Public Administration : an Interdisciplinary Critical Analysis

Public administration:

An interdisciplinary critical analysis

Eran Vigoda (Editor)

Department of Political Science
University of Haifa, Israel

Mount Carmel 31905 Haifa, Israel
Tel:972-4-8240709
Fax:972-4-8257785 eranv@poli.haifa.ac.il

Public administration:

An interdisciplinary critical analysis

-Preface

-Acknowledgements

-The need for interdisciplinary analysis of public administration

-The framework of the book
-Target readers

Part 1: The Legacy of Public Administration: Background and Review

Eran Vigoda, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa

1.1 -The evolution of public administration: Science and profession in motion

1.2 -Transformations of public administration as an academic field

1.3 -Disciplinary origins
1.4 -The three P’s: Politics, Policy, and Public administration
1.5 -The voice of society: Sociological and cultural approaches to public administration

1.6 -The human side of public systems: management, organizational behavior, and public administration

1.7 -Reconstruction of public administration theory: A public management revolution?

Part 2: Politics and Policy Analysis: Players and Interests in the Governing Process
2.1 - Ira Sharkansky, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem: “Economic versus social values and other dilemmas in policymaking”.
2.2 - Gerald E. Caiden, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, and Naomi J. Caiden, Department of Political Science, California State University: “Toward more democratic governance: Modernizing the administrative state in Australia, North America and the United Kingdom”.
2.3 - Robert Schwartz, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa: “Accountability in new public management: An elusive phenomenon”.
2.4 - Guy B. Peters, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh: “Governing in a market era: Alternative models of governing”.

2.5 - Eran Vigoda and Etai Gilboa, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa: “The quest for collaboration: Towards a comprehensive strategy for public administration”.

Part 3: Social and Cultural Analysis: Work Values, Ethics, and Information Revolution in the Administrative Process
3.1 - Rafael Snir and Itzhak Harpaz, Center for the Study of Organizations and Human Resource Management, University of Haifa: “The meaning of work for public sector versus private sector employees”.
3.2 - Rebecca Amado, Department of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University: “New ethical challenges under the new reform movement in the public administration sector”.
3.3 - Lynton K. Caldwell, Department of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University: “Public administration in high information level society”.
3.4 - Urs E. Gattiker, School of Engineering, Department of Production, Aalborg University, and Inger Maria Giversen, Department of Social Medicine, Aarhus Amt: “The digitized health service: a theoretical framework for public administration”.
3.5 - Michael Harrison, Department of Sociology, Bar-Ilan University: "Can exposure to competition transform public organizations? European attempts to revitalize hospitals through market mechanisms”.

Part 4: Organizational and Managerial Analysis: A Business Management Approach for the Public Sector

4.1 - Robert T. Golembiewski and Carl Miller, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia: “Planned organizational change in the U.S. Department of Labor: Some unexpected events on the way to a highly-probable future”.

4.2 - Alan Kirschenbaum, Faculty of Industry and Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology: "The organization of chaos: The structure of disaster management".
4.3 - Moshe Davidow: Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Haifa: “Consumer communication management and public administration: a view from the business bridge”.
4.4 - Arye Globerson and Rami Ben-Yshai, Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University: “Towards Comprehensive Reform of Israel's Education System: Four Major Target Areas”.

Part 5: Synthesis and Summary Current Trends and the Way Forward
Tony Bovaird, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England: “Public administration: Searching for the way forward”.

List of Figures
(about 5 figures)
List of Tables
(about 10 tables)
Contributors Biographical Notes
Contributors (in order of appearance)

Ira Sharkansky, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.

Gerald E. Caiden, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, California, USA.

Naomi J. Caiden, Department of Political Science, California State University, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Robert Schwartz, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa, Israel.

Guy B. Peters, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Eran Vigoda, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa, Israel.

Etai Gilboa, Department of Political Science, University of Haifa, Israel.

Rafael Snir, Center for the Study of Organizations and Human Resource Management, University of Haifa, Israel.

Itzhak Harpaz, Center for the Study of Organizations and Human Resource Management, University of Haifa, Israel.

Rebecca Amado, Department of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Lynton K. Caldwell, Department of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Indiana, USA.

Urs E. Gattiker, Department of Management, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Inger Maria Giversen, Department of Social Medicine, Aarhus Amt, Denmark.

Michael Harrison, Department of Sociology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Robert T. Golembiewski, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia, Georgia, USA.

Carl Miller, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia, Georgia, USA.

Alan Kirschenbaum, Faculty of Industry and Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel.

