Plato's republic

Plato's
Republic

Plato usually wrote relatively short pieces, like the Euthyphro, Meno, etc. In all his writings there are only two book length works, the Republic and the Laws. The Laws was the last thing Plato wrote, at eighty, and it is a grim and terrifying culmination of the totalitarian tendencies in his earlier political thought. It is also pretty dull, since Plato had all but abandoned his earlier lively dialogue format. The Republic, however, is the supreme product of Plato's most mature years, thought, and style. It contains virtually the entire universe of Plato's philosophy.

The word "republic" is from Latin: Res publica means "public matters" or "the state." In Greek, the title was the Politeia, which means the Constitution. But the Republic does not start out about politics. It is initially a familiar kind of Socratic dialogue about justice, just as the Euthyphro is about piety and the Meno is about virtue. The Republic is divided into ten Books. Each of these was originally what would fit onto one papyrus scroll. [By late Roman times, the scrolls were cut up and sewn together into codices, or the kind of bound books that we continue to use.] The entire first Book of the Republic may originally have been one of the standard early dialogues that Plato wrote about Socrates. Later it was expanded. Unusual features of the dialogue, however, are (1) that Socrates [note well that Plato continues to use Socrates to speak Plato's ideas in all his mature works] actually narrates the entire thing, (2) that he speaks with a large number of people, not just one, (3) that these include two brothers of Plato himself (Glaucon and Adeimantus), and (4) that, after the dialogue about justice proceeds in the fashion that we expect of Socrates, things take an unexpected turn: One of the characters, the sophist Thrasymachus, begins to object that he knows quite well what justice is, and that the kinds of definitions the others have been giving are nonsense.

Thrasymachus says, "I declare justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger" Republic 338c [W.H.D. Rouse translation, Great Dialogues of Plato, Mentor Books, 1956, p.137. The following two citations are Rouse's translation also]. Robbery and violence are normally called "injustice," but when they are practiced wholesale by rulers, they are justice, i.e. the interest of the stronger, the rulers. Thus, when we consider ordinary citizens, "the just man comes off worse than an unjust man everywhere" (343d). Since the rulers do not obey the principles they impose on the citizens, they are in those terms "unjust." So Thrasymachus says, "You will understand it most easily, if you come to the most perfect injustice, which makes the unjust man most happy, and makes those who are wronged and will not be unjust most miserable" (344a).

...Tyranny is not a matter of minor theft and violence, but of wholesale plunder, sacred and profane, private or public. If you are caught committing such crimes in detail you are punished and disgraced; sacrilege, kidnapping, burglary, fraud, theft are the names we give to such petty forms of wrongdoing. But when a man succeeds in robbing the whole body of citizens and reducing them to slavery, they forget these ugly names and call him happy and fortunate, as do all others who hear of his unmitigated wrongdoing. [Republic 344a-c, H.D.P. Lee translation, Penguin Books, 1955, p.73.]

Thus to Thrasymachus the tyrant is happy and fortunate, and he is so precisely because he breaks the rules ("justice") that he imposes on the weak. What the weak call "justice" is really slavery, and no one truly strong would act that way. Such sentiments are familiar in modern philosophy from the still popular and influential German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

In Book I Socrates proceeds to refute Thrasymachus and does so. If the weak, after all, can prevent the strong from taking what they want or can prevent someone from becoming a tyrant, then they are the strong! Thrasymachus is finally quieted. At the beginning of Book II however, Socrates is told by Glaucon and the others that this was all too easy. They argue that anyone would be unjust, given the opportunity, just as Gyges seduced and murdered his way to the throne of Lydia, once he had found a ring that made him invisible, because everyone believes that injustice leads to happiness, if only one can get away with it. They want Socrates to prove that it is better to be just than to be unjust even if the unjust man is praised, celebrated, and rewarded and the just man is reviled, punished, and rejected. Socrates must prove that such a just man is actually happy and such an unjust man (a tyrant perhaps) is unhappy.

The rest of the Republic answers this challenge. It does so by way of an analogy. Socrates says that it is difficult to distinguish what is going on in the soul, but it is easier to see what is going on in the state. Thus the state will be examined by analogy to the soul. Now we would say that the state is the macrocosm (makros, "large," kosmos, "universe"), the large scale analogue, and the soul is the microcosm (mikros, "small"), the small scale analogue. When matters are sorted out for the state, then the soul can be understood in its own right.

As it happens, Plato ends up using the theory of the soul that he also proposes in the Phaedrus. The soul, on this view, has three parts, which correspond to three different kinds of interests, three kinds of virtues, three kinds of personalities --
SOUL INTEREST CLASS VIRTUE
reason knowledge philosophers wisdom justice
spirit honor warriors courage
desire pleasures commoners temperance
depending on which part of the soul is dominant -- and so, properly, to three kinds of social classes that should be based on the three personalities, interests, and virtues.

"Spirit" is in the sense of a "spirited" horse. Plato thinks that this is the energy that drives the soul and may be used to reason to keep desire in line. Temperance, or moderation, will mean the limitation of desires. The word "temperance" is now a little archaic, and it tends to suggest "temperance" as it came to mean abstention from alcohol, as was advocated in the early days of this century by Cary Nation and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, who brought about Prohibition. The three parts of the soul also correspond to places in the body: reason to the head, spirit to the heart, and desire to the organs of desire, mostly in the abdomen. Plato simply made a good guess that reason had something to do with the brain. There wasn't a lot of evidence about this; and many people, including the Egyptians and Aristotle, thought that intelligence was centered in the heart. When the Egyptians mummified bodies, they actually used to throw the brain away, while the heart was carefully prepared and replaced in the body. Remember later in the course to compare Plato's parts of the soul and social classes with the doctrine of the gunas and the varnas later in Indian philosophy.

Now, Plato was originally looking for justice, but justice does not appear in the list of virtues. The answer is that justice applies to them all in the sense of their organization. Reason (and the philosophers) should be in control, with the help of spirit (and the warriors). The philosophers and the warriors are thus the "Guardians" of Plato's ideal state. This does not seem like a familiar sort of definition for justice, but the result, Plato says, is that each interest is satisfied to the proper extent, or, in society, everyone has what is theirs. The philosophers have the knowledge they want; the warriors have the honors they want; and the commoners have the goods and pleasures they want, in the proper moderation maintained by the philosophers and warriors. The root of all trouble, as far as Plato is concerned, is always unlimited desire.

John E.E.D. Acton, or Lord Acton (1834-1902) famously said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Even Plato was aware of this and that commoners might be envious of the power of the Guardians, desiring it for themselves so as to obtain greater goods and pleasures. Thus Plato proposes a set of rules for his Guardians that would render their position undesirable to the commoners:

The Guardians must live in poverty, with any possessions they do have held in common. The very things, then, that mean the most to the commoners will be denied to the rulers. Historically, the precedent for something like this was Sparta, though the Spartans didn't go quite this far. This does seems to be the first serious proposal in political history for something like complete communism, though it does only apply to the Guardians. It doesn't seem like a bad idea even today to apply to politicians.

When I used to live in Honolulu, occasionally I liked to visit the State Legislature when it was in session. The Hawaii State Capitol is unique, with an open central courtyard instead of the traditional dome and rotunda. On each side of the courtyard, you can look through windows down into sunken chambers for the two houses of the legislature. When the legislature is in session, you can enter a visitors balcony through doors in the windows. You sit in the balcony, however, on hard wooden benches, like church pews, while the legislators below sit on huge, stuffed, reclining, leather chairs that look good enough to sleep in -- and you will often see the lawmakers, indeed, sleeping in them. This has always struck me as just the opposite of what Plato would have required. It is the visitors, the commoners, who should have the comfort and the "servants of the people," the politicians who should have the Spartan conditions.

The Guardians will even have their families in common. Children will be raised in common and will not know who their real parents are. These children will also not be randomly conceived. They will be bred deliberately to produce the best offspring, as though the Guardians were a pack of hunting dogs. Even Plato realizes that such cold blooded match making might be too much for the Guardians, so he proposes that the process be kept secret from most of them. Every year, after the breeding committee, or whatever, secretly makes its choices, there is to be a kind of fertility festival. Everyone chooses names by lot, and the name they draw, or no name, is the choice of the gods for them. This is the kind of thing that Plato calls a "noble lie"; for the lottery is to be rigged by the breeding committee. Everyone will actually draw the name designated for them; and those who draw a blank were simply thought undesirable for offspring. The idea that people should be bred just like animals is usually called "eugenics" (eu, "well," and gignomai, "come into being" or "born") and was popular early in this century; but the only regime that has tried to formally implement eugenics was Nazi Germany. So it is not surprising that Plato thought this should all be kept secret.

After two fairly disturbing proposals, Plato gets to one that is more congenial. At the beginning of Book V Adeimantus brings to Socrates's attention his casual remark that wives and children will be held in common by the Guardians, which makes it seem as though women are going to be Guardians along with the men. Socrates says that he hesitated to make an issue out of it, but that, yes, there will be women Guardians. Women have all the same parts of the soul and so all the same interests, virtues, and personality types as men. Since children will be raised in common, individual women will not be burdened with the task of child rearing and will be free to take their places in their proper occupations along with the men. If the warrior women are not as strong as the men, then they may not be at the forefront of the battle, but they should be at the battle. This equality even extends to athletics, which is somewhat shocking, since Greek athletes went naked. Words like "gymnasium" and "gymnastics" both derive from gymnos "naked." The Greeks rather prided themselves on not thinking that it was shameful or ridiculous to go naked, as all the "barbarians," their neighbors, thought. But Socrates says that nothing is ridiculous except what is wrong, and that in time people would get used to naked women athletes just as at one time they got used to naked men. This all, of course, has not come entirely true, since no athletes go naked today. But the male and female nude torso statues that were installed in front of the L.A. Colosseum at the time of the 1984 Olympic Games do reflect Plato's version of the Greek ideal of physical beauty.

