Topic two: APPROACHES TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

INTRODUCTION

The approaches or method to the study of Public Administration can be characterized from
normative approach to empirical approach; and from philosophical approach to behavioral
approach. Each concentrates on different aspects or branches of public administration as a field
of study. Classification of approaches is based upon the objects of study the individual researcher
seeks to stress. The main approaches are:

Philosophical Approach to Public Administration

Political Approach to Public Administration
Historical Approach to Public Administration
Behavioural Approach to Public Administration
Legal Approach to Public Administration
Formal Structural Approach to Public Administration
System Approach to Public Administration
Bureaucratic Approach to Public Administration
Case Method Approach to Public Administration

OBJECTIVE
At the end of this topic, learners should be able to discuss the approaches to public
administration in details.

1. Philosophical Approach is one of the oldest approaches to study public administration. The
approach takes within its purview all aspects of administrative activities. Its goal is to find out
and enunciate the principles or ‘ideals’ underlying these activities. This approach is located
within the work of John Locke’s -Treatise on civil Government, Plato’s - Republic, and Thomas
Hobbes - Leviathan.

2. Political Approach was perhaps most forcefully stated by Sayre. Public administration is
ultimately a problem in political theory; the fundamental problem in a democracy is
responsibility to popular control; the responsibility and responsiveness of the administrative
agencies. Public administration was anything but lacking political issues. Political approach to
public administration values “representativeness, official responsiveness, and accountability
through elected officials to the citizenry”. In fact, Public administration embraces and deploys
political values of representativeness, responsiveness, and accountability tends to be different
from the managerial approach to organisation. “Under the political approach, the structure of
public administration becomes politicised, with different groups continually seeking
representation”. Also, it often based on decisions and opinions of public, interest groups and the
media. Thus, the proper approach to serving the public interest through administration is not
necessarily a question for resolution by experts or science. Rather the public or organised
segments of it ought to have a large role in determining what is in the collective interest.
“Indeed, public administration under political approach reflects public choice and interests”.

3. Historical Approach is basically the study of public administration of the past within a
particular time span. It includes organizing and interpreting the available information in a
chronological order so as to best study the administrative institutions.

4. Behavioural Approach scrutinizes public administration by reviewing individual and

collective human behaviour in diverse social environments and administrative situations. One of
the pioneers of this approach is Robert Dahl. It brings to bear upon administrative problems an
inter-disciplinary approach which includes sociology, individual and social psychology and
cultural anthropology. This approach focuses on the study of administrative problem and their
solutions. In this approach, Writers focus on individual and his relationship to the administrative
organization in which scientific management tends to consider him rather as a thing or a means,
without taking into account the various factors that have direct or indirect influence on the
individual and its consequences on overall environment. Attention is on individual based on
realistic approaches like “motivation, decision-making process and the nature of the authority”.

5. Legal Approach is a “systematically-formulated approach, and traces its ancestry to the

European tradition of rooting public administration in law”. The supremacy of legal
approach rest on power- its structure and functions. It lays emphasis on the formal organization
of offices, official duties, limitations of power and discretionary authority of administrators. Its
source materials include constitution, codes of law, office manuals of rules and regulations and
judicial decisions. That is, Public administration is part of law, concentrating on legally-
prescribed structure and organization of public authorities and their limitations. “Public
administration is considered a part of administrative law and as such is studied in the legal
framework”. Some European countries, for example, Germany, Belgium and France, are
particularly known to have employed the legal approach to the study of public administration.

6. Structural and Institutional Approach to Public Administration identifies the formal

structure and institutional of governmental administration as a significant feature of society. It is
essentially descriptive is nature when it is applied to the study of public administration and it can
be extended to include comparison and prescription. Questions can be engendered from the
“differences/ similarities between governmental and administrative structures in two countries,
etc.

7. System Approach to public administration sees organization as a system which made up of

interdependent parts, which interact with the environment by importing inputs while exporting
outputs in order to maintain a permanent state of equilibrium. To apply this idea to public
administration, it represents inputs from the environment in form of citizens’ demand for
security, Job, etc. The administration of these demands in a conversion process is delivered as
outputs, such as, orderliness of the society, quantity and quality of goods and services, policies,
decisions, programmes, projects, etc. These outcomes can further give birthday to feedback like
support and demand.
8. Bureaucratic Approach to Public Administration embraces Weberian view who argues that
IDEAL “hierarchical authority, specialisation of function, specified sphere of competence,
operation on the basis of rules and impersonality”. This approach contribute to the study of both
public and private organisations because is ideal and important, as any organisation that is
characterised by its features will function both rationally and efficiently.

9. Case Method Approach is an account of past endeavors of public administration keeping in

view all aspects relevant to the issue. This approach remained in vogue but could not become
dominant because reliving another’s life through case studies can never yield the desired results;
however, it exposed certain dimensions of a particular administrative issue. Case study method
focuses on study personal, economic, political or any other influence at the time of decision-
making by a practitioner of public administration.