---

---

(Download) UPSC Topper Study Notes Public Administration - Neeraj Singh (Rank 11 CSE 2011)

---

---

Study:Notes :

Introduction

Issues in the meaning of Pub Ad

• Is it just execution of law and public policy?
• Does it include others branches of the state or just the executive?
• Any role in policy formulation?

Reinventing government

• Focus on core competence of government
• Steering rather than rowing
• The ten points

NPM

• Downsizing
• Enhanced management competence using IT
• Critical performance appraisal
• Allowing the market to function in its designated sphere

Public Choice Approach

• 1960s
• Vincent Ostrom
• Extension of assumptions of individual rationality and utility maximization to administration
• Institutional pluralism
• In favour of the citizen’s choice in the provision of public goods and services
• Critical of monocentric, hierarchical traditional bureaucratic administration
• Democratic decentralised system of administration and organisational competitiveness
• Rejects the politics-administration dichotomy
• Locates pub ad within the domain of politics

New Public Service

• Denhardt and Denhardt
• Government shouldn’t be run like business, it should be run like a democracy
• Public interest and democratic citizenship
• Reconnect with the citizens
• Co-governance
• New attitude and new involvement

Good Governance

• Government vs Governance
•  WB

o    Public Sector Management
o    Accountability
o    Legal Framework for development
o    Information and Transparency

NPA

Minnowbrook II

• •    New issues were highlighted

o    Leadership in Admin
o    Technology 
o    Economic perspective of PA
o    Impact of market economics on PA
o    Interdisciplinary influences in the study of PA
o    Conceptualisation of PA 
Minnowbrook III
•    Held in 2008
•    Convened by Rosemary O’Leary from the Maxwell School
•    Emphasised good governance
•    Pub ad as socially embedded process of social relationships 
•    IT and Mgmt
•    CPA
•    Globalisation and pub ad
•    Empowerment for inclusive approach to governance
•    Govt will just be a part of the public affairs, not the whole
<Compare MB 123>
NPM
Key concerns
•    Decentralisation
•    Make funcationaries work for social goals
•    Competitiveness
•    Effectivenss of pub ad
•    Concern of result
New public service approach: equity as well as efficiency
Changes in the government due to GG
•    Result oriented: in India, outcome budgeting has been adopted
 

Ethics

Issues in the meaning of Pub Ad
•    Is it just execution of law and public policy?
•    Does it include others branches of the state or just the executive?
•    Any role in policy formulation?
Reinventing government
•    Focus on core competence of government
•    Steering rather than rowing
•    The ten points
NPM
•    Downsizing
•    Enhanced management competence using IT
•    Critical performance appraisal
•    Allowing the market to function in its designated sphere
Public Choice Approach
•    1960s
•    Vincent Ostrom
•    Extension of assumptions of individual rationality and utility maximization to administration
•    Institutional pluralism
•    In favour of the citizen’s choice in the provision of public goods and services
•    Critical of monocentric, hierarchical traditional bureaucratic administration
•    Democratic decentralised system of administration and organisational competitiveness
•    Rejects the politics-administration dichotomy
•    Locates pub ad within the domain of politics
New Public Service
•    Denhardt and Denhardt
•    Government shouldn’t be run like business, it should be run like a democracy
•    Public interest and democratic citizenship
•    Reconnect with the citizens
•    Co-governance
•    New attitude and new involvement
Good Governance
•    Government vs Governance
•    WB
o    Public Sector Management
o    Accountability
o    Legal Framework for development
o    Information and Transparency

NPA

Minnowbrook II
•    New issues were highlighted
o    Leadership in Admin
o    Technology 
o    Economic perspective of PA
o    Impact of market economics on PA
o    Interdisciplinary influences in the study of PA
o    Conceptualisation of PA 
Minnowbrook III
•    Held in 2008
•    Convened by Rosemary O’Leary from the Maxwell School
•    Emphasised good governance
•    Pub ad as socially embedded process of social relationships 
•    IT and Mgmt
•    CPA
•    Globalisation and pub ad
•    Empowerment for inclusive approach to governance
•    Govt will just be a part of the public affairs, not the whole
<Compare MB 123>
NPM
Key concerns
•    Decentralisation
•    Make funcationaries work for social goals
•    Competitiveness
•    Effectivenss of pub ad
•    Concern of result
New public service approach: equity as well as efficiency
Changes in the government due to GG
•    Result oriented: in India, outcome budgeting has been adopted

Law

Constitutional law defines the organs of the state while admin law clothes admin with the power of action
Scope of admin law overlaps with the scope of pub ad
‘law which defines the powers of admin, its limits, defining the manner in which power has to be exercised and manner in which limits have to be exercised and grievances addressed’. 

>Read Vajiram notes once again.>

Criticisms of Dicey’s rule of law
•    Rigid. Hence brought a dichotomy between rule of law and admin law. 
•    Rule of law may not be contradictory to admin law. 
•    Substantive and procedural law are complementary
•    Without admin law rule of law is directionless; without rule of law admin law is meaningless. 
•    Focus is provided by rule of law. To put it in practice we need admin law. 
Marxist criticisms of rule of law
•    Everybody is equal in eye of law is a bourgeoise interpretation of rule of law. 
•    Life and property enjoyed only by only the bourgeoisie. Violations conducted only by the proletariat.  So this law is just a method of oppressing the poor.
•    Nobody should take law into their hands. Ordinary court is costly. Hence this can be afforded only by the rich. So this is a protection against revolution.  
Scope of Admin Law
MP Sharma
•    Law of admin responsibility
o    Rights, duties of the state
•    Law of admin power
o    All the coercive powers given
Prof Heart
•    Law of internal admin
•    Law of external admin

Tribunals in India
•    ITAT
•    CBDT
•    IDT
•    CAT
•    National Green Tribunal

Administrative Behaviour

Topic 3 – Administrative Behaviour
1.    “ What really takes place in an organisation cannot be understood if one does not know what kinds of decisions are made, who participates in making them and what their exact role is”. Identify the context and elaborate on decision-making in organisations. 
2.    DM is essentially problem solving in nature. Comment. 
3.    Elaborate the different approaches to decision-making.
4.    What is the significance of decision-making in organisation? Why do administrators shirk their decision making job?
5.    Decision making is essentially problem solving in nature. Comment.
6.    Decision making is a cooperative activity. Comment. 

Answers
Answer 1
•    Statement by Nigro
Answer 4
•    Simon regards it as the heart of management
•    The organisation’s nature and goals depend on the decisions taken by the management
•    It is through the decisions that one can understand what is happening in an organisation
•    Very important in public administration because it decides the public policy
•    Its a very important part but by no means the whole of it: the central point is the policy, decisions are only a means to it. 
•    Due to the welfare nature of many public policies, the administrators need to take quick and most appropriate decisions. 
•    Shirk because
o    Existence of excessive problems to solve
o    Lack of time
o    Lack of technical competence
o    Fear of going wrong
Answer 5
•    DM involves a conscious choice of one alternative from among a group of two or more behaviour alternatives.
•    To decide about a matter means to come to a conclusion about that
•    Hence, decision making may involve choosing the best course of action in a given situation or problem
•    It is in this sense that DM is problem solving in nature. 
Answer 6
 
Notes
Motivation
ERG – Content
Achievement - content
Goal setting theory - Process 
•    Set goals
•    Low self-efficacy 
•    High self efficacy
•    Feedback
Reinforcement theory - process
•    Addition to goal setting
•    Extrinsic factors also decide self-efficacy
Cognitive Evaluation - process
•    Addition to herzberg
•    Extrinsic factors affect intrinsic factors
Job design theory - content
•    Five characteristics of a job that motivate
o    Skill variety
o    Task identity: is the task complete
o    Task significance
o    Autonomy
o    Feedback
•    Depending on these 5 characteristics, first three bring sense of meaning to the job, autonomy brings responsibility, feedback brings knowledge
•    Based on this he gives the formula for motivation potential score
o    – avg of first three * autonomy * feedback
o    Higher the score, more the motivation
Social Information processing theory
•    Job design theory does not take into account the variability from individual to individual
Equity theory - process
•    Individual in jobs experience a sense of equity or inequity depending on their contribution and reward
•    When contribution < reward, inequity. Over paid inequity and underpaid
•    4 types of process to establish equity
o    Self-insight: put yourself in other positions in the same organisaton
o    Self-outsight: other positions in other organisation
o    Other’s insight: compare with other people
o    Other’s outsight: compare with other people in other organisation. 
•    They move towards equity in six ways
o    Change input
o    Change output
o    Change perception of self
o    Change perception of others
o    Change the reference point
o    Change the situation
•    Based on distributive justice
•    Revised on the basis of procedural justice later
Porter and Lauler (Potter and LOLer) - Process
•    Effort depends on the perception about performance
•    Effort need not necessarily lead to performance
•    For effort to convert to performance you should have the ability and role perception
•    Performance gives rewards
o    All rewards don’t motivate
o    There are intrinsic and extrinsic rewards
o    Only intrinsic motivate
o    This is called perceived reward probability
•    Performance gives you satisfaction. (performance depends on satisfaction is invalid)
o    So for him its a two way thing
<get more clarity>
Morale
•    Psychological state of highness or lowness
•    It is critical to efficiency of the org
•    Factors affecting morale
o    Personnel management techniques and processes
o    Human relations
o    Organisational environment

Decision making
 Garbage can model

"Garbage Can" Model [GARBAGE CAN MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHOICE]:
was developed in reference to "ambiguous behaviors", i.e. explanations/interpretations of behaviors which at least appear to contradict classical theory. The G.C.M. was greatly influenced by the realization that extreme cases of aggregate uncertainty in decision environments would trigger behavioral responses which, at least from a distance, appear "irrational" or at least not in compliance with the total/global rationality of "economic man" (e.g. "act first, think later"). The G.C.M. was originally formulated in the context of the operation of universities and their many inter-departmental communications problems.....
The garbage can model tried to expand organizational decision theory into the then uncharted field of organizational anarchy which is characterized by "problematic preferences", "unclear technology" and "fluid participation". "The theoretical breakthrough of the garbage can model is that it disconnects problems, solutions and decision makers from each other, unlike traditional decision theory. Specific decisions do not follow an orderly process from problem to solution, but are outcomes of several relatively independent stream of events within the organization." (Richard L. Daft, 1982, p.139).
Four of those streams were identified in Cohen, March & Olsen's original conceptualization:
1.    Problems
require attention, they are the result of performance gaps or the inability to predict the future. Thus, problems may originate inside or outside the organization Traditionally, it has been assumed that problems trigger decision processes; if they are sufficiently grave, this may happen. Usually, however, organization man goes through the "garbage" and looks for a suitable fix.... called a "solution".
2.    Solutions
... have a life on their own. They are distinct from problems which they might be called on to solve. Solutions are answers (more or less actively) looking for a question. Participants may have ideas for solutions; they may be attracted to specific solutions and volunteer to play the advocate. Only trivial solutions do not require advocacy and preparations. Significant solutions have to be prepared without knowledge of the problems they might have to solve.
3.    Choice opportunities
...are occasions when organizations are expected (or think they are expected) to produce behavior that can be called a decision (or an "initiative"). Just like politicians cherish "photo opportunities", organization man needs occasional "decision opportunities" for reasons unrelated to the decision itself.
4.    Participants
...come and go; participation varies between problems and solutions. Participation may vary depending on the other time demands of participants (independent from the particular "decision" situation under study). Participants may have favorite problems or favorite solutions which they carry around with them...
Why "garbage cans"? It was suggested that organizations tend to produce many "solutions" which are discarded due to a lack of appropriate problems. However problems may eventually arise for which a search of the garbage might yield fitting solutions. 
Probably the most extreme view (namely that of organizational anarchy) of the Carnegie School. Organizations operate on the basis of inconsistent and ill-defined preferences; their own processes are not understood by their members; they operate by trial and error; their boundaries are uncertain and changing; decision-makers for any particular choice change capriciously. To understand organizational processes, one can view choice opportunities as garbage cans into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped. The mix of garbage depends on the mix of labeled cans available, on what garbage is currently produced and the speed with which garbage and garbage cans are removed.