With these views about nudity, the Greeks were all the more impressed with India when Alexander the Great arrived there and found naked holy men. These were Jain monks, and others, who had renounced the world even to the extent of renouncing clothing also. The Greeks called them the gymnosophistai "naked philosophers"; and Greek philosophers like Pyrrho of Elis, who was with Alexander's army, reportedly spent a great deal of time talking with them. Pyrrho, at least, seems to have actually picked up some ideas from Indian philosophy thereby. Naked monks still exist in India. They are called digambara or "sky-clad," since the sky is their only covering.

The last rule is not just for the Guardians. Plato realizes that even with his breeding program, there will be children born to the Guardians who do not belong there. That is especially likely when we realize that it is not intelligence that distinguishes Plato's philosophers but the dominance of a particular kind of interest. Anyone dominated by desire, however intelligent, belongs among the commoners. There will also be children born to the commoners who belong among the Guardians, and so there must be some way to sort everyone out. That will be a universal system of education. A very large part of the Republic is about education. Those who go all the way in that system and will be qualified to be the philosopher rulers will actually be nearly fifty before they have finished all the requirements.

Of all the serious criticisms that can be made against Plato's ideal state, I think that a couple of the most telling are that his theory involves two serious internal contradictions:

That, although Plato, like Socrates, had always defined philosophers as those who know they are ignorant, he always talks about the philosopher Guardians as though they will actually be wise. But if a philosopher is not wise, then he may not make any better a ruler than someone who is virtuous because of correct belief (as described at the end of the Meno). Plato's theory, therefore, really depends on philosophy actually be able to produce wise people. In two thousand years, that has clearly not happened. It is fairly obvious that philosophy professors are, on the whole, no wiser as persons than anyone else; and in academic philosophy departments most professors are not even trying to pursue wisdom in any ordinary meaning of the word.

That, although Plato defines the soul as consisting of three parts for everyone, he really talks about each of his social classes as though they only had one part of the soul, the dominant part. Thus, he can contemplate the Guardians living in poverty because he disregards the fact that philosophers and warriors will have desires and so are not likely to be happy in circumstances that deny the existence of desire. Plato's life for the Guardians violates human nature, not just as any reasonable person would see it, but as Plato defines human nature himself. It is easy to see how Plato could have stumbled into this mistake by the nature of his analogy between soul and state: the soul has three simple parts, but the state has three parts that consists of things that each have three parts. Some people, like Leo Strauss, have consequently argued that Plato's theory of the state is not meant to be taken seriously and is only a device of argumentation. Possibly, but the Republic sounds pretty serious -- and the Laws even more so.

Taking Plato's theory at face value, however, does not answer the whole challenge originally posed by Thrasymachus. This might give us a definition of justice, after a fashion, but it does not show why it is better to be just or why the just person is happier. Plato does that in Book VIII of the Republic by examining "imperfect" states. He imagines what would happen if his ideal state decays.

The ideal state itself Plato calls an "aristocracy" (aristos, "best," and krateîn, "to rule"), the rule of the best. The principle of this state is the reason of the philosophers. The danger he sees to this state is that Guardian parents might not wish to give up children who do not belong among them. If they do not give up the children to become commoners, then some other interest will come to operate among the philosophers. They will cease to be philosophers and so will not be respected by the warriors or commoners.

The warriors will take over. They have the monopoly of force anyway, so they decide to use it. The kind of state they will establish Plato's calls a "timocracy" (timê, "honor"), the rule of honor. The principle of this state is the spirit of the warriors. We may say that this kind of state has actually existed, not only with Sparta in Plato's day but in mediaeval Europe or Japan, or among the Kshatriya caste in India, with the kind of feudal military society that they all had. European or Japanese nobility felt themselves superior to the desire for wealth (although they didn't always live in poverty) and tended to fight each other over issues of honor. This kind of state will decay, however, when the children of the warriors fall to the temptation to use their military power to obtain wealth.

The rulers thus become the rich. Plato calls this an "oligarchy" (oligos, "few," and archê, "beginning," "power" "sovereignty"), the rule of the few. A more appropriate term, however, might be one that we use, "plutocracy" (ploutôn, "wealth," and so the god of the underworld, Pluto), the rule of wealth. The principle of this state is the desire of the rich; but it is still a very disciplined desire, for no one can become or stay rich if they simply indulge themselves in pleasure and spending. We can certainly say that there have been such states. Commercial republics like Venice, Genoa, and the Netherlands come to mind. The limitation of desire is also evident in many of the so-called "robber baron" industrialists of American history. Someone like John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), the often reviled founder of Standard Oil, lived simply and almost ascetically. By the time he died he had actually given away about $550,000,000 ($8.25 billion in 1995 dollars), more money than any American had actually possessed before him. The plutocratic kind of state will decay when the children of the rich decide simply to enjoy themselves and dissipate their wealth, or when the poor decide to take advantage of their numbers by overthrowing the rich.

The result is a "democracy" (dêmokratia; dêmos, "people"), the rule of the people. Plato pays grudging respect to democracy as the "fairest" (kallistê, "most beautiful") of constitutions. The principle of this state is the desire of the many. This is "democratic" in the sense that all desires are equally good, which means anything goes. Because the desires and possessions of some inevitably interfere with the desires and acquisitiveness of others, Plato thinks that democracies will become increasing undisciplined and chaotic. In the end, people will want someone to institute law and order and quiet things down. Giving sufficient power to someone to do that leads to the next kind of state.

The tyrant succeeds in quieting things down. Then he establishes a new kind of government, a tyranny (tyrannis, "tyranny," from tyrannos, "tyrant"). The principle of this state is still desire, but now it is just the desire of the tyrant himself. Many have noted that nothing quite like this actually happened in Greek history. Tyrannies tended to precede, not follow, democracies. That is what happened at Athens. Consequently, a better case can be made that the whole pattern of "imperfect governments" was a device Plato used for argumentation. However, while the collapse of democracies into tyrannies did not occur in Greek history, it has ironically occurred several times in our own century. The precise process described by Plato occurred in Italy when Mussolini came to power and in Germany when Hitler came to power. It is now in danger of happening in Russia. The English historian Thomas Babington, better known as Lord Macaulay (1800-59), believed that democracy would survive only until people got the idea that they could vote themselves wealth (though this principle has been attributed to many others). Since that wealth must be taken from the people who create it, they are not going to like that, and the incentive for them to create it in the first place will be, to a greater or lesser extent, removed. [note]

Recent economists in the area of Public Choice theory [e.g. James M. Buchanan and the Virginia School of Public Choice], have described how the politicization of economic goods inevitably creates increased public conflict as the sense grows that wealth is something to be seized and distributed through state action. As everyone comes to believe that their prosperity depends on political success and consequent government largess, such a dynamic will tend to destabilize democracy, since in politics there are always losers and they begin to think that they are victims of the regime and have no stake in it. Capitalism is often disparaged as a system with "winners and losers," but the losers in capitalism are just the unsuccessful businesses, while the winners do win by providing what is most agreeable to consumers. In politics, the "winners and losers" are both consumers, and the losers are those who are then legally robbed to pay off the winners, who have the power of the state to take what they want (if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can at least get Paul to vote for you). One would think that the United States Constitution shuts off any drift towards a regime of seizure and redistribution because of the "Takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The Takings clause, however, was an early casualty of enthusiasm over the New Deal and has steadily eroded ever since. It is only now that a movement has developed, and received some attention from the Supreme Court, to enforce it -- though the recent Kelo v. City of New London decision represents a setback.

For Plato's argument, the tyrannical state is the final refutation of Thrasymachus. It is clearly the most unhappy kind of state. Thrasymachus, of course, can argue that he doesn't care. It is Plato's analogy, not his. All that matters is whether the tyrant himself is happy or unhappy. Plato's answer to that is to identify the nature of the "tyrannical personality": since the tyrant is subject to completely unlimited desire, he can never be satisfied with anything he has. He will always want more. That is also the answer in a famous scene in the 1948 movie Key Largo, with Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. Robinson is a gangster holding a hotel full of people, including Bogart, hostage. Bogart at one point asks him what he really wants out of all this. Robinson can't say, so Bogart, like Socrates, makes a suggestion: is it that what he really wants is just more? Robinson says, yes, yes, he wants more, more! That is the tyrannical personality.

In our century, it is not hard to find tyrannical personalities to fit Plato's description. Both Hitler and Mussolini were undone by their inability to be satisfied with their successes. When Hitler had conquered France, there was only one country left in the world at war with him, Britain. Stalin's Soviet Union was busy mollifying Hitler by supplying him anything he needed. If Hitler had been content to absorb his conquests and develop Germany's potential, there is no doubt that he would have been in little danger for some time to come. He destroyed himself because he just had to invade Russia. Similarly, Mussolini was cautious enough that Italy remained neutral when Britain and France declared war on Germany for invading Poland. He lost his caution when he saw France defeated and decided to jump on Hitler's bandwagon. It meant, literally, his death. Otherwise Mussolini might have ridden out the war and died peacefully in bed, like his colleague the dictator of Spain, Francisco Franco.

