Scribd
Upload
175 views

Public Administration 2

Public administration has been debated as either an art or a science. While it seems like an art due to its administrative nature, many argue it is a science. The earliest proponent was Lorenz von Stein in 1855, who viewed it as an integrated science. Woodrow Wilson emphasized discovering what government can do efficiently with minimal costs. Frederick Taylor proposed finding the best way to perform operations. Over time, with more studies in social sciences, administration, and human relations, public administration has emerged as a science rather than an art based on fundamental principles and data-driven analysis. However, more work is still needed to define the role of values and understand human dynamics to make the principles more universal.

Uploaded by

bigum
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
175 views

Public Administration 2

Public administration has been debated as either an art or a science. While it seems like an art due to its administrative nature, many argue it is a science. The earliest proponent was Lorenz von Stein in 1855, who viewed it as an integrated science. Woodrow Wilson emphasized discovering what government can do efficiently with minimal costs. Frederick Taylor proposed finding the best way to perform operations. Over time, with more studies in social sciences, administration, and human relations, public administration has emerged as a science rather than an art based on fundamental principles and data-driven analysis. However, more work is still needed to define the role of values and understand human dynamics to make the principles more universal.

Uploaded by

bigum
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Public Administration: An Art or a Science

At a first glance it seems easier to accept public administration as an art. It is just the
administration of Government affairs and for most part it does not follow the laws of Science
like absence of normative value, predictability of behavior and universal application. So, does
that mean we cannot list it into a respectable category of scientific subjects?

There are many authors who ferociously defended it and argued that public administration as an
area of study is indeed a Science. The earliest of them was Lorenz von Stein an 1855, a German
professor from Vienna who said that public administration is an integrated Science and viewing
it just as administrative laws was a restrictive definition. In modern times, categorizing public
administration as Science found favor with many, the most important one being the father of
American public administration, President Woodrow Wilson. We shall read more about the
Wilsonian view of public administration in the next article, however he mainly emphasized that
the objective of administrative study is to discover what government can properly and
successfully do and how it can do those things with utmost efficiency with least possible cost of
money or energy.

After Wilson another important argument came from Frederick Taylor who wrote a book called
The Principles of Scientific Management (1911) in which he proposed to discover one best way
of doing things/operation and thus save on cost on time and energy. Luther Gulick and L Urvick
collectively published, Papers on the Science of Administration which reaffirmed its status as a
Science. W F Willoughby stated that public administration like Science has certain fundamental
principles which can be generally applied and therefore it is a Science.

However, there still remain certain aspects to be established before public administration can be
actually and in real terms, be classified as a Science. The places of normative values in public
administration should be clearly defined. More efforts should be put in to understanding the
human nature and dynamics at play in public administration. Lastly, the principles of public
administration should derive references from across the worlds, cultures, type of states etc to
make them more universal and free of cultural, religious and political biases.

The advent of the modern welfare state itself has added, to the changing approach to public
administration. The kind of activities and sphere of works have never been more varied and
dynamic and there has been a never before interest in actually improving the efficiency of the
government.

Subject matter experts like Frederick Taylor have opened ways to exploration, experimentation,
observation, collection of data and analysis based on which principles and laws can be made.
There are increasing number of authors like Metcalfe, Fayol, Emerson, Follett, Mooney, and
more recently Drucker etc who have written on the subjects of administration(. In-fact Drucker
wrote a book called “The Age of Discontinuity” and one of the chapters of the book called The
Sickness of Government became the basis of the New Public Management theory popular in
1980s which emphasized the market oriented management of the public sector.

So, one can safely say that with the changing times and more and more studies carried out in the
field of social sciences, administration and human relations, the subject of public administration
can no longer take the shelter of art and would have to emerge stronger with relevant and
fundamental principles like that of Science.

Nama anggota kelompok :

Farida Bigum

Syarifatul Hidayati

Mahwiyah

You might also like