ABSTRACT

This article presents an overview of public administration theories. It examines the

area of public administration's transformation as well as its theoretical orientations. It divides

these theories into three (3) approaches: classical, modern, and postmodern theories, and

assesses the theoretical implications and problems of these approaches at each stage of their

evolution. It emphasizes the creativeness of the classical school on effective management

processes and its emphasis on organizational dynamics. The contemporary school's thesis that

human factors are the foundation for an organization's best performance has been extensively

examined. In light of contemporary organizational issues, the introduction of postmodernism

as a new strategy aims to reconcile the valuable elements of classical and neoclassical ideas.

Literature was gathered through secondary data gathering sources such as books, journals,

and other online resources.

This study examines the impact of these ideas on key areas of public administration,

including as public policy, public-private partnerships, and new developing aims in the

profession, like postmodernism. As a result, this paper concludes that more concerted efforts

should be directed toward theorizing old, contemporary, and new terms in public

administration in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the causes and consequences of

any given subject matter in the field, as well as building new fields of inquiry, and aiding in

clarifying and directing inquiry into policy making, governance, ethics, and other primary

subject matters within the purview of public administration.

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 INTRODUCTION

Public administration is a blend of theory and practice. According to Stillman (1980),

there is no distinct point in history where the narrative of public administration theory and

practice begin. However, its practice predates human civilization. There were two broad

textbooks on the subject of public administration theory in the United States, which were

considered as the first attempts to introduce the field. White and Willoughby wrote these

novels, which were published in 1926 and 1927, respectively (Stillman, 1980). Although the

release of these volumes marked the beginning of public administration theory as a discipline,

it should be remembered that the discipline had been in the works for several decades before

they were published. For example, the activities and efforts of some United States political

leaders, such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, should not be overlooked in

terms of the attention they paid to issues of public administration theory in a futuristic way

(Pfiffer & Presthus, 1967). Regardless of these efforts and their importance to the

development and maturation of public administration theory, one cannot overlook or dismiss

a remarkable essay written by Wilson in 1887, eulogized by Akindele (1994) as serving as

the symbolic beginning of the discipline in such a perceptive, persuasive, and influential way

in both its analytical and theoretical parlances.

Until the 19th century, the study of public administration was defined by a normative

approach (political philosophy, lawmaking, and constitutional structures). According to

Akindele et al. (2000), as socioeconomic life gets more specialized and complicated, and as

the number of government roles and responsibilities grows, there is a need for a

diversification of efforts toward a more empirical understanding of occurrences. He also

believed that there should be a science of administration, known as public administration

theory, that would attempt to smooth the courses of government, make its work less unlike,

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strengthen and purify its organization, and crown its tasks with dutifulness. These early

practical and theoretical efforts, combined with those who could be called the founding

fathers of public administration and who were initially trained as political scientists, resulted

in the establishment of public administration as a field of study within political science

(Stillman, 1980). However, by the mid-1920s, the field had developed distinct traits.

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 METHODOLOGY

According to Bartholomew (1972), there are five stages in the chronology of the

evolution of Public Administration as a discipline; these stages are theoretically driven as

encapsulated below:

Stage 1: Politics administration dichotomy (1887-1926)

Stage 2: Principles of administration (1927-1937)

Stage 3: Era of challenge (1938-1947)

Stage 4: Crises of identity (1948-1970)

Stage 5: Public policy perspective (1971 onwards)

The first step was the emergence of Woodrow Wilson's political - administration

dichotomy (difference between two things that are diametrically opposed). This sparked a

surge of interest in its research at numerous American and international colleges, and

Government reforms were implemented, and researchers were drawn to public administration

with renewed zeal (Adamolekun, 1985). Woodrow Wilson promoted this viewpoint because

people were fed up with the government and its different programs, rampant corruption, and

the like at the time. The bureaucratic structure has a spoils system in place. This was the main

reason why people quickly accepted his point of view. L.D. In 1926, White wrote a book

titled ''Introduction to the Study of Public Administration,'' which bolstered this viewpoint.