Franco, however, is one of the people who spoils Plato's argument. Hitler really wanted Franco in the war. And he knew that Franco, and Spaniards in generally, really wanted to recover Gibraltar, after over two hundred years, from Britain. [Gibraltar was captured by Britain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession and ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 -- one of the British admirals leading the capture had the extraordinary name of "Clowdisley Shovell."] Since Gibraltar was a thorn in the side of German and Italian operations in the Mediterranean, Hitler told Franco that if Spain entered the war, German troops would take Gibraltar and then give it to Spain. It was the kind of offer Franco couldn't refuse, but he did. Franco knew how to limit his desire, but that didn't prevent him from being a serious tyrant -- and now we know that Hitler's own envoy to Franco, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, was actually advising him against accepting Hilter's offer! [Eventually, in 1944, Hiltler learned that Canaris had been working against him and had him executed.] Worse is the case of Josef Stalin, who had an uncanny ability to bide his time and to take advantage of every opportunity. To the embarrassment of Western leftists, World War II itself began with Hitler and Stalin actually partitioning Poland between them. When Stalin subsequently invaded Finland, there was a moment when it looked like the Soviet Union might join Germany as the common totalitarian enemy of the Western democracies. When Stalin became an ally of the West instead (when Hitler invaded Russia), he could cash in his position with a post-war empire than would have been the envy of the Tsars. Poor Poland, whose fate called Britain and France to war in 1939, and whose exiled citizens fought bravely in many of the major actions of World War II, including many Polish pilots in the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, was at Yalta left to Stalin without argument by Franklin Roosevelt and remained a vassal state of the Soviet Union until 1989.

Although Plato didn't know about such a variety of tyrannical personalities, he seems to have felt that his ultimate argument about the unhappiness of the tyrant was not strong enough. To seal the argument, he ended the Republic with a myth: the Myth of Er. Er was supposed to have been a soldier who was struck down and left for dead in a battle. When the bodies were collected after ten days for burning, Er revived and said that he had seen the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked in the hereafter. After the judgment of the gods, the souls of the dead went to a place of reward in heaven or a place of punishment in the underworld. Since Plato believed in reincarnation there were no eternal rewards or punishments -- except for an evil few who were not allowed out of Hades. All the others had to face the prospect of their next life, and they were given the opportunity to choose the character of their next life from a variety of alternatives.

The Republic thus ends rather lamely with the argument that we better be good or the gods will punish us. We hardly needed to go through the whole book just to be told that. But in the midst of this there comes a very striking moment. Er describes the souls choosing their next life. The first one he sees doing this chooses badly -- the life of a tyrant who is fated "to eat his children and suffer other horrors" [Republic 619b-c, Rouse p.420]. Plato's comment about this reveals an important principle of his thought: This was a person who had lived a good life and had just returned from a reward for it in heaven. But, says Plato, he had "some share of virtue which came by habit without philosophy." That is how Rouse puts it, p.420. Lee's translation is, "having owed his goodness to habit and custom and not to knowledge," p.399. The terms in Greek are aretê, "virtue"; ethos, "custom," "habit" (only one word in Greek); and philosophia. So Rouse's translation is more literal.

This was a prescient critique of Plato's own student Aristotle, who later believed that virtue actually was a matter of habit and that the good had no independent nature to know, as Socrates and Plato had thought. Plato, of course, can allow for Aristotle's kind of virtue, but he regards it, as at the end of the Meno, as a matter of correct opinion only, not knowledge. The shortcoming of that kind of virtue is that, being habitual, it is effective only in habitual circumstances. In unfamiliar circumstances, where novel cases of good and evil must be recognized, the person does not possess the knowledge that would make that recognition possible. Socrates had asked Eurthyphro for a definition of piety so that he would "look upon it" and "use it as a model" (Euthyphro 6d) to recognize novel cases of piety and impiety. The soul that picks the terrible life of a tyrant obviously has no model and doesn't know what it is doing. This is why Meno actually makes a good observation at Meno 97c, when he says, "he who has knowledge will always succeed, while he who has right opinion will sometimes succeed, sometimes not." Although Socrates oddly disagrees with this, the point is to be well taken that right opinion will only work for a limited sphere of possibilities, the familiar ones, while knowledge will always work.

In the end, probably the most enduring image of the entire Republic, as an expression of Plato's view of life and the world, is the Allegory (or Simile) of the Cave. This occurs in Book VII (at 514), following his discussion of the Divided Line (in Book VI), which illustrated the levels of knowledge and reality in the discussion of the nature of philosophy and the good. (At right, the Divided Line is in black and the elements of the Allegory of the Cave are in red.) Plato says that we are all like prisoners chained up on the floor of a cave. We are so restricted that we can only look in one direction, and there we see shadows on the wall that seem to talk and move around. We and our fellow prisoners observe, discuss, and remember what these shadows do or say. But, what happens if we happen to be released from our chains? We stand up and look around, and we see a fire burning at the back of the cave. In front of the fire is a low wall, and on the wall puppets are manipulated, which cast the shadows that are all we have ever seen. So suddenly we realize that all the things we have ever known all our lives were not the true reality at all, but just shadows [skiai -- significantly the same word that occurs at the end of the Meno, when Plato says that the statesman who can teach his virtue and make another into a statesman will be like the only true reality compared with shadows (100a)]. But there is more. There is an exit from the cave, which leads up to the surface. There we are at first blinded, but then begin to see trees, animals, etc. which in the cave were only represented by puppets. Eventually we notice that all those things exist and are knowable because of the sun. Returning to the cave, we would at first be blinded by the darkness, and our fellow prisoners would have no idea what we were doing or saying -- they would probably regard us as insane -- but we could not, of course, take them seriously for an instant.

In modern terms, Plato's description of the cave bears an uncanny resemblance to a movie theater. There we do indeed sit in the dark with our fellow movie goers, not looking at them but at the screen. Instead of a fire and puppets, we have a projector light and film. Instead of shadows, we have focused images -- much more compelling than shadows, but something about whose possibility Plato did not have a clue. But what we see on the movie screen, in turn, usually bears no more resemblance to reality than what Plato expected from the shadows on the cave wall.

The freed prisoner is, of course, the philosopher. The cave itself represents the world of Becoming and its fire the physical sun in the sky. The world on the surface outside of the cave represents the world of Being, where the individual objects are the Forms. Two peculiarities of the Allegory of the Cave, however, are the status of the shadows, as opposed to the puppets, and the nature of the sun. If the puppets are the actual objects in the world of Becoming, then the shadows must be people's opinions. We do mostly go through life paying attention to people's opinions rather than to the things themselves, so that is suitable. Plato, of course, thinks that even the things themselves are like shadows of the Forms. The sun, in turn, is a unique kind of Form: the Form of the Good. This is a unique moment in Plato's writings, since he does not elsewhere single out any Form as different in kind from the others, and he does not elsewhere pay any sustained attention to the good as such. He has already said in the Republic (at 506) that he cannot really give a definition of the good. He will only give us an analogy, that the good is to knowledge and truth what the sun is to light and sight.

Then what gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the mind the power of knowing is the Form of the Good. It is the cause of knowledge and truth, and you will be right to think of it as being itself known, and yet as being something other than, and even higher than, knowledge and truth. And just as it was right to think of light and sight as being like the sun, but wrong to think of them as being the sun itself, so here again it is right to think of knowledge and truth as being like the Good, but wrong to think of either of them as being the Good, which must be given a still higher place of honor....

The Good therefore may be said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also of their existence and reality; yet it is not itself identical with reality, but is beyond reality, and superior to it in dignity and power. [508e-509b, Lee translation, p.273.]

This is suggestive and intriguing, and Plato's own students wanted to hear more. Once Plato even promised to give a lecture on the good. But when the day came, all he did was do a geometry proof. So we are left at a kind of incomplete pinnacle of Plato's thought, with a sense of how important in reality the good is, but with mostly metaphorical statements about it. That was either the best Plato thought he could do or, like the Pythagoreans, he thought that his most serious views should not be spoken in public. Later the Neoplatonists would simply conclude that the Form of the Good was God, but there is no hint of that in Plato. He goes so far and then, like Parmenides, leaves us to continue the quest.

Plato's actual argument for why we should be just suffers from a fundamental misconception. He is always recommending justice from prudential considerations, i.e. we should be just because of our own best interest, either to be happy (the main argument) or to avoid the punishment of the gods (in the Myth of Er). If there is a difference between moral and merely prudent action, however, Plato has misdirected us. Instead, morality may require actions that are not in our self-interest. This is agreed upon by Immanuel Kant, Confucius, and even the Bhagavad Gita. Thus, Confucius holds that righteouness, , is to do what is right, regardless of the consequences. That is how Kant defined the "categorical imperative," the moral command (the imperative) that is to no ulterior purpose (i.e. it is categorical). Similarly, the Gita says, "Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for a reward; but never cease to do thy work" [2:47]. This might not satisfy Thrasymachus; but then, with someone of that sort, while we may argue the issues, the ultimate point is not alone to persuade him, but to stop him. That is the surest way to prevent the tyrant from being happy.

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Plato's Republic, Note
Machiavelli's View of Government

In his Discourses Upon the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, Niccolò Machiavelli, more famous for The Prince, describes the "various kinds of states" in a fashion similar, but in some important ways different, from Plato. Plato's description (at left) is really a thought experiment of how his ideal state, the Aristocracy of philosophers, would decay. His description is generational, that unworthy children fail to perpetuate the virtues of their parents. Thus, the Timarchy is produced by children who value themselves just for their honor and ability to use force, the Oligarchy is produced by children who decide to use their force to become wealthy, the Democracy is produced by children who think they have a right to that wealth just by being citizens, and the Tyranny is produced by children whose total lack of discipline and restraint produces a chaos that is only ended by one of their number seizing personal power. True to his generation, the tyrant uses his power to take whatever he wants. Plato's description is often psychologically true of many specific events and persons in history.

Machiavelli's description is also generational, but it also introduces another principle, and it results in a kind of conclusion foreign to Plato's thinking. The principle that Machiavelli introduces is simply that of a classification by the distribution to power, i.e. power is exercised by one, by a few, or by the many. This is a useful device, and is used here in the theory of Liberties in Three Dimensions. Thus, power exercised by one is a Monarchy, by a few, an Aristocarcy, and by the many, a Democracy. However, Machiavelli allows that there are good and bad versions of each of these, reserves these terms for the good forms, and introduces "Tyranny," "Oligarchy," and "Anarchy" for the bad versions of rule by one, the few, and the many, respectively. These terms are conveniently schematic and descriptive and ignore a utopian possibility like Plato's government of philosophers.