Moshe Davidow, Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Haifa, Israel.

Arye Globerson, Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Rami Ben-Yshai, Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Tony Bovaird, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, UK

Preface

Have you looked outside lately at the world of government and administration? Have you noticed a strange scent in the air indicating the arrival of a new spirit in the public sector? Some people say it is already here. Others say we have only witnessed the edge of the change. Yet by all definitions public administration at the beginning of the 2000s is looking for its way forward. Today, it is already much different from what it used to be forty, thirty, and even twenty or ten years ago. In the coming years it is going to be even more different.

This volume is all about contemporary transformations in public administration and about possible developments waiting ahead. How may governments’ actions be improved? How may public administration’s services be revitalized? Can bureaucracies respond to challenges and changes ahead, and with what tools? What is the impact of a high-technology environment on our public agencies? How may the (im)possible goal of effective integration between citizens and governments in an ultra-dynamic society be reached? What are the implications of such transitions on democratic governments, their stability, and legitimization in the eyes of citizens? These questions, as well as others, are among the core issues of this book, which tries to provide a critical analysis of a field in transition. We expect that such an analysis will show the way forward for public administration and will stimulate new viable thinking that may lead to change in the old type of bureaucracies.

The central assumption of this book is that slowly and gradually, but constantly and extensively, a change is being nurtured in public systems and in the attitudes of public managers, politicians, and citizens to the conservative role of public institutions. These transformations carry many challenges, as well as risks, that citizens, governments, an administrators of the future will have to confront and address. They all represent new alternatives for the evolvement of public administration as an art, perhaps also as a science and as a profession (Lynn, 1996). The present volume, which is part of a long-standing series on Public Administration and Public Policy (edited by Professor Jack Rabin, University of Pennsylvania) published by Marcel Dekker offers comprehensive interdisciplinary reading for scholars, students, and practitioners in the field. It combines theoretical, empirical, and comparative critical essays from a variety of disciplines, all focused on exploration of fresh directions for such an evolution. Our mission, as stemming from such a perspective, is to understand better the changes ahead, which have the potential of building bridges into the future of modern democracies.

During the last century modern societies accomplished remarkable achievements in different fields, many of them thanks to an advanced public sector. At the dawn of the new millennium, however, various new social problems still await the consideration and attention of the state and its administrative system. To overcome these problems and create effective remedies for the new type of state ills there is a need to increase cooperation and collaboration and to share information and knowledge. An interdisciplinary critical perspective on the state of contemporary public administration, as adopted here, is essential. It suggests a multi-level, multi-method, and multi-system analysis of current developments with a look to the future. Leading and long-influential experts, as well as young and promising scholars, in political science, public administration, sociology, and management present attitudes, research findings, opinions, and recommendations for a better understanding of the field in the coming years.

The chapters are arranged in five main parts. The first part serves as an introduction to the issues discussed in the other parts. In addition it tries to suggest a theoretical starting point for the works presented latter. More specifically it focuses on the roots and foundations of public administration that furnish the background and terminology for the discipline. The next three parts contain a collection of original essays, which are the heart of our volume. Each of these parts represents a separate layer of critical investigation: policy and politics, society and culture, and organizational management. The closing part provides a suggested interdisciplinary synthesis. It attempts to portray boundaries and orientations for the new generation of public administration and for the way forward.

The book’s main effort is to shed light on various actual topics in the contemporary study of public systems. It covers (1) the emerging conflict between business and social considerations in modern democracies; (2) developments and paradoxes in public policy analysis; (3) the relationship between politics and administration, citizens and bureaucracies, and the strategic idea of collaboration; (4) accountability in modern public administration; (5) cultural characteristics and administrative culture in and around the public sector; (6) ethical dilemmas in the public service; (7) the meaning of work for public sector employees; (8) competition and business trends in a comparative view; (9) public administration in a mass-communication and high-information system era; this theme is strongly related to the function of e-government (10) managerial strategies, managerial reforms, and organizational development in the public sector; (11) population behavior during mass disasters and their implications for public administration and for modern societies; and (12) the innovative idea of Consumer Communication Management (CCM) and marketing in the public sector.

The book endeavors to provide an insight into the complexity of the discipline by combining different levels of analysis into an integral whole, which better accords with reality. It is intended as a useful tool for students, scholars, and administrators, as well as for citizens in quest of more knowledge on how the state, and its executive branches, is managed and on the obstacles to better public performance. The book also suggests principles for greater effectiveness and efficiency of public management in future generations, when environmental pressures will grow, together with an increase in citizens’ demands and needs.