What is in the Public Administration Future?

Presented by J. B. Nangpuhan II (MPA student) for the course, Foundation Theory of Public Administration, Chonnam National University. Presented on 18May2011. Professor: Dr. W. H. Shin.

 

KEY TERMS:

·         Public Administration

·         Globalization

·         Diversity

·         Culture

·         Limits

·         Intergovernmental

·         Public law and legal processes

 

INTRODUCTION

The history of public administration clearly shows how this field of study evolved and spread in many universities around the world. From the time of its traces of existence in the early centuries to the present generation, public administration is regarded as a field of management in diverse organizations whether public or private.  This article focuses on the future for public service professionals in each of the major functional areas of the field of public administration. It concentrates on the issue of globalization; intergovernmental and inter-sectoral relations; diversity; the limitations of public administration in environmental, economical, and social aspects; and on public law and legal processes. Each of these issues will be discussed here. Some examples were taken from the American experience in the field of public administration.

 

GLOBALIZATION

The future of public administration is no longer in a domestic perspective. In America for example, public administration in the past have been ominously criticized for being traditionally ethnocentric and geocentric. Ethnocentric is the belief of superiority in one ethnic group, and geocentric is a view having the earth as the center of perspective and valuation. In 1980s, America started to globalize its public administration perspective. The presence of Internet is a big boost for globalization efforts not only in public administration but all other fields of study. The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has great impact on local governments. Local governments became more concern about relationships of politics, economy, and society. The issue of globalization is being adopted by other governments in the United States and other countries. Below is the direction of the shift of public administration perspective:

 

            Traditional Perspective                                    Modern Perspective

Ethnocentric

                                                          Globalization

Geocentric

 

There are three important lessons to be considered in globalization:

1.       Diversity

The world is so diverse, so large and so complex. But it is increasingly becoming one global community in which nation-states are no longer separated to one another. Public administrators in all countries and at all levels of government need to be aware of this reality. It affects everything like the cost of bonds to build a new school, property tax payments, social policies, and others. If all these diversities will be considered in public administration, the ultimate goal of experiencing a better quality of life shall be achieved.

2.       Importance of Culture

Public administrators should also be aware that each ethnic group, each country, and each community has different culture. In a global scale, language and culture affect everything from communications to social values. Understanding the culture of one community will help public administrators to serve better and determine the most appropriate services and programs to be initiated in the community.

3.       Significance of Limits

Although the world is large, people are still confined with limits. Limits were increasingly felt in the 21^st century, less in the early centuries. The way we act, behave, speak, and virtually everything that we do have limitations. We have our environmental, economical, and social limitations.

a.       Environmental limitations include pollution, deforestation, desertification, NIMBY problem, water shortage, overpopulation, floods, earthquakes, etc. These are environmental problems the world is now facing. Experts are trying to study how to solve these problems. However, the damages already exist and the people feel the impacts of these environmental problems. A study shows that people living in better countries do damage more to the environment than those people living in less developed countries. For instance, an American baby can do environmental damage twice that of a Swedish baby. On the other hand, there are predictions that the total population of the world will double in 2050 by 12 billion. Therefore, public administrators are given the task to encourage the people to be aware of the limits and to protect the environment for the long term. Doing this will give life to the future generation, our children and their future children.

b.      Economic limitations – our financial limits are mainly attributed to the environment. Unfair policies on taxation, land zoning, unemployment, and financial crisis are problems that concern the public administrators. Economists believe that unconstrained economic growth is not sustainable over the long term without significant impacts on the environment and other crucial dimensions of modern life.

c.       Social limitations include social problems like war and uprising. These problems limit our wish to live a peaceful life.  Doing violence to others is a clear limit; every person has the right but not the right to do violence to others. Finding new ways of living with limits while maintaining the quality of life for everyone is one of the most interesting challenges facing those who govern.

 

SOLUTIONS TO BALANCE THESE LIMITS

A.      Intergovernmental And Inter-Sectoral Relations

One of the important consequences of confronting limits has been a growing recognition of the interdependencies among public sector organizations, private firms, and not-for-profit organizations. The traditional concept of intergovernmental relations is that of federalism but is now changed to a concept of shared relations between and among organizations. It is a concept of equality wherein local governments can also function equally with regional or even national governments. Basically, the reason of having international organizations is to help local organizations. For example, the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) created in 1947 has dramatic impact to great countries like USA, Great Britain, France, and Germany. GATT lasted until 1993 and later replaced by World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

B.      Public Law And Legal Processes

The forces of globalization as well as the increasing complexity of intergovernmental and intersectoral interdependencies and competition have made public law and legal processes more important than ever before. Public law issues help structure the new infrastructure needed to deal with increasingly complex fiscal, social, and economic relationships. Infrastructure includes constructing a legal system (e.g. constitution), economic foundation, regulation of commerce, development of roads, etc. Public laws provide tools for meeting new challenges, including enhancing our ability to resolve tensions and to meet growing demands for accountability. New tools include contracting (merging of public and private sectors to do a government project). These laws help public administrators to deal with international peace and security among nations. Such existing organizations include North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), UN, EU, WTO, IMF among others. As we are all aware of, our world in the 21^st century poses a lot of challenges in the field of public administration. Finding more ways to bring better services to the people for a better quality of life is among the top objectives of public administration.

 

Reference: from the lecture note of Dr. W. H. Shin.