Great to see you again mam@doodlebeanand who doesn't know about your thread it's a goldmine..people still follow it with great faith..hope with your comeback you ll instill a greater energy in all of us.
Question 1.a) "The scope of the discipline of Public Administration is determined by what an administrative system does." Does it mean that the scope of this discipline is boundaryless? Explain
Answer : Since in public administration, there is no unanimous definition, so there is no agreement on what public administration is and thus, its scope is also unsettled and undefined. Waldo says the since public administration deals with the government in action and as that remains ever-changing, the scope also remains ever-changing.
Various Schools of Thought attempted to delineate the scope of public administration as :
Narrow View v. Broad View
- Narrow View : The study of the executive branch of the government.
- Broad view : The scope of Public Administration includes the study of all the three organs of the state i.e. the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
Managerial View v. Integral View
There are certain theorists like Fayol, Gulick, Urwick etc. who fall under themanagerial schoolof thought. These theorists emphasized that public administration includes within its domain only the managerial activities because according to them,it is the managerial activity that enables an organization to appear one and directs the entire organization towards a single goal.
This view has been contested by theIntegral ViewTheorists like Dimock,Wilson etc. These theorists believe that public administration as a discipline includes within its ambit the study of all the activities of the organization such as manual activities, clerical activities and technical activities besides the managerial activities.
Similarly, if we take into account thePOSDCORB view, it emphasizes that public administration as a discipline means the study of tools and techniques of the administration. But, this has been contested by the Subject Matter View.The subject matter viewsays that public administration as a discipline includes within its ambit the study of public policies. But, it has some serious implications. It expanded the scope of public administration to such an extent that everything came under the umbrella of public administration and at the same time, it made public administration inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary in nature.
This resulted into a loss of boundary leading towards a crisis of identity because today the government or public policy extends to almost every area of human activity.
Waldo has appropriately responded to this concern. He says that public administration has a stable core though an oscillating periphery. The study of thestable coreimparts it, its identity and the study of the oscillating periphery further enriches it. No discipline today is uni-disciplinary, every discipline is multi-disciplinary. As,being uni-disciplinary is death and being multi-disciplinary is growth and prosperity.
Public administration carries a wider scope and it is the study of government in action. Government in action is a dependant variable and thus it is linked to a number of ecological concerns. The government in action is never static and thus, its boundary can never be established or delineated.
The scope of public administration is linked to the concept of public administration. This is because the definition of public administration is not yet settled and it is not yet fully conceptualized. Thus, it is difficult to demarcate its outline.
@doodlebeanMam is it necessary to explicitly mention the keywords in our answers as asked in the question like "boundary less" here as in my answer I have mentioned the same thing the other way?
Please do tell me where I lacked in my approach and how do you manage to make so well explained diagrams.. please throw some light
@doodlebeanyour words and replies comes as a blessing to us...you are such a great motivational force... certainly your return has raised the level of enthusiasm amongst the aspirant community on forum like it was in your times...keep mentoring us we will remain indebted to you forever !
@doodlebean
That's so kind of you mam.. now when you've just said all this I will keep bothering you at regular intervals hope you ll bear with it as patiently as you asked for it