Administrative Reforms

Why is AR needed?
•    Technological change
•    Advances in industrialisation
•    Growth in the number and complexity of governmental activities
•    Changes in social, political and economic spheres of life
•    All above have created extraordinary strains on the traditional machinery of the government
•    Obsolescence of institutions, roles, procedures and processes in the government
What are ways through which AR are done?
•    There are three forms
•    Traditional Approach: let the problem arise and then place a competent person to solve it. Aka Management process
•    Committee Process: appoint ad hoc committee. Like the Hoover Commission in US and ARC in India
•    Setting up O&M units
What are the types of reforms?
•    Macro or micro (affecting the entire administration or a part of it)
•    Procedural reform
•    Behavioural reform
Functions of O&M office
•    To assist line officials to improve management
•    Help reduce costs, save manpower, simplify procedures, save materials, speed operations, improve organisation
•    Chief functions are
o    Comprehensive reviews of departments
o    Planning new activities
o    Research in O&M techniques
o    Training O&M officials and employees
o    Co-ordinating the work of different O&M units in government
o    Undertaking ad hoc assignments to investigate and help solve particular problems
o    Analysing organisation methods and procedures
o    Developing management policies, handbook and other guidelines
•    How?
o    Research and Development
o    Training
o    Investigation
o    Co-ordination of management improvement programme
o    Information
o    Publication
Nature of O&M
•    O&M unit alone should not be responsible for effecting improvements in administration. It cannot be a substitute for management improvement. Efficiency specialists have an important place in government, but not efficiency engineer will ever solve the principal problems of government
•    O&M is primarily a service function
•    The role of O&M units is essentially advisory. It has therefore a line and staff function. Decisions should not be forced upon the department
•    O&M should be recognized as a work improvement study and not a fault-finding mission. O&M man should not assume a superior position of a fault-finder or a critic
•    It should not be presented as something too mysterious and technical
Advantages of O&M
•    It provides a machinery for a constant attempt to improve the public administration
•    It helps keep both the structure of government offices and the procedure adopted by them up-to-date in tune with the changing circumstances. Reduce time lag.
•    Help to accumulate a wealth of experience which can be drawn upon whenever required
•    A separate O&M department is needed because
o    Time: Senior officials of an agency of government often have little time to examine the problems of organisation and methods
o    Independence: Line officials lack the necessary perspective to look at problems of organisation and of office procedure
o    Experience: The fact that the O&M work is undertaken by a body of officials, who specialize in this work, is the essence of this system.
O&M Techniques
•    Management or Organisation Survey
•    Inspections
•    Work Measurement
•    Work Simplification
•    Automation
•    Forms Control
•    Filing System
 
E-governance
•    The use of IT in governance is aimed at having SMART – Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent – government. 
 
Arora and Goyal
AR
•    Involves enhancement in the capacity of an administrative system to achieve its assigned goals. 
Why AR
•    Only an administrative system that revitalises itself constantly can respond to the changing socio-economic environment 
Some important committees on AR
•    US: Haldane, Brownlow, First Hoover, Second Hoover, Fulton
•    India: ARC 1 (1966-70), ARC 2 (2007-)
o    1947: Secretariat Reorganisation Committee (GS Bajapai)
o    1948: Economy Committee (Kasturbhai Lalbhai)
o    1949: N Gopalswamy Ayyangar Committee (recommended O&M)
o    1951: Planning Commission Report
o    1953: Appleby Report (Public Administration in India: Report of a Survey). Based on his report
    Indian Institute of Public Administration was set up
    O&M Division was set up in the Cabinet Secretariat
o    1954: Ashok Chanda (recommended more AI services)
o    1956: Second Appleby Report ( Re-examination of India’s Administrative System with Special Reference to Administration of Government Industrial and Commercial Enterprises)
o    1957: Balwant Rai Mehta Coommittee Report (introduction of the Panchayati Raj system)
o    1964: Santhanam Committee Report
    Strengthen vigilance organisations
    Adoption of a code of conduct for civil servants
o    1966: ARC 1 (Morarji Desai/K Hanumanthaiya) < Presented 20 reports between 1966-1970> Major recommendations
    Appointment of Lokpal and Lok Ayuktas
    Creation of full fledged department of personnel
    Performance budgeting
    Unified grading pay structure
    Introduction of specialists into senior and middle management positions
o    1973: 3rd Pay Commission
o    1975: Kothari Committee on Recruitment Policy and Selection Methods
    System of single examination for All-India Services was introduced
o    1978: Committee on Panchayati Raj Institutions (Ashok Mehta)
    Recommended setting up of Mandal Panchayats
o    1977-80: National Police Commission
o    1988: Sarkaria Commission
    Creation of inter-state councils
o    1989: Satish Chandra Committee on the Recruitment Policy and  Selection Methods for All-India and Central Services

AR in India
•    Ancient Times: Mauryas and Guptas. Dharmashastra, Arthashastra and Thirukkural
•    Medieval Times: Mughals
•    British
o    Creation of Civil Services (Cornwallis)
o    Creation of Supreme Court and reforms in judiciary
o    Creation of central secretariat
o    Departmentalisation and consolidation of district administration under the Collector
o    Urban local govt
o    Rule of Law
o    Institutionalisation of impersonal government
o    Police system
o    Establishment of Public Service Commission
o    Personnel Administration
•    Committees during British
o    Committee on ICS (1854)
o    Public Service Commission (1886-87)
o    Royal Commission on Decentralisation (1907-09)
o    Royal Commission on Public Service in India (1912-15)
o    Tottenham Committee (1945)
o    First Pay Commission (1946)
•    After Independence
o    More than 600 committees (Centre + State)
o    Kerala ARC (1958), Andhra Pradesh Reforms Enquiry Committee (1960), Rajasthan ARC (1963), WB ARC (1963)
o    Experts like Paul Appleby and Nicholas Kaldor have also written about AR in India
Major Concerns in Administration
•    Efficiency and Economy
•    Specialisation
o    Role of the specialist has been increasing slowly
•    Effective Coordination
•    Administration and development of public personnel
•    Integrity in public service
•    Responsiveness and Public Accountability
•    Decentralisation and Democratisation
•    Updating administrative technology
•    
Challenges
•    Political resistance. Measures involving devolution of power face a lot of resistance
•    At times, the govt that passed the reforms is different from the one implementing it. This may lead to improper implementation
•    Vested interests
•    Public apathy or antipathy
•    Administrative inexperience
•    Imposition from above
•    Ambiguity about implications
•    Inflexibility
•    Adhocism
•    Individualisation in place of institutionalisation

Success of AR will depend on
•    Need of the system and its beneficiaries
•    Public support and a feeling of sharing of reform-goals
•    Timeliness
•    Effective source of initiation
•    Political will
•    Administrative entrepreneurship
•    Participation of key actors in the strategies for implementation
•    Pragmatism and flexibility
•    Effective reward and punishment system
•    Continuing evaluation and appraisal
•    Institutionalisation of reforms

CPA

Changing profile of DA

• Diffusion Theory (early 1950s)
• Basic needs approach (early 1970s and mid 80s)
• Entitlement approach (early 80s)
• Reinventing model (Osborn and Gaebler)
• Trust building (early 2000s)
  • 2007, Vienna conf on reinventing govt
  • Most important thing is to build people’s trust in govt
• Anti-development thesis (mid 70s onwards)

Current Status of CPA

• Take photocopy from Divya

Riggs model is based on two approaches

• Parson’s variables
• Structural functional approach

Parson’s variables adopted by Riggs

Agraria	Transitia	Industria
Ascriptive	Attainment	Achievement
Particularistic	Selective	Universalitic
Fused	Poly-functional	Specific

 

Ecology and administration

• Heady
  • Concentric circles
  • (Inner-outer) Political – social – cultural – economic

 

Topic 1: CPA

What

• What is its meaning and scope?
• What are the approaches within CPA?
• What has been the contribution of various thinkers?
• Distinct Features
• Does CPA have a universal theory?
• Difference from non-comparative approach?
• Themes in CPA
• Literary map of CPA

Why?

• Why did it evolve?
• Why is it needed? What purpose it serves?

How?

• How did it evolve? Chronologically and conceptually & what is its current status?

Critical Evaluation

• Limitations
• What is its significance in the present day world?
• How has it helped make the field of public administration more complete? How has it changed the field?
• Has it contributed to the erosion of other methods or is it complementary to other methods? Or Are other approaches redundant now?
• Where is it best to employ a comparative approach and where not to?
• “CPA started with no paradigm of its own and developed none”. Peter Savage.
• Is there a comprehensive science of CPA? <Refer: Universality of CPA>
• Is CPA behavioural?
• Relationship between CPA and policy process
• Study of CPA has given rise to problems of methodological concerns and conceptual focus.
• Has CPA been a neutral field?

 

 

What? :Meaning and scope

• Meaning
  • Robert Jackson: CPA is concerned with making rigorous cross-cultural comparisons of the structures and processes involved in the activity of administering public affairs.
  • So, CPA is cross cultural and cross national.
  • Hallmark: Commitment to comparison as a tool of analysis
• Is it only about developing countries?
  • No. It includes both developed and developing countries
  • It compares different institutions in different countries in relation to their diverse environmental settings.
• Scope
  • Micro level: cross-institutional studies in a single country -> ideographic studies
  • Macro level: extends to structural and functional aspects of administration of common variables in the nations across the world
  •  Cross temporal in dimension
  • Includes various comparative theories and models such as  the bureaucratic model and ecological model
• CPA is a caution against administrative monocultures.
• CPA attempts at cross-cultural administrative theories through twin process of theory testing and theory building.
• The empirical approach to CPA is an extension of the open systems theory of organisation where the very idea of one best prescription is questioned and instead of one best, the most fitting is attempted to be discovered in view of actual reality prevailing.