Upon the scheme, Machiavelli imposes his generational thought experiment, beginning with a "state of nature" origin for Monarchy of a sort that we still find later in Thomas Hobbes. The good monarch, however, is succeeded by corrupt rulers who begin to use their power for their own gain, becoming tyrants. The tyrant is then overthrown, and the rebels decide to retain power among themselves collectively, producing an Aristocracy. The aristocrats are succeeded by a generation that again begins to use its power to oppress the people, producing the Oligarchy, and so they end up getting overthrown like the tyrant. Now political power passes to the people, making for Democracy. Unlike Plato, Machiavelli, does not view democracy per se as worse than the other "good" forms of government. Indeed, Machiavelli includes a chapter in the Discourses (Book II Chapter LVIII) on how "The Multitude is Wiser and More Constant than a Prince." The propensity of Democracy to decay into Anarchy, which Machiavelli describes in much the same terms as Plato, is therefore no more a failing of Democracy than the similar propensities were of Monarchy and Aristocracy. The only difference might be in the next step: Plato sees a tyrant benefiting from the Anarchy produced by Democracy, while Machiavelli brings his thought experiment full circle by having Anarchy, which mimics the "state of nature," followed once again by Monarchy. As a matter of historical fact, we have no difficulty finding chaotic conditions that led to both tyrants (Hitler) and virtuous monarchs (Diocletian).

Machiavelli's thought experiment, like Plato's, would seem to be entirely pessimistic. Plato's only hope would be his government of philosophers where precautions are taken to prevent the principle of hereditary succession from beginning. Machiavelli also sees hereditary succession as a source of evil; but, as a realist and a historian, he does not imagine that it can be long prevented, especially when people are inherently bad. His solution for the corruption of the "good" governments must therefore come from a different direction.

His inspiration turns out to be a historical one, the Roman Republic, which, although followed by the Empire, nevertheless endured for several centuries and accomplished great things. The strength of the Republic, according to Machiavelli, depended on its combination of the devices of the "good" forms of government:

I say, therefore, that all these kinds of government are harmful in consequence of the short life of the three good ones and the viciousness of the three bad ones. Having noted these failings, prudent lawgivers rejected each of these forms individually and chose instead to combine them into one that would be firmer and more stable than any, since each form would serve as a check upon the others in a state having monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy at one and the same time. [The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli, With selections from THE DISCOURSES, translated by Daniel Donno, Bantam, 1981, p. 94, boldface added]

The Roman Republic thus had monarchical authority in the Consuls, aristocratic authority in the Senate, and popular authority in the Tribunes. In Machiavelli's phrase, "...since each form would serve as a check upon the others," we see the introduction of the idea of checks and balances as means to prevent the corruption and oppression of government. If people cannot be good, then we must have a government where the interests and power of some work to secure the conscientiousness and honesty of others. This idea is later expanded by 17th and 18th century thinkers, until we have the great system of the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary, and the States and the Federal Governments, designed as checks upon each other in the United States Constitution. That this system has now failed to actually protect freedom and virtue is a consequence of historical circumstances, failure in the original design, and changing, fallacious, unsympathetic ideology. Nevertheless, it is clear that the principle is sound and is able to secure responsible government for extended periods. The fallacy in Plato is exposed: the problem is not who is in power, since none is wise.

Over time, of course, what we see is that the ingenuity of those in power never ceases to undermine the limitations of their power, and the cupidity of some citizens never tires in the hope of extracting the substance of their less politically powerful fellows. Our challenge, then, is simply to perfect the design and prepare the ground so that, when the next Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson come along, it may be put to the test -- hopefully to even more enduring results.

As it happens, Machiavelli was not the first to admire Roman government as succeeding through the sort of "mixed" constitution that had originally been described by Aristotle. Such a view of Rome began at least with the Greek historian Polybius (c.200-120 BC), who saw the Roman Republic in one of its more successful periods (as a hostage from the Achaean League), before civil wars began to unhinge its institutions.

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Machiavelli and the Moral Dilemma of Statecraft

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Copyright (c) 1999, 2003, 2004 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

Plato's Republic, Note
The Ring of Gyges and Hollow Man

The "Ring of Gyges," which confers invisibility, is used in Plato's Republic as a thought experiment to argue that a person with such a ring, whether previously just or unjust, would use it to commit as many crimes as necessary to get what they want [Book II, 359d]. Plato does not agree with this. The argument of the rest of the Republic, consequently, is that the just man would not be tempted by invisibility to commit crimes, because he would know that crime itself makes one unhappy and that he is better off to remain just.

The issue of the ring has recently emerged in popular culture, with the Paul Verhoeven movie Hollow Man [Columbia Pictures, 2000]. In publicity and documentary interviews, Verhoeven explicitly invokes Plato to explain the theme of the movie. However, the moral of the film appears to be quite the opposite of what Plato intended. When actor Kevin Bacon becomes invisible, he very soon begins committing rape and murder. It may be that this was the result of flaws in his character, but such a question is unanswered by the story, since there is no comparison with anyone who resists the temptations of the power conferred by invisibility. One is left to suppose that anyone would act this way, and Verhoeven appears to see that as, indeed, the point. We would not know from Verhoeven's statements that Plato had something different in mind.

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Catline Conspiracy ,a threat to Cicero; Roman Empire

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Conspiracy of Catiline
The failed treason plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina

By N.S. Gill, About.com Guide
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During the time of Caesar and Cicero, in the final decades of the Roman Republic, a group of aristocrats, led by a disgruntled patrician named Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), conspired against the republic. Catiline had been thwarted in his ambitions for the top political post of consul, and charged with abuse of power while serving as governor. He gathered into his conspiracy other disaffected senators and equestrians, and raised an army.

Catiline's plan failed. Read what happened.
The Conspiracy Revealed
On the night of 18 October, 63 B.C., Crassus brought letters to Cicero warning of a plot against Rome that was led by Catiline. This plot came to be known as the Catilinarian Conspiracy.
The Senate is Alarmed
The following day, Cicero, who was consul, read the letters in the Senate. The Senate ordered further investigation and on the 21st, passed the Senatus Consultum Ultimum 'final resolution of the senate'. This gave absolute imperium 'power' to the consuls and created a state of martial law.
The Conspirators Stir up the Countryside
News arrived that slaves were revolting in Capua (in Campania, see map) and Apulia. There was panic in Rome. Praetors were instructed to raise troops. Throughout these events, Catiline remained in Rome; his allies stirring up the trouble in the countryside. But on the 6 of November Catiline announced plans to leave the city to take control of the revolt.

When Cicero started delivering a series of inflammatory speeches against Catiline, the conspirators planned to retaliate by having a tribune stir up the people against Cicero and his unjust accusations. Fires were to be set, and Cicero was to be assassinated.
Ambushing the Conspirators
Meanwhile, the conspirators had approached the Allobroges, a tribe of Gauls. The Allobroges thought better of allying themselves with the Roman traitors and reported the proposal and other details of the conspiracy to their Roman patron, who, in turn, reported to Cicero. The Allobroges were instructed to pretend to go along with the conspirators.

Cicero arranged for troops to ambush the conspirators with the envoys (false allies) at the Milvian Bridge.
Pater Patriae
The conspirators who were caught were executed without trial in December 63. For these summary executions Cicero was honored, hailed as savior of his country (pater patriae).

The Senate then mobilzed troops to face Catiline at Pistoria where Catiline was killed, thereby ending the Conspiracy of Catiline.
Cicero
Cicero produced four orations against Catiline that are considered some of his best rhetorical pieces. He had been supported in the decision to execute by other senators, including the strict moralist and enemy of Caesar, Cato. Since the Senatus Consultum Ultimum had been passed, Cicero technically held the power to do whatever was necessary, including execute, but likewise, he was the one responsible for the deaths of Roman citizens.

Later, Cicero paid a high price for what he did to save the country. Another enemy of Cicero, Publius Clodius, pushed through a law that prosecuted Romans who executed other Romans without trial. The law was clearly designed to give Clodius a way of bringing Cicero to trial. Instead of facing trial, Cicero went into exile.

Sources:
"Notes on the 'First Catilinarian Conspiracy'" Erich S. Gruen Classical Philology, Vol. 64, No. 1. (Jan., 1969), pp. 20-24.
Chronology of Catiline's Conspiracy
Lucius Sergius Catilina
(www.london-oratory.org/The%20Classics%20Department%20Website/catiline.htm) Catiline
Read a Translation of the Conspiracy of Catiline

Conspiracy of Catiline

Suggested Reading

Conspiracy and Cicero
Rome and Roman Empire Maps
End of the Roman Republic

Roman Political Structure

Early Roman Power Structure

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Sallust [Conspiracy of Catiline]
Catiline - Who Is Catiline
Cicero Against Catiline and Clodius
Why Did Cicero Have to Die?

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Plato Justice in Republic

[FROM THE REPUBLIC]

BUT now we have to look for justice. Find the other three cardinal virtues first, and then justice will be distinguishable. Wisdom is in the guardians; if they be wise, the whole state will be wise. Courage we find in the soldiers; courage is the true estimation of danger, and that has been ingrained in them by their education. Temperance, called mastery of self, is really the mastery of the better over the baser qualities; as in our state the better class controls the inferior. Temperance would seem to lie in the harmonious inter-relation of the different classes. Obviously, the remaining virtue of the state is the constant performance of his own particular function in the state, and not his neighbour's, by each member of the state. Let us see how that works out in the individual.

Shall we not find that there are three several qualities in the individual, each of which must in like manner do its own business; the intellectual, the passionate or spirited and the lustful? They must be separate, because one part of a thing cannot be doing contradictory things at the same time; your lusts bid you to do what your intelligence forbids; and the emotional quality is distinct from both desire and reason, though in alliance with reason. Well here you have wisdom and courage in the intellectual and spiritual parts, temperance in their mastery over desire; and justice is the virtue of the soul as a whole; of each part never failing to perform its own function and that alone. To ask, now, whether justice or injustice is the more profitable becomes ridiculous.