The second stage of administrative theory was characterized by the same zeal for

supporting the Wilsonian perspective of politics-administration dichotomy and evolving a

value neutral or rather value free science of management. Certain things were thought to

exist. Administration concepts (guiding/basic notions) that are universal to all organizations

and will work for everyone to achieve maximum efficiency (Davies, 1974). This was the

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mature Industrial Revolution age, and governments were only concerned with boosting

output at whatever cost in order to make a lot of money. In addition, the fast development of

enterprises throughout the Industrial Revolution created new management difficulties that

were unanticipated and hence difficult to overcome. This is when F.W. Taylor and Henri

Fayol stepped in and developed their administration/management philosophies. They were

accomplished administrators in their own right, so their opinions carried a lot of weight and

were widely accepted by industries all around the world. In order to promote efficiency and

economy, Frederich Winslow Taylor and Henri Fayol argued for the use of engineering-based

scientific approaches in the sphere of industrial work processes. The Classical philosophy of

administration (Lane, 1978) encompasses these schools of thinking.

Since we are discussing Classical Administration thinkers, we must make a special note of

Max Weber. His conceptual framework of bureaucracy merits special notice since it resulted

in a paradigm shift in public administration theory. He was the first to give the field a sound

theoretical foundation. He saw bureaucracy as a national rule-based central system that

governs the organization's structure and processes based on technical expertise and maximum

efficiency. He was concerned about the rise of bureaucracy in modern civilisation. All three

theorists mentioned above placed emphasis on the physiological and mechanistic aspects of

public administration, which is why this school of thought is also known as the Mechanical

theory of organization/administration (Marx, 1960).

The third stage in the growth of public administration theory is known as the era of

challenge since the preceding concepts and the iron cage/mechanistic image of administration

and employees were questioned. Human relations theory introduced a pragmatic approach to

administrative challenges. It highlighted the human components of administration that arose

from the Hawthorne experiments carried out by Elton Mayo and his colleagues at Harvard

Business School in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The primary goal of this method was to

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investigate the psychological and social difficulties of industrial employees (Corson & Harris,

1963). This theory's researchers identified characteristics such as informal organization,

leadership, morale, and motivation for maximizing the utilization of human resources in

companies. This prompted Herbert Simon and colleagues to conduct a far-reaching

investigation that resulted in the Behavioural Science hypothesis. Herbert Simon's behavioral

science school of thought challenged administration's principles and mechanistic ways as

mere proverbs where one contradicted the other and thus are nothing more than general

statements based on person to person experience and lacking a theoretical foundation

(Davies, 1974). Herbert Simon claimed that decision analysis should be studied because

decision making is at the heart of administration, where a decision must be made at each and

every stage of administration on a daily basis, and administration is a series of decisions that

lead to implementation and nothing more. According to Simon, analyzing administrative

behavior in an organizational system can only be done by researching the administrators'

decisions. Chester Barnard and Edwin Stene were two additional notable behavioral theorists

(Pfiffer & Presthus, 1967).

The fourth stage, the crisis of identity, takes place in the late twentieth century, when

many portions of the world, known as emerging nations, had recently emerged from wars and

colonization. This stage represented the beginning of a discussion for the restoration of values

in public administration, both cross-culturally and nationally. Administration research on a

nationwide scale. According to Waldo (1994), the United States experienced a number of

crises in the 1960s, and traditional public administration failed to address many issues in

order to give remedies. As a result, there was a need to rethink public administration, which

raised the question of whether public administration as it had been known up to that point

was still relevant. Thus, the notion of 'New Public Administration' was formed. Dwight

Waldo spoke at the First Minnowbrook Conference in 1968, which was attended by young

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public administration researchers and practitioners. According to George Frederickson, who

was an integral component of the First Minnowbrook Conference and the major convenor of

the Second Minnowbrook Conference 20 years later in 1988, they were the second generation

behaviorists. It emphasized the importance of values in public administration and the

commitment of administrators and researchers to value development and implementation.

Through the public policy method, it created societal thought and it is the primary objective

of public administration in today's times. It brought democratic humanism and client

orientation as well as the science perspective in New Public Administration. The collapse of

the Soviet Union also strengthened this view.

The last step in the evolution of Public Administration theory is Public Policy theory.

A government's attempt to handle a public issue by enacting laws, rules, judgments, or

activities relevant to the topic at hand is known as public policy. Policy, as stated by Stein

(1952), is developed for the welfare and progress of the people.