Dimensions of CPA

• Cross cultural (eg. Developed vs Developing nations)
• Cross National (eg USA vs India)
• Cross temporal (eg India pre independence vs India post independence)
• Supra national (eg ASEAN vs SAARC)
• Sub national (eg UP vs Kerala)

What: Approaches in CPA

• Universalistic Approach: seeks to find commonalities among public bureaucracies in various countries in the world by conceptual means
  • Weber’s bureaucratic model
  • Wilson’s transfer of administrative practices model
    • Importance of historic and comparative studies
    • Need to use cultural filtering lens
• Ecological Approach
  • General systems approach
  • Development oriented approach

What: Contributions of various thinkers

• Weber
  • Compared different bureaucracies
  • Provided the theory of domination  which catalysed further comparative research
  • Concept of field bureaucracy (?)

What: distinct features

1. Relatively young sub-field
2. Competing and diverse approaches
3. Emphasis on normative considerations could be seen side by side with empirical analyses
4. Dominated by American scholars
5. Two motivational concerns: theory building and administrative problems of the developing countries

What?: Universal theory?

• Heady says that universal theory of CPA remains elusive because
  • Difficult to identify the boundaries of the admin system
  • Implementation networks in countries vary
  • Constantly changing admin system
  • Has to be understood in ecological context
  • It has been behavioural

Themes in CPA

• Search for theory
  • Compare different areas or systems
  • Compare different times
  • Compare different systems at the same time or inter-temporal
• Comparative not the same as international
• Urge for practical application

What: difference from non-comparative approach

• Pub Ad is generally culture bound. It has evolved in UK and USA and hence its theories reflect the realities of those places. CPA goes beyond this boundary to provide a contextual understanding of administration
• PA has been practitioner oriented while CPA has attempted to build theory and  seek knowledge for knowledge sake. <Mohit Bhattacharya>. Comment.
  • Knowledge for knowledge sake is related to the functioning of CAG. CAG was very academic in its pursuit and focused more on theory building rather than studying the actual working of PA in different countries. So it was not application oriented. This academic inclination of CAG ultimately led to the withdrawal of Ford Foundation from the sponsorship
• CPA facilitates reducing the egocentric and ethnocentric tendencies by emphasising that PA needs to understand and respect the differences

The Why?

 

Why did it evolve?

1. Emergence of newly independent nations
2. Extension of US technical assistance to developing world
3. Exposure to new administrative systems
4. Revisionist movement in academia
5. Behavioural and inter-disciplinary approaches in PA
6. Development of other disciplines – sociology, anthro
7. Financial assistance by FF
8. Globalisation

All the above can be summed in two points

• Need for comparision as a pre-requisite for the development of a science of public administration
• Need for comparison in the interest of practical governance and knowledge of facts

Purpose of CPA

• Theory building in PA. Develop universally valid body of knowledge

• Answer common problems
• Identify similarities and differences
• Explain factors responsible for differences
• Examine cause for success and failures. Identify the best practices.
• Important for administrative reforms

 

 

The How

How did it evolve?

Historical perspective

• Woodrow Wilson 1887
• Post second world war necessitated the  development
• 1895-1920: Weber carried out the most important comparative research
  • Developed the core concept of bureaucracy as part of a comparative typology of the forms of domination: tradition, charisma and legal rationality
• 1930s: Finer and Friedrich had major comparative studies of bureaucracies
• 1947: Robert Dahl
  • “As long as the study of public administration is not comparative, claims for a science of public administration sounds rather hollow.” Comment.
  • Science of PA is atleast worthy of seeking even if not fully achievable
  • ‘classical science of administration’ had faced objections from scholars like Dahl because it was parochial in the absence of testing in a variety of ecological context
  • Therefore he had termed such science as hollow.
  • CPA seeks to have a thorough testing before administrative principles & models are prescribed as universal or adoptable best practices.
• 1952: Conference on administration at Princeton University
• 1960s: CPA as a new intellectual endeavour
• Comparative Administration Group
• By 1960s CPA received three kinds of stimulus
  • Intellectual stimulus
  • Policy stimulus
    • Independence of new countries – development goal
  • Institutional stimulus
    • CAG in ASPA

Conceptual Perspective

• Traditional (Pre WW 2)
• Modern (Post WW 2)

Table 1

	Traditional	Modern
Scope	Formalistic and narrow in coverage. Confined to Euro-American experiences	Wider in coverage. Covers both developed and developing countries
Relation to environment	Non-ecological (also, normative and  ideographic)	Ecological (also empirical and  nomothetic)
Methodology	Merely juxtaposing the description of a number of similar administrative institutions	Commitment to comparison as a method of study
	Merely configurative as it stresses the characteristics of admin systems of individual countries	Makes generalisations transcending national boundaries

 

CAG

• Contribution to PA through
  • Organised various seminars
  • Sponsored research
  • Adopted area approach ( 4 territories, 7 subjects)
  • Journal of CA
• Actual contribution to PA
  • Widened the horizons of PA
  • Made PA more interdisciplinary
  • Made PA more logical and systematic by studying ecology
  • Stimulated interest in development administration
  • Provided the institutional arrangement at the apex level
  •  

Current status of CPA

• 3^rd Minnowbrook conference has one important thrust of revival of CPA
• As already seen, CPA underwent a sharp decline in early 70s after enjoying its peak period in mid to late 60s so much so that in 1973 CAG was disbanded as a full fledged committee of ASPA and was merged into the international committee of ASPA
• Thus it suffered serious erosion in terms of its status, power and scope of activities. It was now renamed as Section on International & Comparative Administration (SICA) and although on paper it continued to have the same mandate namely to lead and  coordinate CPA researches, its scope of activities was significantly narrower.
• Infact for next two decades or so, it remained virtually defunct, dried of funds, having no clarity about its plan of action
• However, revival efforts have been ongoing from time to time, initially they were sporadic but from mid 1990s onwards, there is a discernable resurgence in field of CPA
• 1990s: Osborne and Gaebler – Reinventing model opened doors again for CPA
• Revival efforts
  • In 1981, one of the significant revival efforts was made by Charles Goodsell who recommended two new approaches to comparative analysis which were more and more significant in contemporary world namely supranational comparision and ecology & subnational comparisions
  • In the late 1980s, another such effort was made by John Jun who argued for revival of comparative studies by studying organisational changes and organisational development
    • He emphasised the utility of institutional comparisions 
    • This created a very significant shift in focus of CPA namely shift from ‘theory building’ to ‘institution building’
    • It adopted an approach whereby through comparisions institutional reforms and capacity building would be yield
    • Thus this approach was much more practical and application oriented and gave CPA a newfound legitimacy and justification
  • Ferrel Heady argued for continuation of CPA because he was convinced that “CPA has attractive new opportunities.”
    • These new opportunities hinted here can be related to international and intra-national comparisons which could be of the nature of ones suggested by Gudsell and Jun
  • A major landmark came in form of Osborne and Gaebler’s 1992 study which gave the concept of reinventing government
    • This became a major paradigm not only for NPM and reforms perspective in PA but also became a paradigm around which CPA was to be revived.
    •  It created a thrust for comparative reforms.
    • The idea was that through comparisons, lessons can be learnt regarding reinventing the role, size and structure of govt & re-engineering the processes of administrative service delivery
    • This again carried forward the application oriented momentum in CPA & consolidated the institution building & reforms initiatives
  • The current theme of CPA is towards institution and capacity building through comparisons and reinventing and re-engineering through comparisons
  • Very recently, 3^rd MB conference in Sept 2008, has reiterated significance of CPA & has recommended its revival along the theme of comparative reforms rather than grand theory building.

Critical Evaluation

Table 2

Advantages	Shortcomings
Comparing administrative systems in different contexts -> develop commonality in public administration.	Prescriptive but not applied in nature
Can reveal the distinctive characteristics of a system	Grand theories of CPA (like Riggs’ model) are not useful to the administrative practitioners
Identify similarities and differences	CPA scholars have not framed their theories in testable terms
Shows relation of admin to the environment	Failure to draw its boundaries and set the rules as a field of study
Helps identify what makes a system work?
Explain difference in the behaviour of bureaucrats
Practicing administrators can get aid from such studies
Improve our knowledge of other country’s institutions so that it could be adopted

 

Significance in the present context

• Gives better conceptual grasp of PA
• Needed more in the present world
  • Globalisation
  • Need for administrative harmony between nations
  • Greater economic interaction
  • Greater cultural interaction
  • External agencies implementing programmes. Like the WB.
• Can help in these spheres
  • Best recruitment method at different levels of administration
  • Implementation of certain common programmes that many governments across the world undertake. Eg. Vaccination programmes or sanitation programmes
  • Improve the capacities and performance
  • Identify the best pattern of organisation that can be used for tasks of routine nature
  • Can identify ways to reduce bureaucratic power, especially in developing countries
  • Lessen the tensions between the politicians and bureaucrats by identifying the middle path
  • Better policy making

Impact of CPA on PA

• Provides a macro picture
• Has made the field more empirical
• Shift from how organisations should be to what they actually are
• Extensive use of the systems approach
• As a post-behavioural analysis it made the discipline more complete in its scope

Practical Impact of CPA

• Scandinavian institution of ombudsman adopted worldwide
• Impact on administration of development programmes
• Impact on Indian Administration
  •  

Neutrality of CPA

• Not always been a neutral academic field
• Overt and covert biases in favour of the administrative models of Western developed democracies
• Led to a lop sided view of administrative realities
• Neglect of the study of strengths of pre-bureaucratic social control of community life in many third world countries
• But this is changing now
• With the ecological approach, an attempt is being made to study admin within a context and assess its rationality based on that
• Some traditional aspects of PA in underdeveloped societies (like community management of biodiversity is being applauded as scientific, rational and resource-conserving

“CPA started with no paradigm of its own and developed none”. Peter Savage.

• CPA tested some pre-existing paradigms (dichotomy, Weber’s bureaucracy etc)
• What Savage is suggesting is that CPA did not have its own theory and was actually working with some pre-existing theoretical paradigms
• This is correct because to begin with, CPA’s only emphasis was on theory testing and for that it utilized some pre-existing & widely used theories namely Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy, politics administration dichotomy theory
• The main idea was to discover their applicability, functionality & disfunctionality in specific context.
• However, it would be an exaggeration and unfair to CAG to say that it did not even develop any new paradigm
• Infact many new models were developed which sought to give insight into the features of underdeveloped societies in contrast with transitional and developed societies
• The most noteworthy in this context are the agraria industria models and the fused prismatic society models given by FW Riggs
• Infact, the prismatic sala model or ‘salacracy’ given by Riggs is highly valued & appreciated for giving an insightful analysis of the constraints which administrative system encounters under a transitional ecology of a developing society

What are the issues of contention in CPA?

Topic 2: Ecology and Administration

 

What?

