Introduction

Public administration has been in practice since the dawn of human civilization but it is nascent as an
academic field. It constitutes the government machinery and is supposed to implement policies

formulated in response to public aspirations and needs. The success of governments, therefore,
depends to a greater extent on how public administration effectively and efficiently meets the changing
demands of the society.

The emergence of public administration as a field of scientific inquiry began with the seminal article of
Woodrow Wilson titled, “the study of administration”.1 He argued that it is difficult to run modern
complex governments without thorough knowledge and strongly advocated politics-administration

dichotomy. Wilson was followed by scholars such as F.W. Taylor, Max Weber, Luther Gulick, Herbert
Simon, Buchanan, Williamson, and others who shed light on different aspects of public administration.

According to F.A. Nigro (1970): “Public Administration

i. is a cooperative group effort in a public setting;

ii. covers all the three branches – executive, legislative and judicial, and their inter-relationship;

iii. has an important role in the formulation of public policy and is thus part of the political process;

iv. is different in significant ways from private administration; and

v. Closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the
community.”

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010) defines public administration as ‘the application of a policy of a state
through its government’. Public Administration, therefore, refers to that part of administration, which
pertains to the administrative activities of the government.

Public administration is the non-political public bureaucracy operating in a political system; deals with
the ends of the State, the sovereign will, the public interests and laws; is the business side of
government and as such concerned with policy execution, but it is also concerned with policy-making;
covers all three branches of government, although it tends to be concentrated in the executive branch;
provides regulatory and service functions to the people in order to attain good life; differs significantly
from private administration, especially in its emphasis on the public; and is interdisciplinary in nature as
it draws upon other social sciences like political science, economics and sociology.

TRADITIONAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The traditional model of public administration places its major emphasis on accomplishing the mission
and accountability for resources. A hallmark of the traditional model is its rhetorical stress on efficiency.
But efficiency is very difficult to measure, and perhaps the rhetorical value of efficiency is so high
because it is so hard to measure objectively. At a micro-level, of course, efficiency can be judged over
time (e.g. more output from the same resources than last year) or compared with a similar unit
producing comparable goods. But at higher levels of generality, e.g. at the program level, there are no
broadly accepted measures of efficiency.
Thus one of the most common measures of government production is that of resources used, that is,
inputs. There is a parallel between stages and functions of budgeting as analysed by Allen Schick (1987)
and developing approaches of measuring the production of governmental services.

Traditional accounting for governmental programs emphasizes the inputs that are used to accomplish
missions, for example, number of personnel, dollar totals, number of vehicles, number of computers,
energy consumed, etc. These measures are very good for accountability and for assuring that resources
are not being stolen and that they are being used for the purposes for which they were intended. This
type of accountability is also easy for overseers to understand, e.g. chief executives, the central budget
agency, or legislators. Thus this inputs approach is quite popular and hard to replace with more
sophisticated measures of efficiency or productivity.

The traditional model of public administration spread throughout the industrialized world and ushered
in the relative success of modern industrialized economies. Guy Peters summaries

the principles of the traditional model in the following list of its major characteristics: 1) An

apolitical civil service; 2) Hierarchy and rules; 3) Permanence and stability; 4) An institutional

civil service; 5) Internal regulation; 6) Equality (internally and externally to the organization).6

Since this traditional model was so successful in aiding the development of modern economies

and Weber argued that it was the most efficient mode of organization possible, how could recent

critics see it as old, outmoded, and in

COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

S.B.M Marume (1976): Comparative public administration is that method of the study of public
administration which is concerned with making rigorous systematic cross-cultural comparisons of
the structures, institutions actions and processes involved in the activity of running the public affairs.
Comparative public administration basically concerns it self with a study of administrative systems
to identify commonalties and contrasts in principles, concepts, structures, process, components
and environment of admaninistration. The idea of comparative public administration presupposes
the feasibility of scientific approach to the study of public administration. In line with this
argument William .J. Jiffin (1977) argued that No science of public adminstration is possible
unless…… there is a body of comparative studies from which it may be possible to discover
principles and generalities that transcend national boundaries and peculiar histrorical experience
Comparative public administration may be referred to in two major related senses. These are
comparative public administration as an approach and as a field of study. As an approach to
comparative public administration is a method in political science and public administration.

