principles of nature, progress, and reason, in public administration (Hummel, 2006). Postmodernism features the theme of intent to disintegrate traditional systems of government, characterized largely by social groupings, political parties, and countries. In the modernist era of public administration, the ideologies of sovereignty and value judgments guided government activities, in contrast with emphasis on pluralism in postmodernism (Hummel, 2006; Miller, 2008). Postmodernism is aimed at disintegrating the nation-state as a totality instrument in the modernist version of public administration, through employment of a pluralist, multi-cultural concept of
An expanding bureaucracy and the efficiency problems that it created constituted the primary focus of reforms (Knott & Miller, 1987). John Stuart Mill, a 19th Century English philosopher and Political Economist, considered competence and the participation of citizens to be essential elements of good government. Requirements of competence necessitate representation of nationals in government by the wisest and most skilled and experienced group of people, often the elite, in a society, normally through elected representation. Nevertheless, this requirement implied the development of bureaucracy in government, in which power concentrated among a few. In such government environments, there was the risk of abuse of power and limitations in human creativity, which affected adversely the delivery of government services (Warner, 2001). Related to these problems were the economic crises that occurred frequently in the second half of the 20th Century, due to mismanagement and selfish application of rationality and progress …show more content…
Based on these realizations, post-modern public administration has concerned primary focus on a broad range of reforms in the administrative functioning of government. Such focus evolved from understanding that modernist approaches, which emphasized abstract representativeness, had failed to influence desirable levels of benefits for the community. This approach has focused on deposing the earlier ideals of enlightenment, which revolved around the principles of nature, progress, and reason, in public administration (Hummel, 2006). Postmodernism features the theme of intent to disintegrate traditional systems of government, characterized largely by social groupings, political parties, and countries. In the modernist era of public administration, the ideologies of sovereignty and value judgments guided government activities, in contrast with emphasis on pluralism in postmodernism (Hummel, 2006; Miller, 2008). Postmodernism is aimed at disintegrating the nation-state as a totality instrument in the modernist version of public administration, through employment of a pluralist, multi-cultural concept of