• Contrasts with the universalistic theory
• Signifies the interconnections between an administrative system and its environment – social, political, cultural and environment
• Public bureaucracies show great diversity because of variations in their environmental settings
• CPA scholars who used the concept of ecology
• J M Guas
•  Ferrel Heady
•  Riggs

J M Guas

• First person to talk about use of ecology in PA
• 1940s, he drew upon the works of a number of sociologists who had shown importance of ecology in understanding social institutions and processes
• Guas argued that PA is influenced by surrounding factors namely historic, sociological and political factors
• Identified six ecological factors that influence PA systems
  • People
  • Place
  • Physical technology
  • Social technology
  • Personality and aspirations of people
  • Catastrophies

Heady

• Concentric circles model of ecology
• He argued that different components or elements of ecology affect the administrative system differently
• He used ecology as a set of concentric circles with the argument that the innermost circle covering the administrative sub-set will have the biggest and strongest influence on administration
• According to him the political features lying in ecology are the strongest because political setup sets the tone of administrative functioning

Riggs

• Riggs wanted to describe how different ecologies can have different structural-functional features
• He observed that if ecological considerations are helpful in understanding one’s own administrative system, then they must be doubly useful in carrying out comparisons
• Based his theory on Parson’s Structural Functional approach and Pattern Variables
  • Which 3structures perform which functions
  • With what effectiveness or lack of it
• Thus interaction between admin sys and ecology in above two manners

Topic 3: Riggs

Sala is like a multi-functional room

Riggs: CPA is to be “empirical, nomothetic and ecological – that is, to put crudely, factual and scientific, abstracted and generalizable, systematic and non-parochial”

Agraria-Industria Classification

• Based on three of the pattern variables suggested by Parsons
  • Ascription behaviroual pattern vs Achievement behavioural patter
  • Particularistic BP vs Universal BP
  • Fused Functioning vs Specific functioning
• Ascription: grant status to someone based on birth and inheritance rather than on personal characteristic and merit
• Achievement: status or benefits being granted two people purely on merit and not on reasons like family lineage, religion, region, caste etc
• Particularistic: which favour a narrow base for taking social decisions rather than a generalised or universal
  • Inward looking decision making dominated & motivated by particular or private interest
• Universalistic: Outward looking decision making wherein collective interest of society guides DM & pub institutions behave in the wider interests of the entire class of stakeholders
• Fused: various functions or responsibilities are being simultaneously performed by a single structure or institution
• Specific: social structures and administrative institutions which perform very specific and demarcated function

Table 3

AGRARIA	TRANSITIA	INDUSTRIA
Ascriptive	Attainment	Achievement
Particularistic	Selective	Universalistic
Fused	Poly-functional	Specific

 

Prismatic Sala Model

• Based on the Parsonian structural functional approach.
• What does it do?
  • Examines how PA is performed by different types of social structures
• How?
  • Administrative sub-system is placed within the framework of a larger system (environment)

Table 4

Kind of overlap	Part of which component of ecology	Termed by Riggs as
Interest group overlap	Socio-political	Clects/Polycommunalism
Pricing overlap	Economic	Bazaar-Canteen
Norms Overlap	Socio-Cultural	Polynormativism (normlessness)
Power/Control overlap	Politico-Administrative	Unbalanced Polity (usurpative)

Prerequisites for integration

• Penetration
• Participation

Criticisms

• Presents only a one way ecological interface
  • Overlooks how the administrative system influences the ecology
• Western Bias
  • Diffractive societies have positives and hence the desirable state
  • Prismatic societies have negatives and hence undesirable
  • Prismatic features always bad
  • One should not that overlapping and heterogeneity are not always bad
• It is a status quoist model
  • Describes diffracted societies as end state <but development is an ongoing process>
  • Objections have been raised to Riggs’ suggestion that low and slow differentiation, with an equitable integration is more desirable than a fast & big differentiation with prospects of malintegration
  • No measuring rod or a scale by which societies can actually be identified as prismatic or diffracted

Significance

• The theory of prismatic society has influenced theorising in development administration
• In many countries, ‘enclave’ development has been promoted through introduction of micro-institutions to push through development within the framework of under-developments

CS Activism

Civil service refers to the body of government officials who are employed in civil occupations that are neither political nor judicial. The concept of civil service was prevalent in India from ancient times. The Mauryan administration employed civil servants in the name of adhyakshas and rajukas.
The examination for civil servants in those days too was very stringent as quoted by Kautilya's Arthasastra. The expanse of the territory and the need to hold it intact made it imperative for the Mauryan administration to recruit civil servants based on merit. The concept of civil service again came into prominence when the British in search of creating a framework to hold the territories of India, created the much coveted 'Indian Civil Services' or the ICS.
Many changes took place in Indian Civil Services since Lord Cornwallis introduced it in India. The Indian Civil services were created to foster the idea of unity in diversity.
The civil service was expected to give continuity and change to the administration no matter the political scenario and turmoil affecting the country. Indian civil service has also played the part of giving this continuous support to the nation. But what is appalling and needs a serious consideration is the element of 'change'.
It can be said that the civil service as a whole has maintained its status quo instead of sweeping changes in social and economic scenario. Some may argue that it is the resilience of the civil service, but it is an obvious fact out in the street that the Indian civil service was not able to deliver service based upon the expectations of the people or the founding fathers of the Constitution.
The civil service is an integral part of administration and the structures of administration too deter the way the civil service functions. Civil Service reform is deliberate change efforts by government improve its capacity to effectively and efficiently execute policies. Reforms in the Civil Service occurred ever since the Chinese invented bureaucracy - they are a continuous process with no g starting point, and equally no end.
The Indian bureaucracy, with its national character, has been a strong binding force to a Union States. The institution of civil service has rendered yeoman service to the overall socio-economy development of the country.
It has been at the forefront of development process right from the 'comma heights regime' to the 'liberalization and de-regulation era'. It has not only played a pivotal role in desi and activating policies but also ensured basic service delivery at the cutting edge of government-cit interface.
The importance of the Civil Service to governance stems from the following:
» Service presence throughout the country and its strong binding character
» Administrative and managerial capacity of the services
» Effective policy-making and regulation
» Effective coordination between institutions of governance
» Leadership at different levels of administration
» Service delivery at the cutting edge level
» Provide 'continuity and change' to the administration.
In recent times, there has been accelerated change globally brought about by technological advance greater decentralization and social activism. The ramifications of these changes are being felt government in the form of increasing expectations for better governance through effective service deli\| transparency, accountability and rule of law.
The civil service, as the primary arm of government, keep pace with the changing times in order to meet the aspirations of the people. The purpose 'reform' is to reorient the Civil Services into a dynamic, efficient and accountable apparatus for p service delivery built on the ethos and values of integrity, impartiality and neutrality. The reform is raise the quality of public services delivered to the citizens and enhances the capacity to carry out government functions, thereby leading to sustainable development.
Prior to developing the contents of Civil Service Reform, there is a need for an open, objective st taking of the current situation.
India's massive bureaucracy is maintained at huge cost by the country's taxpayer whose average income is among the lowest in the world. But the public perception about the members of the services, who function at cutting edge and higher coordinating and policy making levels, is that they burdensome low-performers' heading a highly bloated bureaucracy, which is, often, perceived to corrupt and inefficient in governing the country.
The ailments afflicting Indian civil services are:
1. Lack of professionalism and poor capacity building
2. Inefficient incentive systems that do not appreciate upright and outstanding civil servants but reward the corrupt and the incompetent
3. Outmoded rules and procedures that restrict the civil servant from performing effectively
4. Systemic inconsistencies in promotion and empanelment
5. Lack of adequate transparency and accountability procedures - there is also no safety for while blowers
6. Arbitrary and whimsical transfers - insecurity in tenures impedes institutionalization
7. Political interference and administrative acquiescence
8. Gradual erosion in values and ethics
9. Patrimonialism1 (World Bank, 1994)
It is well recognized that Civil Service Reform is not only necessary but also inevitable. It has much value in governance as in socio-economic development.

Democratic Decentralisation

73rd Amendment
Making the 73rd amendment work
•    Historical overview
o    The first few editions of the FYPs envisaged decentralised, participation-oriented planning
o    The subsequent FYPs switched to centrally directed, and administered, intervention strategies
o    Schemes: Community Development Programme (1952); the National Extension Service (1953); the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (1960); the Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (1966); the Small Farmer Development Agencies (1972); the National Rural Employment Programme (1980)
•    The policy shifts, organisational changes and programme innovations have  not succeeded in ensuring a desirable degree of self-governance at the grass-roots level
•    The key to enabling people’s participation in the development related decision-making process lies in reordering the policies so as to make self-government a reality at the local level. 
•    Apart from the quantitative targets, quality and sustainability of the programme should also be objectives.
•    Need for decentralised planning at the district and local levels
•    Focus on the education system as a key agent of change in power and society
•    Professionalisation of civil services, with accent on performance, productivity and empowerment of the downtrodden

Grassroots Democracy in India: An Assessment
•    Origin of grassroots level democracy dates back to the Vedic Age and has been fairly well documented in ancient scriptures
•    Under the British LSG in rural areas did not make much progress
•    Gandhi’s vision
•    DPSP Article 40
•    After independence, the Community Development Programme and National Extension Service were launched to address rural reconstruction efforts
•    BR Mehta committee stated that the community needs to be involved in planning, decision making and implementation process
•    However, PRIs across the country faced resistance from bureaucracy, lacked capacity and were often captured by certain elitist sections of the community
•    Ashok Mehta Committe described the post 1959 period in three phases
o    Ascendancy (1959-64)
o    Stagnation (1965-69)
o    Decline (1969-77)
•    The committee recommended that district should be the basic unit for planning, coordination and resource allocation and should be supported by technical expertise. 
•    GVK Rao Committee
o    PRIs need to play an important role in rural development programmes
Evaluation
•    Gram-Sabha which is considered as the life-line of PRIs by directly reflecting people’s views and voices has to see a much higher level of participation by the entire community
•    Considerable discretion is vested in the state governments. 
•    Several non obligatory provisions, like the representation of legislators and members of parliament in PRIs is affecting the true expression of village democracy
•    Adequate training and sustained handholding efforts are not extended to elected representatives. Hence, there is a lack of professionalism in handling administrative, financial and other related issues
•    Devolution of three Fs – Funds, Functions and Functionaries which is imperative for effective public service delivery has not yet taken place in many states
•    District Planning Committee
o    Its performance levels need to be improved by making the District Panchayat Chairman as its head and reducing the role of in charge ministers
•    There are structural weaknesses
•    A greater amount of political will is essential to enable these bodies to function as true democratic institutions
•    However, in certain parts of the country the PRIs have emerged as powerful vehicles for social transformation
o    In Karnataka, under the Participatory Rural Energy Services, Gram Panchayat members were trained to offer electricity support services and transfer best practices for water farming and electricity management
o    Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning in Orissa uses PRIs to improve access in rural areas
o    In UP mid-day meal programme is managed by the gram panchayats
•    Challenges
o    Constitution of certain types of committees not in line with the spirit of the PRIs
o    Strengths of SHGs need to be integrated for improving the capability of the Panchayats (eg Kudumbshree)
o    An organic linkage between gram sabha and gram panchayat is yet to be forged
o    In many states GPs do not constitute viable administrative units due to their geographical areas and physical distances from potential growth centres
o    The higher outlays and number of programmes require a much higher level of capability and professionalism for delivering the desired results
o    Physical infrastructure also needs to be substantially improved at the Panchayat level for data maintenance, record keeping etc
•    Positive role played by the PRIs
o    PRIs are increasingly being recognised as the best alternative to implement several developmental programs  and of late GPs are made to play a pivotal role in the planning and implementation process
o    Social audits at PRI level have shown that people’s participation is both qualitatively and effectively resolving local problems
•    To conclude
o    While at some places we have very strong PRIs, at other end we have a large number of PRIs which are not in a position to perform effectively
o    Their effective performance depends on the three Fs
o    Since the devolution of the powers and functions are within the ambit of the State Government and the Act does not make it mandatory for the full fledged transfer of powers, the PRIs have not developed uniformly across the country
o    The establishment of SHGs in many states, the participation of NGOs and CBOs working together with PRIs is a promising trend which can improve the delivery of governing systems at the grass root level. 

