Public Administration Optional (Comparative Public Administration (Paper-1)) by Abhishiekh Saxena

Model Answer

Question #1. CPA’s behavioural orientation made it inexact and problematic. Comment. 10 marks (150 words)

Approach:

• Basics of orientation of CPA,
• Flaws associated with it.

Comparative Administration attempts to compare the administrative functioning in different countries with diverse cultural, social, economic and political setup. Main objective of CPA was to build a theory of Public Administration which would be empirical, systemic and ecological. CPA attempts to build a knowledge of facts and data which could help to generalise administration at a global level at the same time accounting for the uniqueness of it due different ecological factors.

CPA got a major boost from the Ford Foundation in early 1960’s to research in comparative studies of administration. However it also led to an inherent bias towards the administration of the developed countries. There was a tendency to view the administration of developed countries as more advanced as compared to the one existing in developing countries. The criticism of CPA was that it ignored and treated the pre-beauracratic social norms of control and community functioning in developing countries as irrational and backward. They failed to appreciate the functioning of administrative system of developing nations and the stability and effectiveness they had provided even in such diverse cultural and heterogeneous society.

This behavioral tendency of biases in CPA stems from the fact that most of the scholars of CPA were from developed countries of USA and Europe. They tried to ignore the irrationality and deficiency of administration prevalent in developed countries and over-exposed the pre-bureaucratic setup of developing countries.

The major problems:

1. It compared weberian structure in emerging nations, herby it had no structural paradigm of its own.eg Lapalambora in Russia, ferrel heady in egpyt and Riggs in india and phillipines.
2. It focussed on behavioural traits of these nations.Eg, F.W.Riggs prismatic sala model had transition societies as the basis .He gave various behavioural traits of these socities such as hetrogeniety,formalism and overlapping as the traits .They emphasised on behavioural traits and ignored the structural features of these socities.
3. The norms ,polity and interest groups of the society were defined on the behaviour of these societies such as polynormatism, unbalanced polity and clects .

Though CPA started with comparing administration practices around the world but it largely centered around the behavioural trends of the society. It had placed ecology as an significant aspect of the administration and it observed how the ecology changed people behaviour.

Thus though CPA widen the horizon of Public Administration by initiating the comparitive studies and building up knowledge base of administration prevalent in different cultural setting but it couldn’t remain aloof from the North Vs South or all good in Developed and all bad in Developing nations bias.

Question #2. “CPA shares with modern organization theory a concern for methodological problems....” Waldo. Analyse. 15 marks (250 words)

Approach:

• Build on the statement by Waldo and share his views on CPA.

According to Waldo, comparative public administration (CPA) both resembles and differs from modern organisation theory. Waldo wrote: to compare is to examine similarities and differences simultaneously; the effort is bent forward to two main ends:

(i) to discover, define and differentiate the stuff (politics or administration) to be compared, wherever in the world it may be; and

(ii) to develop criteria of differentiation that are useful in ordering and analyzing the ‘stuff’ once it has been identified.

He adds that, CPA shares with modern organization theory a concern for methodological problems; a reliance on models such as the systems framework and structural functionalism; an interdisciplinary orientation a search for universal concepts, formulas, and theories; and an emphasis on empirical description. CPA differs from modern organization theory, however, in its explicit comparative perspective, its focus on cultural diversity, and its fascination with Weberian bureaucracies.

Though it was at one time widely believed that CPA was the area of greatest promise in contemporary public administration, Waldo feels that promise has yet to be fulfilled. CPA tells us about the relationship between administration and social ends , the critical dependence of civilization on effective governmental administration and the difficulties in transferring the Western model of administration to other cultures. But the basic problem of the CPA movement was the distance between the theoretical models employed and the evidence of field research. And even with its strong theoretical bent, Waldo asserts that the movement failed to produce anything in the way of rigorous theory.