Is public administration a science or an art?

• Buffer
• Tweet

Since the earliest days of bureaucratic infrastructure, governments have employed individuals on a hierarchical basis to carry out the numerous functions associated with government services and the implementation of policy in public life. These individuals are known as public servants, and the infrastructure to which they belong is called public administration.

Public servants, or public administrators, have traditionally been either hired or appointed, but not elected. Public administrators are responsible for carrying out the functions which result from and are stipulated by lawmakers at the executive, legislative and judicial levels of government. To this extent, government administrators include government ministers, law enforcement personnel, municipal managers and economic analysts and strategists. These individuals work in government at all levels from federal to state to municipal and represent the hierarchical manner by which public power is delegated as a means to ensure the effectiveness of public policy as well as the efficient distribution of its benefits to those governed.

As a discipline, public administration came to the fore in the late 1800s when academics including Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Wesleyan University prior to his ascension to the U.S. presidency, proposed a model of government bureaucracy that closely followed large businesses and corporations in terms of infrastructure and cost effectiveness. Up to this time in the late 1800s, roles in government were available not necessarily on the basis of aptitude or skill, but rather by virtue of connections, word-of-mouth and nepotism. The emerging model of public administration encouraged greater fairness of opportunity to participate in public administration through the use of written civil service examinations. These exams would indicate an individual’s understanding of the bureaucratic infrastructure as well as the theoretical bases of public policy implementation, public finance and the extent of the authority of a public administrator’s role. Such measures were first initiated by the Pendleton Act of 1883, requiring that candidates for roles in the federal government undergo testing as a prerequisite for being hired. In 1978, the Civil Service Reform Act took additional steps to ensure fairness of opportunity and fair treatment for candidates as well as those currently employed as public administrators at the federal level.

Between the 1880s and the early 1900s, public administration developed in academia as an interdisciplinary approach to the effectiveness of public policy between the bureaucratic system and the population it is meant to serve. As a discipline, public administration further seeks to reform the existing bureaucratic system so that it may more effectively adapt to the public’s changing needs. Numerous colleges and universities now offer undergraduate- and graduate-level degree programs in public administration, integrating such subjects as history, economics, public finance, political science and sociology. These component parts illustrate the multitude of perspectives required for effectively implementing public policy. The educated public administrator understands how his or her role differs from that of a politician, the distinction between public and private enterprises and the benefits of superimposing business fundamentals on the management of a bureaucratic framework.

The question of whether public administration should be classified as an art or a science has been the subject of much speculation in terms of its multidimensional approach. Many believe that the effective implementation of public policy where maintaining good relations with the public is concerned is, in and of itself, an art. However, the role of public administration as both a profession and as an academic discipline worthy of quantifiable examination and review classifies it unequivocally as a science.

Resource by Will

I am the editor for TheFreeResource.com, and owner of LinchpinSEO, a small business content creation company. The Free Resource has a select community of talented writers, teachers, and business people (and we are always looking for more) that bring you the most trusted resources on the web and credible articles about many topics.

Related Research For Teachers, Students, and Kids