Women in PRIs
•    33% reservation exists
•    Proposal to increase this to 50%
•    General observations
o    Women PRI members have generally performed well throughout the country
o    Women panchayat representatives consistently demand for adequate supply of drinking water, housing and social welfare programmes, expenditure on these counts are relatively higher in women headed panchayats
•    Problems
o    Security: Sometimes due to lack of security women members fail to visit remote areas in odd hours or attend meetings in far away places
o    Due to lack of exposure and experience may find difficult in asserting themselves
o    Used as puppet candidates

Development Administration

Relationship between CPA and DA

• The two are often equated with each other
• DA has flourished within the larger corpus of CPA literature
• The theory of prismatic society has influenced theorising in development administration
• In many countries, ‘enclave’ development has been promoted through introduction of micro-institutions to push through development within the framework of under-developments

 

 

Bureaucracy and Development

Is bureaucracy a hindrance or vehicle for development?

How bureaucracy has changed over time? From being a vehicle of maintaining status-quo to being development oriented.

What is the current position on the idea of development and to achieve it what should be the role/size of bureaucracy?

Comparison with other  countries

What bureaucracy has (as per Weber) and what does development need?

 

Can bureaucracy be the right instrument for undertaking the development of any country?

• Alleged that bureaucracy is status-quo oriented
  • Development needs change
  •  

 

Table 1

Bureaucracy has	Advantages for development	Disadvantages
Hierarchy – well laid out graded – strict subordinate superior relationship	Well-defined division of work   Reduces friction between officials by clearly defining sphere of competence   Effective coordination through a well laid out machinery	Policy decisions made at the top only   Non-participative approach towards people and sub-ordinates.   High-handedness of bureaucrats. ‘we know the best’ ideology
Recruitment based on merit	Ensures best talents take up to the task of development	Does not permit people like activists and others on grassroot who have actual experience in leading development programmes to take charge of those programmes   Not oriented to the changing conditions at the grassroot
Career service system	Ensures that persons have worked at the grassroots level before getting promoted and making policies	Makes the bureaucrats complacent and indifferent as their job is not at stake   Takes away their initiative as there is no reward or punishment
Strict adherence to laws, rules, regulations and precedents / Rule orientation	Removes arbitrariness. Decisions are unambiguous and continuity in decisions	Selznick: Excessive rule orientation may lead to goal displacement   Follow rules blindly   Takes away the initiative and discretion of the public servant   Red-tapism and delay in programme implementation   May lead to corruption through speed money
Anonymity and neutrality	Removes the inhibition towards taking initiatives as anonymity persists	Neutrality taken as a cover for bureaucratic apathy   Merton: complete anonymity and value neutrality militate against the concept of public service
Rationality and impersonality		<complete rationality anyways is not possible Simon>   Makes the public servant completely insensitive to the feelings of the citizens

 

But what does development need?

• Very difficult to agree on a definition of development
• Dependency theory to capabilities approach
• But development has at least two components
  • People centred
  • Involves the questions of change and values
• Development needs
  • Quick decision making
  • Initiative of the public servant
  • Innovation
  • Proper design
  • Goal orientation
  • Change orientation

 

Women and Development

• How is the status of women related to development? / Bring forth clearly the relationship between development of women and achievement of MDGs.
• What are the problem areas in relation to women and development?
• Has administration been inclusive of women in development?
• What strategies can be implemented to make women a participant in development
• Discuss the role of SHGs in development
• What are the problems of SHGs
• What are the positives of SHGs? Limitations? What changes to implement?
• Put some examples of effective participation of women in development from India and other countries
•  

 

How is the status of women related to development?

• Status of women is closely bound to other development issues
  • UNDP head Helen Clark had described investment in women as key to striving for MDGs
• Sexual and reproductive health services, girl’s education and women’s legal rights all require investment in women. à all these also related to MDGs
• Health of women closely related to the health of the child. Hence development programmes at aim at improving health outcomes must begin at the level of women and involve them
• Economic power of women
• HDR adjusted for gender inequality

 

What are the problem areas in relation to women and development?

• Economic
  • Legal hurdles stand in the way of women accessing financial services. For example: Women (without land) are not recognized as farmers in India. So, they cannot get agricultural credit. This is despite the fact that women constitute a sizable portion of agricultural labourers.
  • Sometimes social customs inhibit women’s right of inheritance
  • Women carry a disproportionate burden of unpaid work

 

Discuss the role of SHGs in development

•  

 

Some examples of effective participation of women in development from India and other countries

• SHG movement in India
• Kudumbshree in Kerala

 

 

 

State-vs-Market

 

• The debate is not a new one. It has been in continuous existence ever since the publication of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ by Adam Smith
• Smith and Ricardo made case for free markets, laissez-faire
• Communists argued for total control of the market by the state
• With the emergence of Keynesianism the role of state was enhanced
• In the 1940s the debate was essentially between Keynes and Hayek
• The question assumed even more significance with the liberation of a former colonies
  • They were faced with  the question of development and which path to take
• After the end of the cold war, market became the pre-dominant paradigm.
• Washington Consensus

Why did the debate emerge?

• Shift in the stance of public policy since 1980s
• Thatcherism and Reaganism
• Emergence of New Right
• Public Choice theory
• Emergence of the competition state

What is the debate?

• Roll back of the state resulted in deregulation, privatisation and introduction of market-oriented reforms in public services
• This has led to a pro-market and anti-state philosophy
• Milton Friedman contributed to this
• That market and not the state has to be the central actor in the new political economy
• Government is less efficient than markets over providing services to individuals

What is its objective?

• Slim the state and liberate the market forces
• Import market concepts and incentives into the working of the government itself
• Take measures to reduce the relative size and expanse of public expenditure and also to cut down the range of functions that the government performs

Views and counterviews

Table 2

Pro-state	Pro-market
Joan Robinson: Invisible hand of the state might work by strangulation	Paul Streeten: The state does not optimize anything, neither public welfare nor self-interest.
Synthesis/State market cooperation
Sen and Dreze: Success of market is dependent on the nature of state action. The state action is context dependent
Bhaduri and Nayar: ‘creative cooperation’ between the two. State must create physical and social infrastructure. Functional, institutional and strategic interventions should be made. Functional: remedy market failure Institutional:  setting rules of the game Strategic: guide the market to attain long term objectives of development
The state must not abandon its efforts for development in the name of LPG
Socially Responsible Market Economy (SRME) proposed by Indian economists: reorienting role of state through joint sector, strengthen social service, infrastructure development. <how is it any different?> SRME emphasises on self-discipline, peer pressure and adherence to codes of conduct by all economic players

 

What changes did policy bring about?

• World Bank and the Washington Consensus
• Structural adjustment programmes

Role of the state in a market economy

1. Provide a legal framework and maintain law and order, including the enforcement of contracts, property rights etc
2. Come up with anti-monopolistic and anti-restrictive practices laws
3. Can intervene in the process of price formation, production and finance to make markets function better
4. Human resource development
5. Physical infrastructure like irrigation, roads, electricity and communication

How? : The Change

Governed Market paradigm

• State intervention in market through
  • Subsidies and distortion of relative prices (can help economic growth through some protection)
  • Control of credit markets (eg. recent economic crisis)
  • Promoting economic choices (eg. Promotion of sustainable energy)
  • Investment and production outcomes that would not have been possible through the ordinary working of the market.
  • Protection of citizen’s interests (eg. Regulation of GM food)
  • Maintaining a stable economy (eg. Again India and the economic crisis)
• The success of East Asian economies of Japan, Taiwan, Korea, HK etc which have been dependent on markets, was to a large extent due to the Governed Market paradigm.
•  

 

What ways should state institutions change?

• Become responsive to the needs of people
• WDR 2000-01: “Attacking Poverty” says that Pub Ad should
  • Implement policies efficiently
  • Be responsive to the needs of the people
  • Redistribute resources for activities that benefit the needy
• WDR 2002: “Building Institutions for Market”
  • Weak institutions.... hurt poor people and hinder development
• WDR 2004: Making services work for poor people
  • Warns that broad improvements in human welfare will not occur unless poor people receive wider access to affordable, better quality services in health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity.
  • These services are essentially state provided. Hence the state has a crucial role in development and enhancing human welfare.

 

Gist of it all

• The debate is no longer valid
  • Neither a liberal state nor an interventionist state can ensure development
• Pro-market reforms are essential for promoting economic growth
• But this does not negate the role of the state
• State is needed to transform this growth into development by thwarting the negative consequences of such reforms through suitable interventions. <eg. Social security schemes, education etc>
• Revitalising public institutions is very important to counteract the negative consequences emanating from LPG
• “A state which pays little attention to the economic suffering and marginalisation of a significant proportion of its population not only discredits itself but also the market process through which such marginalisation occurs. “ The state’s role hence is very vital for the success of the market processes.
• At the same time, today PA has transformed to include three players in governance
  • State
  • Market
  • Civil Society
• What is needed is not less government, but a better and different type of government

 

Impact of Liberalisation

 

What has happened in general due to liberalisation?

• Public sphere is shrinking
• Emergence of the corporate state
• Emergence of regulatory state
• Osborne and Gaebler – Reinventing Government

Impact on administration

• The biggest challenge for administration is to recast the role of the state
• Need to evolve a new regulatory state with an expended agenda.

District Administration

1. Collector is the Chief Representative of the Government in the district. Comment.

• He is the most recognized face of administration
• Considered as the principal representative of the government at the district level
• In coordination with the state government as well as the local government
• Has wide ranging functions and hence can address many problems of the people
• Rajni Kothari –“institutionalised charisma”
• PM MMS had observed – “DM remains even today the linchpin of the administrative system in India”

•  

There exists an organic link between the collector and the state government as well as the collector and the local administration. There three are like gears that enable proper administration. They have to work in coordination.

 

What should be the governing principle of this state-collector-local relationship?