Now, we shall find that virtue is one, but that vice has several forms; as there is but one form of perfect state--ours--whether it happens to be called a monarchy if there be but one guardian, or an aristocracy if there be but one guardian, or an aristocracy if there be more; and, as it has four principal imperfect forms, so there are four main vices.

Here Glaucon and Adeimentus refused to let me go on; I had shirked a difficulty. What about women and children? My saying that the soldiers were to live in common might mean anything. What kind of communism was I demanding?

Well, there are two different questions: What is desirable? and What is possible? First, then, our defenders are our watchdogs. Glaucon knows all about dogs; we don't differentiate between males and females; the latter hunt with the pack. If women are similarly to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education in music and gymnastic. But should they share masculine employments? Do they differ from men in such a way that they should not? Women bear children, and men beget them; but apart from that, the differences are really only in degrees of capacity, not essential distinctions of quality; even as men differ among themselves. The natures being the same, the education must be the same and the same careers must be open.

BUT a second and more alarming wave threatens us: Community of wives and children. "You must prove both the possibility and the desirability of that." Men and women must be trained together and lived together, but not in licentiousness. They must be mated with the utmost care for procreation, the best being paired at due seasons, nominally by lot, and for the occasion. The offspring of the selected will have a common nursery; the mothers will not know which were their own children. Parentage will be permissible only between twenty-five and fifty-five, and between twenty and forty. The children begotten in the same batch of espousals will be brothers and sisters.

The absence of 'mine' and 'thine' will ensure unity, because it abolishes the primary cause of discord; common maintenance by the state removes all temptation either to meanness or cringing.

As to practicability: communism is suitable for war. The youngsters will be taken to watch any fighting; cowards will be degraded; valour will be honoured, and death on the field, with other supreme services to the state, will rank the hero among demigods. Against Greeks war must be conducted as against our own kith and kin. But as to the possibility of all this--this third threatening wave is the most terrific of all.

Plato's Justice

In his classic work, The Republic, Plato puts forth a definition of justice that would be considered rather counterintuitive today. He argues that justice in both the state and the individual is basically "minding one's own business", or performing the function for which one is best suited and not interfering with others doing the same. In this essay I will explore why Plato thinks this is the case and how his definition is different from most people's idea of justice today.

Plato begins by saying that the ideal state must have the four traditional virtues of wisdom, courage, self-discipline and justice. Furthermore, he argues, the first three qualities are present in the state because they are present in the individual citizens of the state. In other words, because the Guardians are wise and the Auxiliaries are brave, the state is thereby both wise and brave. The state can be said to have self-discipline insofar as there is agreement among the three classes (Guardians, Auxiliaries, and businessmen), about who should rightfully rule. Having identified these three virtues within the state, Plato concludes that whatever quality is left over without a label must be the quality which makes the others possible: justice.

Plato maintains that justice is the requirement set forth at the beginning of the dialogue, that one man should do the one job for which he is naturally best fitted and should not try to do anyone else's job. That is, "Justice consists in minding your




ol. At the end of this lengthy analysis, Plato is able to state that the basic pattern of justice is the same within the individual as within the state. It exists when each part is performing its natural role, whether that is giving or obeying orders (or causing or suppressing desire), and not trying to gain control if it has no right to do so. Plato contends that if a man is controlled by reason, with spirit and appetite properly subordinated, he will act in a just manner. However, if a man is controlled by appetite, or even spirit, he will act in an unjust manner. For instance, he says a just man would not steal or betray a friend or commit adultery because these are the acts of a man controlled by appetite, whereas in the just man each element of his personality is performing its proper function and, in effect, minding its own business. Any kind of "civil war" among the elements of either the state or the individual in which one part rebels against the whole and seeks to gain unnatural control leads to ignorance, cowardice, and indiscipline - in short, injustice. Plato concludes that justice, therefore, is a principle whose "real concern is not with external actions, but with a man's inward self, his true concern and in

Category: Philosophy - P

public administration

WRITER: KAMUNDI E’M
UN IVERSITY OF NAIROBI
CPS 241:PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
COMPARE AND CONTRAST PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
The term public administration has been defined differently by different scholars since it is a field of inquiry with a diverse scope. For instance, Woodrow Wilson defined public administration as, a systematic and efficient execution of public law. This definition implies that public administration is concerned by public law in public organization. Therefore, public administration is the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work, with the fundamental goal to advance management and policies so that government can function well.
On the other hand, Private administration refers to the individuals and processes that carry out the manufacturing, marketing, retailing, and providing of goods and services in exchange for payment.
The essence of this paper is to compare and contrast public administration versus private administration, as well as their similarities and differences.

DIFFRENCES BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
 Public administration encompasses the individuals and processes that carry out laws, rules, and regulations that are issued by legislatures or other elected officials. While Private administration refers to the individuals and processes that carry out the manufacturing, marketing, retailing, and providing of goods and services in exchange for payment.
 In public administration, the decision must be and should be a social organization in which diversity of racial or religious or ethnic or cultural groups is tolerated . That’s means all key decisions are made in a politicized environment whereby there is maximum participation. A decision making hierarchy where consensus must be achieved at each level, ideally, an informed decision. While private administration's decision-making is much simpler- it's monopolistic or close to monopolistic. Thus a goal is clearly defined since decision-making would avoid any conflicts in interest.
 Private organizations are driven by profit motive while Public organizations are defined by public interest. Private administration has an ultimate mission in pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues while public administration mission is to enact public policies which are ambiguous and vague, but the enactment of these policies make public administration's purpose to be more ambiguous.
 Public administration is meant to provide public services and goods if the public requires it, while private administration is established for providing consumer’s goods and services as long as consumer can afford it.
 Information in public administration is subject to full or partial disclosure, depending on the nature of information and government agency, unless if the data involves national security. While information in private administration is not accessible to the public. Government agencies may only require private administrations to report certain data, such as earnings, employee demographics, time records, among other related data required by certain government agencies.
 Public administration must operate in public eye. Public administrator’s actions are constantly subjected to public scrutiny, carrying out public policy and also responding to public demands. While an administrator in a private administration may work in relative obscurity.
 Public officials tend to have no special motivations but rather maximize work for self-interest as power, prestige and income or considerations of the public interest. While private officials are highly motivated by various ways such as promotions, awards, appreciation among others.
 Tasks in public institution are decided by politicians and executed by administration. But in private institutions tasks are decided by their owners or associated personnel and executed by the same people.
SIMILARITIES IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
 Political aspect is apparent in both public and private .Policy decisions normally affect the companies directly or indirectly, through laws and regulations and financial support whether they are private or public administration.
 Both public and private administration operates within defined laws and acts from various government agencies. Both public and private institution are subject to specific laws from particular government agencies.
 Both are characterized by production of goods and services to either citizens or consumers. Private administration produces goods and products for their consumers. Similarly in public administration, goods and services are produced for public.
 Public and private officers are both guaranteed private lives. Despite high level of publicness with public officers, they are however guaranteed private life and as well as with private officers whereby their private life is highly guaranteed.
 There is a similar flow of power which is hierarchically structured from top to bottom in both private and public administration. Authority structure is organized hierarchically reflecting pyramid structure. Commands and instructions are from top downwards the chain of authority.
 Superior-sub-ordinates relationship is clear in both public and private administration. In both environments sub-ordinates are expected to receive and obey commands from their superior(s). For efficient and effective administrative work must commands must be obeyed and incase otherwise, there is a risk of sanctions and failures.
 There is a clearly defined allocation of responsibilities and functions. Both public and private officers and personnel are given various responsibilities and functions based on their qualification. Therefore each and everyone performs tasks that they are best qualified. Thus specialization plays a fundamental role in both sectors regardless of whether is public or private.
 There a common process of grouping activities into departments in both public and private administration. Division of labour creates specialists who need coordination. This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments which have functions of similar nature. There are various departments of a private or public administration which include the following depending on the nature of organization:
• Functional departmentalization - Grouping activities by functions performed. for example human resources, IT, accounting, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, and engineering. Functional departmentalization can be used in all types of organizations.
• Product departmentalization - Grouping activities by product line. Tasks can also be grouped according to a specific product or service, thus placing all activities related to the product or the service under one manager.
• Customer departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of common customers or types of customers. Jobs may be grouped according to the type of customer served by the organization. The assumption is that customers in each department have a common set of problems and needs that can best be met by specialists.
• Geographic departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of territory..
• Process departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of product or service or customer or citizens flow..
Owing to the complexity of tasks and the competitive environment in which organizations operate, they often use a combination of the above-mentioned methods in departmentalization.
 Administration is based on written documents making both public and private offices the centre of modern business and modern government. Therefore technology plays an important role in processing data to useful information. Specific government agencies may require some information from private sector or whole information from public sector.