Comparative public administration is a branch of public administration. As an

approach, it considers the workings of government in different socio-economic
and cultural settings. Much like public administration, comparative
administration covers a wide variety of activities. Scholars employing the
comparative approach focus on a wide variety of issues including public policy
making and implementation in both the developed and developing areas.
Comparative administration seeks to strengthen our understanding of broader
public administrative processes by trying to expand the empirical basis of the
field. By taking a keen look at administrative processes in all socio-economic
and ecological settings, we have a more holistic view of the larger field.
Comparative public administration focuses its attention on administrative structure,
bureaucracy patterns of administration, decentralisation of administration, civil service system
and recruitment of government employees. The study of comparative public administration
has gained momentum in recent years because of the fact that the emerging nations of Asia and
Africa are trying hard to develop their economy and political system. The simple objective is to
meet the growing needs of people. The Great Depression of the thirties of the last century
drastically changed the entire administrative system of USA. (1)The World War II brought about
radical changes in academic and other fields and comparative public administration is one of
them. During and after the War many eminent political scientists and administrators were
appointed to the policy determination department of US government and especially in the
public administration department. They observed that the public administration with which
they are well acquainted and the public administration they have taught in colleges and
universities has very little relevance to the practical side of public administration.They desired
to formulate new policies of public administration and studied the administrative systems of
different countries. These two provided solid bases for a new approach to public administration
which later on came to be called comparative public administration. These did not entirely
provide the materials for comparative public administration, but major parts came from this
new change. The comparative public administration is now regarded by many as a movement.
The public administration in its classical form was primarily concerned with the administrative
system, principles and structure of any particular state. But today —after the rapid progress of
liberalisation, globalisation and growing dependence among different nation states —the public
administration has assumed unprecedented dependence upon the administrative systems of
different countries and this has brought the public administration in the forefront of
administrative systems.

Here I quote a relevant observation of a critic—comparative public administration is the theory

of public administration as applied to diverse cultures and national settings and the body of
factual data, by which it can be tested and expanded. Hence we find that there is a difference
between public administration and comparative public administration.The general principles of
public administration, when applied to particular fields or situations comes to be known as
comparative public administration. There is growing demand in various corners of the globe of
the basic principles of public administration which ought to be tested through their application
in various political systems and cultures. This demand first emerged in embryonic form in the
United States and later on the demand spread its wings in various parts.

From the middle of the last century the comparative public administration as a movement is
gradually gaining-momentum. A Conference on International Political Association was held in
Paris in 1953 and in that Conference it was demanded that public administration should be
studied comparatively otherwise its exact nature will never come out. The comparative public
administration was not confined only in Paris.

The movement spread in many other states of Europe. It was due to the fact that no relations
among nations were gradually increasing the comparative public administration was becoming
more and more popular. The newly states of Asia and Africa

TRADITIONAL AND COMPARATIVE ADMINISTRATION

CONCLUSION

Public administration is an aspect of a more generic concept of administration. Therefore, before

understanding the meaning of public administration, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the
word “administration”. Administration means a cooperative effort of a group of people in pursuit of a
common objective. Administration is a universal process and occurs in diverse institutional settings.
Based on its institutional setting, administration is divided in public administration and private
administration. The former refers to the administration which operates in a governmental setting, while
the latter refers to the administration which operates in a non-governmental setting, that is, business
enterprises. Public administration is centrally concerned with the organization of government policies
and programs as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their
conduct Many non-elected public employees can be considered to be public administrators, Public
administrators are public employees working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of
government. The Purpose of this Study was to discuss between traditional and comparative
administration

REFERENCES

A. Schick, “The road to PPB: The Stages of Budget Reform,” in Perspectives on Budgeting, 2nd ed. A.
Schick (ed.), Washington: American Society for Public Administration 1987, pp. 40-63. 19 E. D. Sclar, You
Don’t Always Get What You Pay for: The Economics of Privatization, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
2000.

B. G. Peters, The Future of Governing, 2nd ed., Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 2001.

Public administration. (2010) In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.

Nigro (1970): Modern Public Administration; New York.