• Principles of subsidiarity and decentralisation should govern their relationship

 

Structure of district administration

 

 

Evolution of collector post independence Or Changing role of district collector

 

• Agents of change, of good governance and development administration.
• The collectors have a first hand experience in dealing with the hopes and aspirations, the lives and livelihoods of the people. The state and central governments benefit immensely from this experience
• After 73^rd and 74^th amendments
  • Role of the collector has been transformed into that of a coordinator, facilitator and a person who is responsible for inter-sectoral coordination of various activities that characterise the work of our grassroot administration

Significance of district admin (significance of collector)

• As the role of the government gets redefined and its becoming more and more citizen centric, the cutting edge of a government’s function is at the district and lower levels
• India lives in its districts. District is the basic unit of administration.
• Provision of education and health facilities, infrastructure, improving equity
• DC has a role in ensuring good governance at the grassroots, in promoting innovation, in improving service delivery, in enhancing public private partnerships and in ensuring outlays become outcomes

 

Should the office of the district collector be retained in its present form?

• Refer report on local governance
• Against the office
  • View that with the empowerment of the PRIs there is a need to devise an environment in which the institution of DC gradually loses importance and ultimately recedes into a district land revenue functionary, responsible to the local bodies
  • This is because the belief that strong traditions linked with this institution and its recognition in the public minds as a prime mover of governance at the district level may impede the growth of any other authority at that level
• Counter view
  • Office of the DC has  risen to this level of importance and utility through many national and local crises and it should not be weakened
• Balanced view
  • Though PRIs have come up they do not totally remove the Collector’s responsibility in matters of local development.
  • The declining importance of land revenue has not lessened the importance of the Collector in the management of land records, the maintenance of law and order and general administration and as an effective grievance redressal authority
  • Collector will continue to be responsible for a multiplicity of tasks at the district level such as improving human capabilities, creating physical infrastructure, improving economic opportunities for marginalised sections of society and facing challenges posed by disasters
  • He has new role in the role of a coordinator, facilitator and a person who is responsible for inter-sectoral coordination of various activities that characterise the work of our grassroots administration
  • Provide overall leadership in the district in the task of nation building
  • Representative district government should be empowered while fully utilizing the institutional strengths of the District Collector

 

Widespread functions without well defined roles result in lack of clarity and diffusion of the Collector’s responsibilities. In this context suggest reforms in the office of collector.

• 15^th report. Pg 44.

 

Organisational arrangement of the Collector’s office, currently, is not in tune with the requirements of the job. What changes are needed?

• Pg 49. 15^th report.

Good Governance

Good Governance
Summary
Good governance is a wide concept encompassing multiple aspects of public administration and governance. The concept itself has at least three connotations:
1.    It is an extension of the concept of public administration and expands the role of the government
2.    It is refers to the conditionalities imposed for debt
3.    It is an ideal that enhances democracy and participation of the people
In its first connotation, good governance calls for a finer understanding of the distinction between government and governance. While governance is the sum total of institutions, governance involves intergovernmental mechanisms and the societal relationships between the different institutions of the government and relationships of the people working therein with their environment. 
Governance itself can be defined as the ability to get things done without the use of a legal force. In this sense, governance stands for establishment, operation, management and networking of social institutions. It manifests itself in the rules and regulations and the decision making procedures. So, in this context, governance is a way of crafting institutions as a matter of public concern.
The second meaning is drawn from the experience of the World Bank in implementing policies in various developing countries. The Bank found that in these countries laws were not enforced properly and there were marked delay in implementation of projects. Thus, the Bank attached certain conditionalities with debt that it provided to these countries. Such conditionalities were also attached to the aid provided by the Western countries. 
The conditionalities focused on two aspects of the government:
1.    How is the government organised
2.    What is the process by which authority is exercised in the management of country’s economic and social resources
Major conditionalities related to public sector management, transparency and information, accountability and legal framework for development. 
The third meaning of governance is a form of an ideal which highlights the importance of rule of law, human rights and participatory government. 
Role of citizens in good governance: Citizen empowerment is not only an outcome of good governance but also an input into the process. Good governance is not only supply driven; demand plays a very important role in it. The government needs to empower people with literacy, education and employment for them to be able to demand good governance. It is only then that the government would be responsive enough. Development of civil society is important in this respect. 

Law and Order Administration

Police reforms
•    The terrorists struck again at Mumbai in July 2011. This, to an extent, brought forth the point that the police is yet to reach the highest levels in intelligence gathering and in dealing with terrorism.
•    Where do we need to focus the reforms?
•    An external agency like the MHA can do a lot of like providing adequate finances and better suited policies. However, things like upgrading skills and thereby performance during a crisis can come only from within a police organisation
•    Political interference
o    Political interference or sloth cannot explain all the faults of a modern force
•    Problem areas
o    Leadership
o    Training and  professionalization
•    There are three things that Centre can do for police reforms despite it being a state subject
o    Prepare a template for nationwide standards of police training and competence, compliance with which must be regularly assessed. 
o    India desperately needs world standard institutions for police tactics and investigation to produce the core of instructors who can develop the capacity of State police forces
o    India’s higher security management must be drawn through a process that tests aptitude for the job

Personnel Admin + CS in India

Notes
Civil Services in India
Recruitment
•    Various committee
o    Satish Chandra Committee 1989
o    Alagh Committee
o    Hota Committee, 2004
Ethics
•    Some core values
o    Integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality
o    

Recruitment is the backbone of pub ad. Explain. (20)
•    First step in personnel administration is recruitment
•    All aspect of pub ad dependent on people who are manning it. 
•    Aspects of pub ad
o    Decision making
o    Communication
o    Managing conflicts – look for certain personal traits
o    POSDCORB
•    Focus on the qualities that an administer needs and how a well structured recruitment system can help in it. 
o    Integrity
o    Respect for rules
•    In nutshell, it supports all other structures of administration and hence is the backbone. 
•    Spoils system and merit system
Pg 22, Training 1
 
Questions
1.    Indian Civil Services has become more development oriented. Substantiate the statement by tracing the developments between 1950-2000.
2.    Civil Services in India is a replica of the colonial structure. Critically analyse. 
3.    Distinguish between performance management and performance appraisal. (231, chap11, arc10)
4.    Article 311 should not be a part of the constitution. Discuss. (Arc10, chap 14)
5.    Political neutrality is not possible in developing countries. Comment. Critically analyse. 
6.    Administrative ethics are dead. Public choice approach is the real way to visualise public administration. Do you agree? Analyse the two statements critically. 
7.    Members of the state civil services are perpetual vice-presidents. Critically analyse. 

Public Policy

Meaning
•    Are goal oriented
•    Are outcome of the government’s collective actions
•    It is what the government actually decided or chooses to do
•    Is positive in the sense that it depicts the concern of the government and involves its action to a particular problem on which the policy is made
•    Distinction between policy and goals; policy and decisions
Characteristics of public policy making
•    Is a very complex process
•    Dynamic process
•    Comprises of various componenet
•    Policy structure makes different contributions
•    Decision making
•    Lays down major guidelines
•    Results in action
•    Directed at the future
•    Mainly formulated by governmental organs
•    Aims at achieving what is in the public interest
•    Use of best policy means
•    Involvement of various bodies/agencies
Components of public policy
•    PP is purposive and deliberately formulated. It must have a purpose or a goal
•    Is well thought out and is not a series of discrete decisions
•    PP is what is actually done and not what is intended or desired
•    PP also delineates a time frame in which its goals have to be achieved
•    Follows a defined course of action: formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
•    
Types of public policy
•    Substantive: concerned with the general welfare and development of the society
•    Regulatory: Concerned with regulation of trade, business, safety measures, public utilities etc
•    Distributive: meant for specific segments of the society
•    Redistributive
•    Capitalisation: financial subsidies given by the Union govt to the state and local govt
Stages in public policy process
•    IGNOU chapter
o    Policy formulation
o    Policy interpretation
o    Policy education
o    Policy implementation
o    Policy monitoring
•    Howlett and Ramesh
o    Agenda setting
o    Policy formulation
o    Decision making
o    Implementation
o    Evaluation

Reforms

Timeline of reforms

Table 1

Year	What?
	Ayyengar Committee
1952	Special Reorganisation Unit	To economise on staff; using work study to evolve norms for work
1954	Central Organisation and Management Division	Set up in Central Secretariat. Later O&M units were created in several ministries. To streamline procedures and improve efficiency
1964	Department of Administrative reforms	To provide a more focused approach for reforms
1966	First ARC	To undertake a comprehensive task of examining the machinery of GoI and its procedures of work
	5th Central Pay Commission	Laid emphasis on downsizing the government
2000	Expenditure Reforms Commission	Examined the structure of various ministries and departments
2008	Sixth Central Pay Commission	Introduced the concept of running pay bands

 

Civil Services Committees

Table 2

1978	Kothari Committee	Introduced prelims, qualifying papers
1988	Satish Chandra Committee	Introduced essay paper; raised marks of interview from 250 to 300
2003	Surinder Nath Committee
2004	Hota Committee
2001	Alagh Committee

 

Alagh Committee Recommendations

 

It suggests that the preliminary examination be made more objective and the main examination include papers on diverse subjects.
 

§ The report deal with eligibility parameters, the desired Characteristics of candidate in terms of knowledge, skill and attitude and the modalities of identifying the most suitable candidates. It makes a strong case of lowering the age limit for recruitment, arguing that economic cost of taking examination at a higher age effects from poorer family. The committee has designed a scheme to identify younger candidates.
 

§ The reports state that many civil servants suffer from intellectual sluggishness, which is manifested in the flattening of their learning curves. Most civil servants, according to the report, have the attitude that they are repositories of the wisdom and knowledge needed to deal with matters that lies within their spheres of authority. This attitude, the report points out, has made them unreceptive to new ideas and impervious to innovations that are essential in a dynamic administration environment.
 

§ The report says that the recruitment and training of civil servants should be a long term exercise. Future Civil servants, It says, should be exposed to field oriented development activities so that they remain in touch with people at the grassroots. Civil servants should develop an ability to work closely with civil society.
 

