Public administration can be roughly defined as the implementation of public policy,

largely by the executive branch.

Also a field of study that prepares for public service.

It has evolved from Political Science. Adopted theories but also embraced thoughts from
behavioral sciences.

PAGE 1

Before PA became a discipline, its academic scholars invested much effort towards
examining its focus or terrain of inquiry.

Public Administration has experienced constant, almost periodic episodes of reexamination

in the course of its struggle for academic acceptance.

In the United States, the epistemology or nature of Public Administration has been heavily
questioned. It has foreseen to be problematic of its boundaries, methodologies, scope,
direction and heritage.

But the ruthlessness of this field of study has given its academic scholars drive to confront
all the controversy.

PAGE 2

The intellectual debates about its epistemological and ontological issues have proved to be
congenial that fatal.

Public Administrations agonized for a century for being treated as a subfield of Political
Science (United States).

Most Public Administration scholars would argue that their field encompasses concerns
that are distinct and outside the realm of Political Science. (Management science, linear
programming, PERT-CPM)

Public Administration has grown to be eclectic; meaning the field has grown so vast and
interdisciplinary that it accommodated knowledge from distinct disciplines.

-- Though, it has not answered its questions relating to its origin, but surely has reduced
the uncertainty of its thinkers.

The validity of the axioms and propositions of PA has spurred controversies

(identity/intellectual crisis).
The development of the administrative thought in the United States have largely
influenced the Contemporary Public Administration in the Philippines.

PAGE 3

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS "PLETHORA OF VOICES"

Although thousands study it and millions work at it, Public Administration has never been
satisfactorily defined, and invariably, there has been great difficulty delimiting its scope.

Through the years, the definition of Public Administration itself has assumed various
critical transformations, as its subject matter and terrains of inquiry continued to expand.

Waldo contented that PA's definition to its scholars remain to be elusive.

PA was considered as the plethora of voices and needed unification or convergence.

The appreciation of the term has continually changed and shifted over time, evolving
gradually from one perspective to another.

Public Administration is understood today both as an academic subject matter, and as the
activities and dynamics of the management of public organizations and the practice of the
profession.

PAGE 4

Its foci has expanded in three respects:

1. The study of institutions limited to the executive branch and the bureaucracy that
encompasses the dynamics of the legislative and judicial departments.

2. Concerned with social affairs; addresses the social milieu and the impact of government
administration on its public.

3. Study of the operations of the government. Became a distinct field of study.

The term "public administration" today has acquired a larger meaning than what it was
originally interpreted to be.

The dichotomy tradition has to be redefined to accommodate the realities of the policy and
administrative process.

PAGE 5

Nigro represented this evolving perspective in the 1970's when they defined PA not only in
relation to the executive nor bureaucracy but of the client and purported to serve.
PA is described as: cooperative group in a public setting, covers all three branches, has an
important role in formulating public policy making it part of the political process, different
from private administration, associated with private groups and individuals who provides
services to the community.

PA began highlighting the importance of giving attention to the community.

PAGE 6

Henry provided on what appears an all-encompassing definition of Public Administration:

is a amorphous combination of theory and practice.

PAGE 7

It has been argued that PA is theoretically impoverished. There are core issues but no core
theory (Bozeman and Straussman 1984)
"It is a field that has no right to exist intellectually with a self-contained, separate identity.