REFERENCE
 Wilson, Woodrow. June, 1887. The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2
 Drucker, Peter (1954), The Practice of Management, Harper, New York
 Gulick, Luther and Urwick, Lyndall (1937) (eds), Papers on the Science of Administration, Institute of Public Administration, New York
 Koontz, Harold & Cyril J. O'Donnell (1964), Principles of Management, McGraw-Hill, New York
 March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A. (1958), Organizations, John Wiley & Sons
 Haroon A. Khan. Introduction to Public Administration. University Press of America, 2008
 Denhardt , Robert B. and Janet Vinzant Denhardt (2000). "The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering." Public Administration Review 60(6)

COMPARE AND CONTRAST PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
Public administration is the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. Public administration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Public administration is both an academic discipline and a field of practice; the latter is depicted in this picture of US federal public servants at a meeting.
Public administration is the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work.[1] As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal...is to advance management and policies so that government can function." [2] Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs";[3] the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day";[4] and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies." [5]
Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programmes as well as the behavior of officials (usually non-elected) formally responsible for their conduct" [6] Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public administrators, including police officers, municipal budget analysts, HR benefits administrators, city managers, Census analysts, and cabinet secretaries.[citation needed] Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government.[7]
In the US, civil servants and academics such as Woodrow Wilson promoted American civil service reform in the 1880s, moving public administration into academia.[8] However, "until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy" there was not "much interest in a theory of public administration." [9] The field is multidisciplinary in character; one of the various proposals for public administration's sub-fields sets out five pillars, including human resources, organizational theory, policy analysis and statistics, budgeting, and ethics.[10]
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Definitions
• 2 History
o 2.1 Antiquity to the 19th century
o 2.2 US in the 1940s
 2.2.1 Post-World War II to the 1970s
o 2.3 1980s-1990s
o 2.4 Late 1990s-2000s
• 3 Core branches
• 4 Decision-making models
o 4.1 Niskanen's budget-maximizing
o 4.2 Dunleavy's bureau-shaping
• 5 As an academic field
o 5.1 Comparative public administration
o 5.2 Master's degrees
o 5.3 Doctoral degrees
o 5.4 Notable scholars
• 6 International public administration
• 7 See also
o 7.1 Societies for public administration
• 8 References
• 9 External links
• 10 Suggested reading

[edit] Definitions


Even in the digital age, public servants tend to work with both paper documents and computer files (pictured here is Stephen C. Dunn, Deputy Comptroller for the US Navy)
One scholar claims that "public administration has no generally accepted definition", because the "scope of the subject is so great and so debatable that it is easier to explain than define".[11] Public administration is a field of study (i.e., a discipline) and an occupation. There is much disagreement about whether the study of public administration can properly be called a discipline, largely because of the debate over whether public administration is a subfield of political science of a subfield of administrative science".[12] Scholar Donald Kettl is among those who view public administration "as a subfield within political science".[13]
The North American Industry Classification System definition of the Public Administration (NAICS 91) sector states that public administration "... comprises establishments primarily engaged in activities of a governmental nature, that is, the enactment and judicial interpretation of laws and their pursuant regulations, and the administration of programs based on them". This includes "Legislative activities, taxation, national defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and international assistance, and the administration of government programs are activities that are purely governmental in nature".[14]
[edit] History
[edit] Antiquity to the 19th century
Dating back to Antiquity, Pharaohs, kings and emperors have required pages, treasurers, and tax collectors to administer the practical business of government. Prior to the 19th century, staffing of most public administrations was rife with nepotism, favoritism, and political patronage, which was often referred to as a "spoils system". Public administrators have been the "eyes and ears" of rulers until relatively recently. In medieval times, the abilities to read and write, add and subtract were as dominated by the educated elite as public employment. Consequently, the need for expert civil servants whose ability to read and write formed the basis for developing expertise in such necessary activities as legal record-keeping, paying and feeding armies and levying taxes. As the European Imperialist age progressed and the militarily powers extended their hold over other continents and people, the need for a sophisticated public administration grew.
The eighteenth-century noble, King Frederick William I of Prussia, created professorates in Cameralism in an effort to train a new class of public administrators. The universities of Frankfurt an der Oder and University of Hallewere Prussian institutions emphasizing economic and social disciplines, with the goal of societal reform. Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi was the most well-known professor of Cameralism. Thus, from a Western European perspective, Classic, Medieval, and Enlightenment-era scholars formed the foundation of the discipline that has come to be called public administration.
Lorenz von Stein, an 1855 German professor from Vienna, is considered the founder of the science of public administration in many parts of the world. In the time of Von Stein, public administration was considered a form of administrative law, but Von Stein believed this concept too restrictive. Von Stein taught that public administration relies on many prestablished disciplines such as sociology, political science, administrative law and public finance. He called public administration an integrating science, and stated that public administrators should be concerned with both theory and practice. He argued that public administration is a science because knowledge is generated and evaluated according to the scientific method.
Modern American public administration is an extension of democratic governance, justified by classic and liberal philosophers of the western world ranging from Aristotle to John Locke[15] to Thomas Jefferson[16][17]


Woodrow Wilson‎
In the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson is considered the father of public administration. He first formally recognized public administration in an 1887 article entitled "The Study of Administration." The future president wrote that "it is the object of administrative study to discover, first, what government can properly and successfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these proper things with the utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible cost either of money or of energy."[18] Wilson was more influential to the science of public administration than Von Stein, primarily due to an article Wilson wrote in 1887 in which he advocated four concepts:
• Separation of politics and administration
• Comparative analysis of political and private organizations
• Improving efficiency with business-like practices and attitudes toward daily operations
• Improving the effectiveness of public service through management and by training civil servants, merit-based assessment
The separation of politics and administration has been the subject of lasting debate. The different perspectives regarding this dichotomy contribute to differentiating characteristics of the suggested generations of public administration.
[edit] US in the 1940s
The separation of politics and administration advocated by Wilson continues to play a significant role in public administration today. However, the dominance of this dichotomy was challenged by second generation scholars, beginning in the 1940s. Luther Gulick's fact-value dichotomy was a key contender for Wilson's proposed politics-administration dichotomy. In place of Wilson's first generation split, Gulick advocated a "seamless web of discretion and interaction".[19]


Luther Gulick (1892–1993) was an expert on public administration.
Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick are two second-generation scholars. Gulick, Urwick, and the new generation of administrators built on the work of contemporary behavioral, administrative, and organizational scholars including Henri Fayol, Fredrick Winslow Taylor, Paul Appleby, Frank Goodnow, and Willam Willoughby. The new generation of organizational theories no longer relied upon logical assumptions and generalizations about human nature like classical and enlightened theorists.
Gulick developed a comprehensive, generic theory of organization that emphasized the scientific method, efficiency, professionalism, structural reform, and executive control. Gulick summarized the duties of administrators with an acronym; POSDCORB, which stands for planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. Fayol developed a systematic, 14-point, treatment of private management. Second-generation theorists drew upon private management practices for administrative sciences. A single, generic management theory bleeding the borders between the private and the public sector was thought to be possible. With the general theory, the administrative theory could be focused on governmental organizations.
[edit] Post-World War II to the 1970s
The mid-1940s theorists challenged Wilson and Gulick. The politics-administration dichotomy remained the center of criticism. In the 1960s and 1970s, government itself came under fire as ineffective, inefficient, and largely a wasted effort. The costly American intervention in Vietnam along with domestic scandals including the bugging of Democratic party headquarters (the 1974 Watergate scandal) are two examples of self-destructive government behavior that alienated citizens.


The costly Vietnam War alienated US citizens from their government (pictured is Operation Linebacker II, a US bombing operation in December 1972)
There was a call by citizens for efficient administration to replace ineffective, wasteful bureaucracy. Public administration would have to distance itself from politics to answer this call and remain effective. Elected officials supported these reforms. The Hoover Commission, chaired by University of Chicago professor Louis Brownlow, to examine reorganization of government. Brownlow subsequently founded the Public Administration Service (PAS) at the university, an organization which has provided consulting services to all levels of government until the 1970s.[citation needed]
[edit] 1980s-1990s
In the late 1980s, yet another generation of public administration theorists began to displace the last. The new theory, which came to be called New Public Management, was proposed by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government.[20] The new model advocated the use of private sector-style models, organizational ideas and values to improve the efficiency and service-orientation of the public sector. During the Clinton Administration (1992–2000), Vice President Al Gore adopted and reformed federal agencies using NPM approaches. In the 1990s, new public management became prevalent throughout the bureaucracies of the US, the UK and, to a lesser extent, in Canada.
Some modern authors define NPM as a combination of splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more fragmented agencies, encouraging competition between different public agencies, and encouraging competition between public agencies and private firms and using economic incentives lines (e.g., performance pay for senior executives or user-pay models).[21] NPM treats individuals as "customers" or "clients" (in the private sector sense), rather than as citizens.[22]
Some critics argue that the New Public Management concept of treating people as "customers" rather than "citizens" is an inappropriate borrowing from the private sector model, because businesses see customers are a means to an end (profit), rather than as the proprietors of government (the owners), opposed to merely the customers of a business (the patrons). In New Public Management, people are viewed as economic units not democratic participants. Nevertheless, the model is still widely accepted at all levels of government and in many OECD nations.
[edit] Late 1990s-2000s
In the late 1990s, Janet and Robert Denhardt proposed a new public service model in response to the dominance of NPM.[23] A successor to NPM is digital era governance, focusing on themes of reintegrating government responsibilities, needs-based holism (executing duties in cursive ways), and digitalization (exploiting the transformational capabilities of modern IT and digital storage).One example of this is openforum.com.au, an Australian non-for-profit eDemocracy project which invites politicians, senior public servants, academics, business people and other key stakeholders to engage in high-level policy debate.
Another new public service model is what has been called New Public Governance, an approach which includes a centralization of power; an increased number, role and influence of partisan-political staff; personal-politicization of appointments to the senior public service; and, the assumption that the public service is promiscuously partisan for the government of the day [24]
[edit] Core branches
In academia, the fields of public administration, consists of a number of sub-fields. Scholars have proposed a number of different sets of sub-fields. One of the proposed models uses five "pillars":[25]
• Human resource management is an in-house structure that ensures that public service staffing is done in an unbiased, ethical and values-based manner. The basic functions of the HR system are employee benefits, employee health care, compensation, etc.
• Organizational Theory in Public Administration is the study of the structure of governmental entities and the many particulars inculcated in them.
• Ethics in public administration serves as a normative approach to decision making.
• Policy analysis serves as an empirical approach to decision making.
• Public budgeting is the activity within a government that seeks to allocate scarce resources among unlimited demands.
[edit] Decision-making models