§ The report emphases the needs to recruit candidate who can champion reforms, facilitates the functioning of NGOs and cooperative groups and help the economy and society to operate within the national & global markets.
§ The report suggest that at the time of recruitment it has to be checked whether aspirants are aware of the direction in which country is moving and the strengths and weakness of civil society.
§ They should also have an ability to interface with modern technology and institutions of local self-government and perform their duties with sense of fair play , compassion & commitment to achieve the objectives set by the founding fathers
§ The report emphasis the need to reorient the civil service in context of the diminishing role of state in providing direct economic services, the state’s growing importance in the economic and social sectors and the growing scarcity of non renewable resources and the need to protect vulnerable group of society.
§ The committee refers to some basic flaws in mindsets of civil servant. In a strongly worded chapter, it says that in popular perception members of civil services have a ruler mind sets , show no courteous and human behavior are totally devoid of transparency in decision making, and seems to be preoccupied with their own survival & vested interest.
§ This mind sets according to report , become apparent when they are called upon to take care of the needs of the weaker section of society , especially while implementing policies that can lead to clash with the interests of influential persons in society.“ As a result, the objective of justice, fair play, development and welfare vis-s-vis the weaker sections tend to suffer by default” the report state.
§ A negative orientation, decline professionalism, intellectual sluggishness and lack of ability to acquire new knowledge, undynamic outlook and, a complete lack of intellectual honesty are some of the other weakness identified in the report .The report makes special mentions of the decline in the levels of integrity among civil servants.
§ The report says, there has been significant erosion of esprit de crops within the higher services. It underlines that while some members of civil services have maintained a firm commitment to high standard of ethics and to service of nation, many other have breached the codes of professional conduct and entered into unethical, symbolic pacts of convenience and mutual accommodation with influential politicians & business interests.
§ According to report, posting and transfer have become a tool in the hand of political executive with which to force civil servants to comply with their diktatts. Civil servants who show the flexibility to go along with the directions of their political masters are rewarded and those who refuse to compromise their professional independence, honesty & integrity are sidelined and penalized, it says. The “punishment” comes in the form of frequent changes in assignments

 

First ARC

• Appointment of Lokpal and Lokayuktas
• ARC, 10^th Report, Chap 2, pg 4

Other Important Committeess

 

Training

• Assheton Committee (UK: 1944)
  • Gave five aims of training
  • 265 Vajiram 2 (IMP)

Administrative Ethics

• Nolan Committee: 7 principles of public life
  • Selflessness
  • Objectivity
  • Integrity
  • Accountability
  • Honesty
  • Openness
  • Leadership
• Masterman Committee on political activities of civil servants (UK)
  • Political neutrality is in public interest but it should be broadly conceived. Need for a compromise between reticence and freedom.
• Comments of the pay commissions on neutrality and ethics
• Santhanam committee

Pay

• Islington Commission
  • Recommended graded pay

Performance Appraisal

• Surendra Nath Committee (2003)
  • Recommended competitiveness and supersession in the bureaucracy and allows the bureaucrat a say in his/her posting

Electoral Reforms

• Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections (1999)
  • Recommended partial state-funding mainly in kind
• National Committee for Review of the Constitution
  • Until better regulatory mechanism for political parties can be developed, state funding of elections should be deferred

 

The existing system of central government (13^th report, pp 40)

Table 3

	Strengths	Weaknesses
	Time tested mechanism	Undue emphasis on routine functions
	Stability	Proliferation of ministries/departments – weak integration and coordination
	Commitment to constitution – political neutrality	An extended hierarchy with too many levels
	National Outlook among public functionaries	Risk avoidance
	Link between policy making and implementation	Absence of team work
		Fragmentation of functions
		Weakening of autonomy

Thinkers

Chapter 1

Administration	Organization	Management
Lays down the object	Combination of human and material resources	Leads, guides and directs the organization to accomplish the object
Organization and Management try to achieve that object	Systematic correlation between the resources to achieve an objective
Lays down the broad policies for operation
Administration defines the organization		Management uses the organization

 

Specialisation

Specialization

Compromising

Organisation

Approaches to Pub Ad Analysis

• Institutional Approach
• Managerial Approach
• Political Approach

Major themes of different schools

Classicals	Fayol, Taylor, Gulick-Urwick, Weber,	Efficiency Division of Work Hierarchy Authority Economic Man
	Follett <bridge between classical and behaviouralists
Human relations school		Social needs of man within an organisation Different concept of motivation Relationship between supervision, morale and productivity

 

Major Ideas

	Authority
Taylor
Fayol	Responsibility and Authority should be commensurate
Gulick-Urwick
Weber	3 types of authority: charismatic, traditiona, legal-rational
Follett	Authority as vested power; cannot be delegated; derived from the law of the situation
Mayo	Authority should be based on social skills in securing cooperation rather than expertise

 

Local Self Government

Two tiers Panchayati Raj system is in existence in the States/UTs of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Goa, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Puducherry and Sikkim.  

 

Woodrow Wilson

• Essay: The Study of Administration. <the essay marked the beginning of public administration as a subject of enquiry>
• The study of administration developed due to the increasing complexities of society, growing functions of state and growth of governments on democratic lines.
• Objective of administrative study
  • The find out what the government can do and how can it do it efficiently
  • To lay executive methods on stable principles
• Administration is the most obvious part of government. It is government in action.

Taylor and Scientific Management

• Taylor: Father of Scientific Management
  • Books: A piece rate system, Shop Management, Art of Cutting Metals, Principles of Scientific Management
• Basic theme: Management is a true science and has its own laws and rules that have universal applicability to all types of organizations
• It was concerned with the application of scientific methods to managerial practices and production processes. Focussed on shop floor organization.
• Soldiering: Natural and systematic
  • Tendency on the part of the workers to restrict the output
  • Reduce soldiering to enhance efficiency
• Three assumptions
  • Application of scientific methods can improve organizational functioning
  • A good worker accepts the orders of the management; he does not initiate action
  • Every worker is an economic man
• Object of management: Secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for each employee
• Four Principles
  • Develop science of work that replaces rule-of-thumb
  • Scientific selection and training of the workers
  • Cooperation between the management and workers
  • Equal division of work and responsibility between the management and workers
• Hence: science, not rule of thumb; harmony, not discord; cooperation, not individualism; maximum output, not restricted output; development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity
• SM involves complete mental revolution. <This is the essence of SM>
  • On the part of the workers and the management as to their duties, towards their work and others.
  • Realize that mutual interests are not antagonistic. Both parties aim at increasing the surplus
• Techniques of SM
  • Functional Foremanship: Worker is supervised and guided by eight functional foreman
  • Motion Study: Technique of standardization of work methods.
  • Time Study: To determine the standard time for completion of work.
  • Differential Piece Rate Plan: Workers are paid a low piece rate up to a standard, a large bonus at the standard and a higher piece rate above the standard.
  • Exception Principle: Set daily tasks. Reward for achieving targets and penalty for not meeting it.
  • Routing system, modern cost system etc.
• Criticism
  • Partial theory due to its concentration on the shop floor
  • Mechanistic theory: neglected the human side.
  • Underestimated and oversimplified human motivation to explain it in terms of economic factors (monistic theory of motivation). Hawthorne experiments depicted this flaw
  • Physiological organization theory: sacrifice the initiative of worker, individual freedom.
  • Opposition from the labour unions (threat to unionism) as well as managers (loss in discretion and increase in work).
  • Increased monotony and resulted in the absence of skill variety
  • Division of work leads to a) depersonalization b) may lead to automation of workers
• Evaluation
  • Pioneer of human beings at work
  • First to apply quantitative techniques to study industrial management
  • SM spread as a movement and had major impact on the growing reform and economy movements in PA.

Classical Theorists

• Fayol, Urwick, Gulick, Follet and others
• Aka traditional theory, formal organization theory, mechanistic theory, structural theory, administrative management theory and the management process school
• While SM had focused only on the shop floor level, Classicals focused on the formal organization structure as well as the process of administration (management). However, like SM it advocates the concept of ‘economic man’
• Characteristic features: Specialization, hierarchy, rationality, impersonality, order, structure, economy and efficiency.
• Division of labour is its central tenet.

Fayol (Functionalism)

• Father of classical theory
• Major theory: Functionalism
• Book: General and Industrial Management. Essay: The Theory of Administration of the State
• Fayol  does not distinguish between business management and public administration
• Notes
• Elements of administration: POCCC
• Planning
  • Foresee and anticipate
  • It enables separation of short-run events from long-range considerations
  • Endows forethought to the operations
• Organization
  • To provide it with everything required for its functioning
  • Two categories: Material organization and human organization
  • Every organization has to perform certain managerial functions
• Command
  • It rests on certain personal qualities and knowledge of the general principle of management
  • For command, the manager should have a thorough knowledge of his personnel, eliminate the incompetent, set a good example, conduct periodic audit, not become engrossed in detail.
• Coordination
  • Harmonizing all activities and efforts
  • Its aim is to keep the efforts of each department coincident with the overall aim of the organization.
• Control
  • Objective is to obtain conformity with the plan adopted, the instruction issued and principles established.
• Six attributes of a manager: Physical, Mental, Moral, general education, special knowledge, experience
• He gives 14 principles of administration
• Emphasised the need for systematic training in administration
• Gangplank: the need for ‘level jumping’ in a hierarchical organization. Breaks the scalar chain. Though Fayol stressing on formal organization, he is aware to the dangers of conformity to hierarchy and formalism.
• Taylor-Fayol comparison: TMH 111
• Criticisms
  • Neglected the structural aspect while devoting considerable attention to functional classification
  • Narrow empirical base in developing his theory
  • Unity of command may lead to strengthening of hierarchy and suppress the real differences of outlook which are required for a dynamic and innovative organization
  • Bernard and Simon: A managerial organization cannot be explained purely in terms of a set of principles about formal organization structure.
  • Human relations school: Fayol mostly ignored the social-psychological or emotional needs of the employees
• Evaluation
  • Tried to build a universal science of management
  • Wrote extensively on the problems of public administration
  • He made a systematic analysis of the process of management and administration and advocated that management can and should be taught.
  • He was a pioneer of the concept of viewing management as being made up of functions <functionalism>
  • An important part of his theory is that at the higher levels the proportion of technical knowledge diminishes, but administrative skill and knowledge are of great importance
  • Fayol’s principles are widely used  today in planning and developing company organization structure. <especially unity of direction and unity of command>
  • Fayol’s functional organization is still the best way to structure a small business
  • He was not unaware of the human factor. He says that his rules are not rigid and can be added and subtracted to.

