Comparative Public Administration
February 12, 2025
In the current hypercompetitive and fast-paced times, many innovations become obsolete before they could leave R&D labs and see the sun. Therefore organizations are vying for faster turnaround time to widen their markets and customer base. This calls for constant improvements in their working methodologies. With the growing sophistication in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), […]
The modern approaches to risk management are data-driven. There are four basic steps to this approach which we will study later in this module. The first step contains information about how data related to internal losses suffered by an organization needs to be collected and studied in order to better mitigate risks in the future. […]
Most reinsurance treaties are structured in an excess of loss format. This means that the reinsurer is liable to pay the ceding insurer only when losses exceed a certain amount. For example, the reinsurer is liable to pay the ceding insurer all losses which are above $1 million. If the losses are below $1 million, […]
It is often the case that when change programs are initiated in firms, there is a level of resistance from senior managers due to a number of reasons. These range from protecting their turfs to uncertainties regarding their position after the change is implemented and to ego clashes as well as power politics. The ways […]
The Business Case for Diversity The articles in this module so far have focused on how organizational diversity makes eminent sense from legal compliance and value based perspectives. The discussion so far was about how organizations must embrace diversity as a value based imperative and for furthering corporate social responsibility. This article examines the business […]
The role and functions of the Government and the bureaucracy is that which keeps constantly evolving in the wake of developments and changes in and around the world. During our discourse we have seen how the academic discipline of public administration has evolved. It has undergone reforms and has been influenced by developments in other sciences like social and behavioral.
Democracy is a representative form of Government chosen by the people. The entire idea of public administration in a democracy is contradictory. Public administration as described by Frederick Camp Mosher is three steps removed from the people. According to Berkeley and Rouse public service and democracy are both opposing in nature yet complement each other.
In a democratic state, the spirit of democracy needs to be maintained in the manner in which the public services are administered. The public administration of a democratic state needs to be transparent, efficient and most importantly should be open for public scrutiny and criticism. It should ensure scope for incorporation of public opinions and ideas for improvement and delivering better services. It needs to be representing the general interest of a large section of people rather than personal interests of specific few.
In a diverse country like India where the social denominators like caste, religion, language etc pose barriers at so many levels, the public administration should be such that it rises above and transverses all differences.
According to Richard C Box in his book Democracy and Public Administration, there are several important roles that public administration plays in a Democracy, like:
We have read Karl Marx slamming bureaucracy as a government tool created and controlled by the dominant class to cater to their interests. Antonio Gramsci Italian socialist theorists states that bureaucracy is a narrow minded and conservative force and it becomes dangerous when it detaches itself from the mass of members that constitute it and starts functioning as an independent entity.
So if the resources and the power of their distribution lie with the state, the role that bureaucracy has to play can be:
A reader may find these goals to be quite similar to that of a democratic set up and indeed it is. The only difference in a socialist set up is that the government tends to have more and centralized power. Critics have argues that democracy involves planning which means that the freedom and liberties of some will have to be given up for the greater good. However, in the long run, even to achieve socialism, certain level of democracy becomes essential.
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