As a field, public policy perspective is the study of government policies for the people, their

benefits and drawbacks, and how to improve them. It has returned to political science and has

included numerous management elements to assist public administration in dealing with the

dynamics of its discipline and behavior.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public administration is the machinery, as well as the integral processes through

which the government performs its functions. It is a network of human relationships and

associated activities extending from the government to the lowest paid and powerless

individual charged with keeping in daily touch with all resources, natural and human, and all

other aspects of the life of the society with which the government is concerned (Kolawole,

1997). It is a system of roles and role relationships that defines in as clear and practicable

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terms as possible and in as much details as possible the intentions and programmes of

government; the means available internally and externally to accomplish them; and finally, it

is a system that causes these intentions and programs to be realized in real life. It is a pattern

of routine activities, involving decision – making, planning, advising, coordination,

negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, command and data gathering, through which the

government carries out its responsibilities (Nnoli, 2003).

Woodrow Wilson (1887), as cited in Gladden (1961), perceived Public Administration

as the most visible side of government. While Ezeani (2006) posits that public administration

is the management of government activities. According to him it refers both to the activities

of bureaucrats concerned with the management or administration of government

organizations and the study of these activities. It is the machinery for implementing

government policies to ensure stability and continuity at all times irrespective of any

government in power even during periods of crises.

Adebayo (1992) sees Public Administration as a governmental administration that

operates in the particular sphere of government as its machinery for implementing

government policies. He believes that its study must therefore lead to the most efficient way

of organizing the executive branch of the government, its functions and its procedures. From

his assertion, we can deduce that Public Administration is basically concerned with the study

of how a country’s administration is organized as well as how it functions.

Akpan (1982) contends that Public Administration is the organ that carries out the

programmes and manifestos of politicians in power. He sees Public Administration as the

servant of politics. He went further to say that Public Administration covers every area and

activity related to public policy. Accordingly it includes the formal processes and operations

through which the legislature exercises its power. The functions of the courts in the

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administration of justice and the work of the military agencies all form part of the Public

Administration.

According to Nicholas (1986), Public administration is the fusion of human and

material resources in order to achieve the objectives of public policy. One cardinal issue here

to which attention must be paid is the issue of policy implementation. This is a very focal

point in the study of public administration. Public Administration can also be viewed as a

body of knowledge which is directed towards the understanding of administration of the

government business. Madubum (2006) opines that Public Administration is the study of the

development and maintenance of policy by members of governments, public agencies and

public sector employees and the practice of implementing the authoritative decisions they

have made. Public Administration concerns itself more with how politicians in government

and non-elected public sector employees device policy, sustain the machinery of government

and ensure policies are put into practice.

Nnoli (2003), describes Public Administration as follows: Public Administration is

the machinery as well as the integral process through which the government performs its

functions. It is a network of human relationships and associated activities extending from the

government to the lowest paid and powerless individual charged with keeping in daily touch

with all resources, natural and human, and all the aspects of life of the society with which

government is concerned (pp.10). It is a system of roles and role relationships which defines

in a clear and practicable terms as possible and in as much detail as possible the intentions

and programmes of government; the means available internally and externally to accomplish

them; where, when and how they are to be accomplished; who is to benefit from them, and,

finally, it is a system that causes these intentions and programmes to be realized in real life. It

is a pattern of routine activities, involving decision making, planning, advising, coordination,

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negotiation, conciliation, arbitration, command and data gathering, through which the

government carries out its responsibilities.

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 CONCLUSION

Theoretical frameworks for Public Administration are thematically exploratory in

view of the approach to the study and understanding of Public sector management. It started

with the Classical or Traditional approaches that deal with the formal dimension of

organization. The Modern approaches try to give importance to the human dimension by

emphasizing a holistic approach to analyzing the organization from both sides. Modern

approaches consider both human and systematic sides of organization as important and

emphasize the positive side existing in each of the theories and avoid the negative sides by

giving them distinct and uniting conditions. Postmodernism is an extreme view about

management evaluating an organization as a closed system, and sees the organization as

interacting with its environment and claiming that each organization has a situation endemic

to that organization, that is, there may be differences in organizational structure.

The analysis and review in this paper appears concise in its discourse, though it

encompasses all the relevant tenets of theories most often used in public administration.

Theory is an important instrument because it provides an explanatory framework for some

observations and from the assumptions of the explanation follows a number of possible

hypotheses that can be tested in order to provide support for, or challenge the theory.

Importing from the foregoing to public administration, series of metamorphosis in public

administration are handiwork of the classical, modern and postmodern theories. This paper

espouses that more concerted efforts should be geared towards theorizing old, contemporary

and new terms in the field of public administration so as gain an in-depth understanding of

the causes and consequences of any given subject matter in the field, as well as building new

field of enquiries, and helps clarifying and directing inquiry into policy making, governance,

ethics among other primary subject matters of public administration.

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