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

Given the array of duties public administrators find themselves performing, the professional administrator might refer to a theoretical framework from which he or she might work. Indeed, many public and private administrative scholars have devised and modified decision-making models.
[edit] Niskanen's budget-maximizing
In 1971, Professor William Niskanen proposed a rational choice variation which he called the "budget-maximizing model". He claimed that rational bureaucrats will universally seek to increase the budgets of their units (to enhance their stature), thereby contributing to state growth and increased public expenditure. Niskanen served on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors; his model underpinned what has been touted as curtailed public spending and increased privatization. However, budgeted expenditures and the growing deficit during the Reagan administration is evidence of a different reality. A range of pluralist authors have critiqued Niskanen's universalist approach. These scholars have argued that officials tend also to be motivated by considerations of the public interest.
[edit] Dunleavy's bureau-shaping
The bureau-shaping model, a modification of Niskanen, holds that rational bureaucrats only maximize the part of their budget that they spend on their own agency's operations or give to contractors and interest groups. Groups that are able to organize a "flowback" of benefits to senior officials would, according to this theory, receive increased budgetary attention. For instance, rational officials will get no benefit from paying out larger welfare checks to millions of low-income citizens because this does not serve a bureaucrats' goals. Accordingly, one might instead expect a jurisdiction to seek budget increases for defense and security purposes in place of domestic social programming. If we refer back to Reagan once again, Dunleavy's bureau shaping model accounts for the alleged decrease in the "size" of government while spending did not, in fact, decrease. Domestic entitlement programming was financially de-emphasized for military research and personnel.
[edit] As an academic field
See also: Master of Public Administration and Doctor of Public Administration
In the United States, the academic field of public administration draws heavily on political science and administrative law. Some MPA programs include economics courses to give students a background in microeconomic issues (markets, rationing mechanisms, etc) and macroeconomic issues (e.g., national debt). Scholars such as John A. Rohr write of a long history behind the constitutional legitimacy of government bureaucracy. In Europe (notably in Britain and Germany), the divergence of the field from other disciplines can be traced to the 1720s continental university curriculum. Formally, official academic distinctions were made in the 1910s and 1890s, respectively.
The goals of the field of public administration are related to the democratic values of improving equality, justice, security, efficiency, effectiveness of public services usually in a non-profit, non-taxable venue; business administration, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with taxable profit. For a field built on concepts (accountability, governance, decentralization, clientele), these concepts are often ill-defined and typologies often ignore certain aspects of these concepts (Dubois & Fattore 2009).[26]
One minor tradition that the more specific term "public management" refers to ordinary, routine or typical management concerns, in the context of achieving public good. Others argue that "public management" refers to a newer, market-driven perspective on the operation of government. This latter view is often called "new public management" by its advocates. New Public Management represents a reform attempt, aimed at reemphasizing the professional nature of the field[citation needed]. This will replace the academic, moral or disciplinary emphasis. Some theorists advocate a bright line differentiation of the professional field from related academic disciplines like political science and sociology; it remains interdisciplinary in nature.
One public administration scholar, Donald Kettl, argues that "...public administration sits in a disciplinary backwater", because "...[f]or the last generation, scholars have sought to save or replace it with fields of study like implementation, public management, and formal bureaucratic theory".[27] Kettl states that "public administration, as a subfield within political science...is struggling to define its role within the discipline".[28] He notes two problems with public administration: it "has seemed methodologically to lag behind" and "the field’s theoretical work too often seems not to define it"-indeed, "some of the most interesting recent ideas in public administration have come from outside the field".[29]
Public administration theory is the domain in which discussions of the meaning and purpose of government, the role of bureaucracy in supporting democratic governments, budgets, governance, and public affairs takes place. In recent years, public administration theory has periodically connoted a heavy orientation toward critical theory and postmodern philosophical notions of government, governance, and power. However, many public administration scholars support a classic definition of the term emphasizing constitutionality, public service, bureaucratic forms of organization, and hierarchical government.
[edit] Comparative public administration
Comparative public administration is defined as the study of administrative systems in a comparative fashion or the study of public administration in other countries.[30] Another definition for "comparative public administration" is the "quest for patterns and regularities in administrative action and behavior".[31] There have been several issues which have hampered the development of comparative public administration, including: the major differences between Western countries and developing countries; the lack of curriculum on this subfield in public administration programs; and the lack of success in developing theoretical models which can be scientifically tested.[32]
Comparative public administration studies can compare different types of states at the same time, such as religious states vs. secular states or authoritarian states vs. democratic states. Even though public administration systems vary a great deal, there are some common elements which they all share which can be compared, such as the recruitment of bureaucrats and common programs which all governments have (e.g., a taxation regime) and common roles (e.g., rule-making).[33]
[edit] Master's degrees


The Knapp-Sanders Building, the home of the School of Government at the University of North Carolina.
As a field, public administration can be compared to business administration, and the master of public administration (MPA) viewed as similar to a master of business administration (MBA) for those wishing to pursue governmental or non-profit careers. An MPA often emphasizes substantially different ethical and sociological criteria that are traditionally secondary to that of profit for business administrators. The MPA is related to similar graduate level government studies including MA programs in public affairs, public policy, and political science. Differences often include program emphases on policy analysis techniques or other topical focuses such as the study of international affairs as opposed to focuses on constitutional issues such as separation of powers, administrative law, problems of governance and power, and participatory democracy.
[edit] Doctoral degrees
There are two types of doctoral degrees in public administration: the Doctor of Public Administration and the Ph.D. in Public Administration. The Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) is an applied-research doctoral degree in the field of public administration, focusing on practice. The DPA requires a dissertation and significant coursework beyond the Masters level. Upon successful completion of the doctoral requirements, the title of "Doctor" is awarded and the post-nominals of D.P.A. are often added. Some universities use the Ph.D. as their doctoral degree in public administration (e.g., Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada).
[edit] Notable scholars
Notable scholars of public administration have come from a range of fields. In the period before public administration existed as its own independent discipline, scholars contributing to the field came from economics, sociology, management, political science, administrative law, and, other related fields. More recently, scholars from public administration and public policy have contributed important studies and theories. For a longer list of academics and theorists, see the List of notable public administration scholars article.
[edit] International public administration
There are several organizations that are active. The oldest is the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA). Based in Brussels, Belgium, IASIA is an association of organizations and individuals whose activities and interests focus on public administration and management. The activities of its members include education and training of administrators and managers. It is the only worldwide scholarly association in the field of public management.[34] Also the International Committee of the US-based National Association of School of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) has developed a number of relationships around the world. They include sub regional and National forums like CLAD, INPAE and NISPAcee, APSA, ASPA.[35]
The Center for Latin American Administration for Development (CLAD), based in Caracas, Venezuela, this regional network of schools of public administration set up by the governments in Latin America is the oldest in the region.[36] The Institute is a founding member and played a central role in organizing the Inter-American Network of Public Administration Education (INPAE). Created in 2000, this regional network of schools is unique in that it is the only organization to be composed of institutions from North and Latin America and the Caribbean working in public administration and policy analysis. It has more than 49 members from top research schools in various countries throughout the hemisphere.[37]
NISPAcee is a network of experts, scholars and practitioners who work in the field of public administration in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Russian Federation and the Caucasus and Central Asia.[38] The US public administration and political science associations like NASPA, American Political Science Association (APSA)[39] and American Society of Public Administration (ASPA).[40] These organizations have helped to create the fundamental establishment of modern public administration.
[edit] See also

Book:Public administration

Books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.
• Administration (government)
• Administrative law
• Budgeting
• Bureaucracy
• Civil society
• Doctor of Public Administration
• Municipal government
• Politics
• Professional administration
• Public management — focusing on the efficiency and effectiveness of a government
• Public administration theory
• Public policy
• Public policy schools
• Theories of administration
o Max Weber
[edit] Societies for public administration
• American Society for Public Administration
• Chinese Public Administration Society
• Institute for Public Administration in Canada
• Dutch Association for Public Administration
• Royal Institute for Public Administration
• Korea Institute of Public Administration
[edit] References

Constructs such as ibid. and loc. cit. are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title.

1. ^ Random House Unabridged Dictionary
2. ^ Handbook of Public Administration. Eds Jack Rabin, W. Bartley Hildreth, and Gerard J. Miller. 1989: Marcel Dekker, NY. p. iii
3. ^ Robert and Janet Denhardt. Public Administration: An Action Orientation. 6th Ed. 2009: Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont CA.
4. ^ Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. The Politics of the Administrative Process. Washington D.C.: CQ Press.
5. ^ Jerome B. McKinney and Lawrence C. Howard. Public Administration: Balancing Power and Accountability. 2nd Ed. 1998: Praeger Publishing, Westport, CT. p. 62
6. ^ UN Economic and Social Council. Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Definition of basic concepts and terminologies in governance and public administration. 2006
7. ^ Ibid
8. ^ Wilson, Woodrow. June, 1887. The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2.
9. ^ Public administration. (2010) In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
10. ^ Shafritz, J.M., A.C. Hyde. 2007. Classics of Public Administration. Wadsworth: Boston.
11. ^ Kernaghan, Kenneth. "Public administration" in The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available online at: http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006540Accessed August 20, 2010.
12. ^ Kernaghan, Kenneth. "Public administration" in The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available online at: http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006540Accessed August 20, 2010.
13. ^ THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION by Donald F. Kettl. Available online at: http://www.h-net.org/~pubadmin/tfreport/kettl.pdf Accessed on October 25, 2010.
14. ^ Definition Public Administration (NAICS 91). Available online at: http://www.ic.gc.ca/cis-sic/cis-sic.nsf/IDE/cis-sic91defe.html Accessed October 25, 2010
15. ^ Second Treatise on Government
16. ^ Declaration of Independence
17. ^ Ryan, M., Mejia, B., and Georgiev, M. (Ed). 2010. AM Gov 2010. McGraw Hill: New York.
18. ^ Wilson, W. 1887.
19. ^ Fry, Brian R. 1989. Mastering Public Administration; from Max Weber to Dwight Waldo. Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers, Inc. page 80
20. ^ Public Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (May – Jun., 1996), pp. 247–255
21. ^ Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts et al, 'New public management is dead: Long live digital era governance',Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, (July 2006).
22. ^ Diane Stone, (2008) 'Global Public Policy, Transnational Policy Communities and their Networks,' Journal of Policy Sciences.
23. ^ Denhardt , Robert B. and Janet Vinzant Denhardt (2000). "The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering." Public Administration Review 60(6)
24. ^ Aucoin, Peter (2008). New Public Management and the Quality of Government: Coping with the New Political Governance in Canada, Conference on "New Public Management and the Quality of Government", SOG and the Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 13–15 November 2008, p.14.
25. ^ Shafritz and Hyde. 2009.
26. ^ Dubois, Hans F. W.; Fattore, Giovanni (2009). International Journal of Public Administration. 32. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 704–727. doi:10.1080/01900690902908760. "The field of public administration knows many concepts. By focusing on one such concept, this research shows how definitions can be deceptive..."
27. ^ THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION by Donald F. Kettl. Available online at: http://www.h-net.org/~pubadmin/tfreport/kettl.pdf Accessed on October 25, 2010.
28. ^ THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION by Donald F. Kettl. Available online at: http://www.h-net.org/~pubadmin/tfreport/kettl.pdf Accessed on October 25, 2010.
29. ^ THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION by Donald F. Kettl. Available online at: http://www.h-net.org/~pubadmin/tfreport/kettl.pdf Accessed on October 25, 2010.
30. ^ Haroon A. Khan. Introduction to Public Administration. University Press of America, 2008. P. 33
31. ^ Haroon A. Khan. Introduction to Public Administration. University Press of America, 2008. p. 33
32. ^ Haroon A. Khan. Introduction to Public Administration. University Press of America, 2008 p. 34
33. ^ www.powershow.com/view/.../Comparative_Public_Administratio
34. ^ www.iiasiisa.be/schools/aeacc.htm
35. ^ http://www.GlobalMPA.net
36. ^ http://www.clad.org.ve
37. ^ http://www.ebape.fgv.br/inpae
38. ^ http://www.nispa.sk/_portal/homepage.php
39. ^ http://www.apsanet.org
40. ^ http://www.aspanet.org
Dubois, H.F.W. & Fattore, G. (2009), 'Definitions and typologies in public administration research: the case of decentralization', International Journal of Public Administration, 32(8): pp. 704–727.
[edit] External links
• Gov Monitor: A public administration, policy and public sector website
• Public Administration Theory Network (PAT-Net) : This is an international network of professionals concerned with the advancement of public administration theory.
• United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN): A body which aims to establish an Internet-based network that links regional and national institutions devoted to public administration.
[edit] Suggested reading
• Smith, Kevin B. and Licari, Michael J. Public Administration — Power and Politics in the Fourth Branch of Government, ISBN 1-933220-04-X
• White,Jay D. and Guy B. Adams. Research in public administration: reflections on theory and practice‎.1994.
[hide]
v • d • e
Civil Service in the Executive Branch of Government


Concepts Government agency • Bureaucracy • Bureaucrat • Public administration • Public services • Public policy • Public sector


Terminology Undersecretary • Commissioner • Diplomatic service


International
civil services Australia • Bangladesh • Brazil • Canada • China • European Union • France • Germany (Beamter) • Hong Kong • India • Ireland • Italy • Japan • Malaysia • New Zealand • Nigeria • Northern Ireland • Pakistan • Singapore • Sri Lanka • United Kingdom • United States


Categories Government occupations • Civil service by country


See also: Civil service reform in developing countries • Imperial examination (Ancient China)


Categories: Public administration | Social sciences | Public policy | Subfields of political science | Management science | Management education
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION VS. PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION
The overall objective of this research paper is to compare and contrast public administration versus private administration, as well as their similarities and differences. To begin with, I should like to proffer a definition of both private administration and public administration. To a larger extent, it is the belief of this author that there are more similarities than differences when considering private administration versus public administration. At the same time, I will attempt to identify these largely in terms of their similarities and differences. Public administration may apply to a broad variety of services. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, public administration is defined as the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization; the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency; and finally, a small group of persons holding simultaneously the principle political objective offices of a nation or other political unit and being responsible for the direction and supervision of public affairs. The Me..
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Most authors differentiate public administration and private administration by educational institutions (public schools vs. private schools). Although it's a good example to provide a comprehensive analysis between the two sectors, I found it not the quintessence for a comparative analysis. Historically, in our country, public schools have a much higher quality education than private schools, and studying economics and public administration, it is not just the nature of bureaucracies, nor the scope of public administration that the case today was reversed. While some authors identified over a dozen factors that differentiates public to private administration, Denhardt only speaks of the three fundamental differences between the two. In this paper, I would elaborate Denhardt's three points since, together with economist Boadway's Difference between Public and Private Sector, I found these as the most undisputable and concrete comparisons.
The most apparent difference between the two sectors is their organizing principles or goal. (Denhardt) While private administration has a definite mission, which is the pursuit of profit or stability or growth of revenues, public administration, on the other hand, has ambiguous purposes. Furthermore, the dilemma in ambiguity of purposes is exacerbated by too many unnecessary and inoperable agencies, with purposes that overlap and bloated bureaucracies. One might say that the goal of public administration is to enact public policies, but the overlapping and the main ambiguity of most of these policies, and the vagueness of the enactment of these policies make public administration's purpose to be more ambiguous. Nevertheless, the fact that public institutions are not profit driven, should not lead us to believe that public sector employees and managers are not concerned about financial matters. As is the case with private companies, public sector units and organizations fight for funding and influence.
Another factor that makes the public sector different from the private is decision making. (Denhradt) In public administration, the decision must be and should be pluralistic. The founding fathers intentionally created a democratic republic where all key decisions are made in politicized environment. This allows for maximum participation: open debate, multiple veto points - a decision making hierarchy where consensus must be achieved at each level, ideally, an informed decision. While private administration's decision-making is much more simple- it's monopolistic or close to monopolistic. This type of decision-making would avoid any conflicts in interest; hence, the goal is clearly defined.
The visibility of public administrators is another notable difference between public and private sector. While a manager in a private business may work in relative obscurity, the public manager must operate in the public eye. His or her actions are constantly subjected to public scrutiny. (Denhardt) The publicness of the work of the public manager doesn't end in merely carrying out public policy, the public manager has to respond to the demands of the public. Denhardt speaks of the "inevitable tension" between efficiency and responsiveness, the pressure to manage effectively and to be simultaneously responsive to public concerns. This pressure often leaves public organizations in a "no-win" situation, trying to serve a public that demands effective government but balks at paying for it (taxes). The public also demands accountability in government, an assurance that those who formulate, implement and administer public programs will act responsibly.
One quality that makes public sector different from private is in the form of unit analysis. (Boadway) Apart from publicly owned-companies, most public institutions are part of a larger chain of command and control where it is harder to draw a line between the different parts of the system- and where legal frameworks provide little help in this. For instance: public agencies- like research councils or directorates of health- interact closely with ministries as well as subordinate institution and "users". The innovation activities in these institutions are heavily influenced by decisions made above and below the chain of commands. The closest parallel to private sector will be large conglomerates or multinational companies. The complex system of organizations with various (and to some extent conflicting) tasks, is one of the reasons for the inefficiency of public administration. Although, some authors in public administration, such Woodrow Wilson in The Study of Public Administration, where he reiterated that the evolution of public administration together with its complex system and increasing number of bureaucracies is to complement the population growth, but a population with sufficient number of agencies to manage them and with high marginal productivity for each public employee, is better than a bloated bureaucracy with little or zero marginal productivity, and worse, unnecessary and redundant purpose.
Lastly, although political aspect is both apparent in public and private sector, political aspect is more important in the public than in the private sector. Policy decisions normally affect companies directly and indirectly, through laws, regulations and financial support. The public sector is at least formally controlled by elected politicians. The intimate link between this governance dimension and funding of current expenses of the activities implies a very strong link between ownership and control on the one hand and the growth strategies of the subsidiary organizations.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cherry_Lyn_Beldia



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Public Vs. Private Administration Data
By MichelleS, eHow Contributor
updated: November 23, 2010
Public administration encompasses the individuals and processes that carry out laws, rules, and regulations that are issued by legislatures or other elected officials. Private administration refers to the individuals and processes that carry out the manufacturing, marketing, retailing, and providing of goods and services in exchange for payment. Public administration must handle data different from private administrations.
Federal Administration Data
1. The Freedom of Information Act states that federal government data is subject to full or partial disclosure, depending on the type of information and government agency. An individual may request in writing federal administration data and the public administration responsible for that data must provide it within 10 days. However, the data is off limits if it involves national security or personal information.
State and Local Administration Data
2. State and local government enact their own laws regarding public administration data. The main differences between federal, state, and local laws are the time in which the agency must provide data and fees charged.
Private Administration Data
3. The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to private administration data. Individuals do not have the right to obtain information about a private business or industry. Government agencies require private administrations to report certain data, such as earnings, employee demographics, time records, and other law requirements to the specific government entity. However, the public does not have access to that data.
References
• Freedom of Information Act
• Milakovich, Michael, E. and Gordon, George, J. (2004). Public Administration in America. Belmont, CA; Wadsworth/Thomson Learning
Resources
• The Open Government Guide
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Distinctions between public administration and private action

Activities such as traffic control, fire-protection services, policing, smoke abatement, the construction or repair of highways, the provision of currency, town and country planning, and the collection of customs and excise duties are usually carried out by governments, whose executive organs are assumed to represent the collective will of the community and to be acting for the common good. It is for this reason that they are given powers not normally conferred on private persons. They may be authorized to infri