Gulick and Urwick

• ‘Papers on Science of Administration’ (1937) by G and U was a landmark in the classical theory of administration.
• They believed that it is possible to develop a science of administration based on principles
• They synthesised the classical theory of organization which is also known as the Administrative Management Theory
• Importance of structure of organization
  • They stressed on the importance of structure of organization in determining its functioning <differed from Fayol>
  • Urwick –“it is impossible for humanity to advance its knowledge of organization unless the factor on structure is isolated from other considerations, however artificial such isolation may appear.”
  • Conceived of organization mainly as a designing process.
• Principles of organization
  • Gulick: Ten principles of organization:
    • Division of work or specialization (most important)
    • Bases of departmental organization
    • Coordination through hierarchy
    • Deliberate coordination
    • Coordination through committees
    • Decentralisation
    • Unity of command
    • Staff and line
    • Delegation
    • Span of control
  • He said that division of work is the basis for organization
  • Urwick: Eight principles of organization <notes>
  • Later Urwick developed 29 principles
• Executive functions / Functions of an administrator
  • Gulick: POSDCORB
  • Planning: Identification of activities and their prioritisation to reach the goals of the organization
  • Organization: looking at the structure of administration
  • Staffing: Concerned with all aspects of personnel administration
  • Directing: Orders issued by the managers to the subordinates
  • Coordination: to secure cooperation and teamwork
  • Reporting: Symbolizes upward flow of information to the executive
  • Budgeting: Covers the entire field of financial administration
• Theory of Departmentalisaton
  • It addresses the issues of bases on which work may be divided and departments created
  • Gulick: 4 P
    • Purpose (function): Identify major functions and goals of organization and create departments for each one of such functions
    • Process: All work based on similar process or skill should be grouped together
    • Person (clientele): Members serving similar clientele should be grouped to form a department
    • Place: All functions performed in a given area are clubbed together
• Other features
  • They did not favour organizations headed by plural bodies like committees but consisting of a single top executive. Committee is like a corporation without ‘a soul to be damned or a body to be kicked’.
  • Staff principle: Born out of unity of leadership. The staff renders special and general assistance to the leader.
  • Delegation: Administrators should keep the requisite authority with them and delegate the rest to their subordinates.
  • Authority and responsibility should be coterminous, co-equal and defined.
  • Span of control: An official cannot effectively control simultaneously more than a certain number of subordinates.
  • In his later writings, Gulick emphasised the need to take human factor into account, greater decentralisation in place of the present centralised and hierarchical structure.
  • Gulick also identified time as a crucial factor in organisations. Five aspects of time: time as input, as output, as the flow of events, as a time gap between two or more significant events, timing as a management policy.
• Critical Estimate
  • No universal validity of principles of administration
  • Simon called the principles as homely proverbs, myths, slogans, inanities. For every principle one can find an equally plausible and acceptable contradictory principle
  • The bases of departmental organization are criticised on the basis that they are incompatible with each other. There is an overlap between them and they are said to be vague.
  • Neglect of the human element in an organization
  • They have shown concern only for the formal organization and totally neglected the informal organizational process
  • Dynamic nature of administration and the ever changing setting in which it functions is not given adequate attention by the classical theorists.
  • However, they captured the development of the field of public administration and pointed to the importance of Pub Ad as a managerial, political, moral and ethical concern. There cannot be any serious study of the science of administration without reference to the principles of organization.
• Mooney and Reiley in notes

 

Max Weber

• Weber’s name synonymous with bureaucracy
• His theory of domination, leadership and legitimacy are important
• Theory of authority
  • Differentiates between authority, power and control <notes>
  • Compared to power, authority is characterized by legitimacy
  • “All administration means domination” (i.e. administration means exercise of authority)
  • Five essential components of authority: the rulers, the ruled, will of the ruler to influence the conduct of ruled, evidence of the influence of the rulers in terms of objective degree of command, evidence of the influence in terms of the subjective acceptance
  • An authority exists as long as it is accepted as legitimate by the ruled
• Three pure types of legitimate authority <notes>
  • Traditional: conformity with customs and personal arbitrariness are two characteristics of traditional authority. Under this type of authority, the administration becomes irrational as development of rational regulations is impeded as there would be no staff with formal and technical training.
  • Charismatic: Charisma and its acceptance forms the basis for legitimacy. The persons who receive the commands obey the leader because they believe in his extraordinary abilities rather than the stipulated rule or the dignity of a position.
  • Legal-Rational
• Weber maintains that legal type of authority or domination alone is suitable for the modern governments and he designed his model of bureaucracy keeping the legal-rationality in mind.
• Bureaucracy forms the kernel of the administrative system under the legal-rational authority system
• Characteristics of legal-rational bureaucracy <notes>
• Weber thought that this legal-rational bureaucracy is technically superior to all other administrative systems. Purely bureaucratic type of administrative organization is capable of attaining  the highest degree of efficiency
  • Makes possible a high degree of calculability of results for the heads of the organization.
  • It is capable of application to all kinds of administrative tasks
  • People once ruled by monocratic bureaucracy can never think of any other alternative form of organisation.
• Some important aspects of bureaucracy
  • Impersonal Order: One of the most important ideas of the model is that ‘impersonal order’ (depersonalisation) should orient the actions of the bureaucracy both in the issuance of the commands to subordinates and their obedience to them.  
  • Rules: Continuous organisation of official functions bound by rules. Their rational application, however, requires specialised training.
  • Sphere of competence, Hierarchy, Personal and public funds, written documents
• Criticisms
  • Based on three points: the rationality in his model, suitability of the model to the administrative requirements of different places and changing times, and whether the model can attain maximum efficiency as visualised.
  • Notes

Why is bureaucracy hard to destroy?

• No person inside or outside the organisation can influence the system of bureaucracy for his personal or vested interests
• With features like hierarchy, rule boundedness and impersonal order, the bureaucracy becomes like an orderly machine with its routine march which is unshakable and unalterable
• Thus no single influence is entertained from inside or outside
• Hence hardest to destroy

Detailed criticism of Weber

Grounds of criticism

1. Dysfunctional aspects
2. Ill effects on human resource
3. Unsuitability to complex environment
4. Conceptual flaws in very mental map of bureaucracy
5. Usurpative tendencies

Dysfunctional aspects

• Victor Thomson
  • Bureau pathologies: because of exaggerated focus on hierarchy and rule boundedness
  • Ends means reversal: rules become more important than goals
• Robert Merton
  • Dysfunctional consequences: detrimental due to overemphasis on structural features
  • Goal displacement: instrumental values become terminal values
  • Trained incapacity: trained to become incapable by the overemphasis on rules and norms
• Philip Selznick
  • Goal displacement: fixation on internal problems causes gd
• Alvin Gouldner
  • Goal distortion
  • Bureaucratic apathy: an attitude of apathy and indifference whereby the functionaries stop exercising their discretion and start working to rule
  • Also because want to avoid mistakes. Hence don’t take initiative
• Thorstein Veblen
  • Trained incapacity due to the type of socialisation
  • From creative and innovative to rule bound and rigid
• Michael Crozier
  • Officials refuse to learn from their mistakes: Bureaucratic phenomenon
• Parkinson
  • Parkinson’s law
• Peter principle

Behavioral ill effects

• Bureaucracy neglects the human side of the enterprise
• Bernard
• Argyris
  • Maturity immaturity; incongruence
• March Simon
  • Excessive concern for formalism
  • Impersonality detrimental to team spirit
• Coercion from superior’s side and apathy from the sub-ordinate’s side
• File pushing behaviour

Unsuitable to Complex environment

• Robert Presthus
  • Model might not be applicable to developing countries
• Non ecological model
• Riggs
• Clause Offe
  • Systematic Rationality and Organisational rationality
  • Organisational rationality must give way to systematic rationality
  • S R is a modified form of pure legal rationality

Usurpative tendencies

• Minister knows less
• Alfred Diamant
  • Weber had noted that power interests of bureaucracy can harm political leadership
• David Beethem
  • Inherent tendency in bureaucracy to exceed the role of an instrument and to usurp the goal setting role which actually belongs to the political leadership

Problems with the model itself

• Peter Blau
  • A priori theory/model
• Fredrich
  • Ideal type is an oxymoron

Suggested reforms

1. Collegiality
2. Separation of powers
3. Amateur Administration
4. Representation
5. Direct democracy

Three point of views of bureaucracy

Types of bureaucracy

F M Marx	Merle Fainsod
Guardian Bureaucracy	Representative
Caste B	State Party Dominated
Patronage B	Military Dominated
Merit B	Ruler Dominated
	Ruling Bureaucracy

 

Post Weberian Development

• Various defects with Weber’s model
• Led to further research
• Important developments
  • Public Choice Approach
  • Critical Perspective
  • NPM
  • CPA
  • DA

 

Mary Parker Follett (Dynamic Administration)

• Regarded as a bridge between the classical approach and the behavioural-human relations approach to organisation.
• Viewed organisation as a social system and administration as a social process
• Brought out the human dimension of organisation
• Books: The Speaker of the House of Representatives, The New State, Creative Experience, Dynamic Administration
• Accords high importance to the problems of conflict in organisations
  • Constructive Conflict
  • Conflicts should be regarded as a normal process in any activity of an organisation by which socially valuable differences register themselves for the enrichment of all concerned.
  • Because of individual differences conflict is unavoidable in human organisations
  • One should make use of it for constructive purposes
• Ways of resolving a conflict
  • Domination: victory of one side over another. The easiest way. But does not address the cause of conflict; it may resurface
  • Compromise: Each side gives up a little. Widely accepted method
  • Integration: Two desires are integrated and neither side needs to sacrifice its desires.
• Integration preferred over compromise
  • Integration creates something new, leads to invention and to the emergence of new values
  • Goes to the root of the problem and puts an end to the conflict permanently
• Bases of Integration: Three Steps
  • First step towards integration is to bring the differences into the open; Identify and understand the real issues involved in  a conflict
  • Break up the demands into constituent parts; involves examination of symbols
  • Anticipation of conflict; and prepare for response. Two types of responses: circular and linear. Circular behaviour as the  basis of integration is the key to constructive conflict
• Obstacles to integration
  • Notes
• Giving Orders
  • 4 steps: Conscious attitude, Responsible attitude, Experimental attitude, Result attitude
  • Issuing orders is very difficult
  • The employer  should consider the ways and means of forming the ‘habits’ among the employees to ensure acceptance of the orders
  • Response to the orders depends upon the place and circumstances under which orders are given. Strength of favourable response is inversely proportional to the distance that the order travels
  • The manner of giving orders is equally important. Tyrannical and overbearing conduct of officials is an important reason for many a controversy.
  • The solution is to depersonalise the orders
• Depersonalising Orders
  • Involves a study of the problems to discover the ‘law of the situation’ and obeying orders.
  • One should not give orders to another, but both should agree to take orders from the situation
  • Depersonalising orders, however, does not mean that one should not exercise authority. It only means exercising the authority of the situation.
  • Orders must always be integral to the situation
• Power, authority and control
  • Power as “the ability to make things happen, to be a causal agent, to initiate change”
    • Power-over and power-with
    • Reduce power-over with functional utility. In FU each has functions and one should also have the authority and responsibility which goes on with that function
    • Power can never be delegated or handed out as it is a result of knowledge and ability. But we can create conditions for the development of power
  • Authority
    • Is vested power – the right to develop and exercise power
    • Functional authority
    • Responsibility also flows from function and situation
  • Control
    • She believes in fact-control rather than man-control and in correlated-control than superimposed control
• Planning and coordination [Four principles of organisation]
  • Coordination as the reciprocal relating of all factors in a situation
  • Coordination by direct control
  • Coordination in the early stages
  • Coordination as a continuing process
• Leadership: notes
• Criticism
  • Ignored the social nature or the processes involved in the management of organisation
  • Did not interpret social content of organisation scientifically
  • Not a systematic thinker; hard to find a thread of consistency
  • She did not gain stature as an administrative thinker because
    • Did not have the institutional base to facilitate a secure position
    • Ideology of cooperation, negotiation, conflict resolution and consensus were not in sync with the world during her professional life
• Evaluation
  • Her ideas convince everyone about the validity and justification of multidimensional focus of her universalistic approach
  • Urwick – ‘her conceptions were ahead of her time’
  • Drucker – ‘The Prophet of Management’

Elton Mayo (Human Relations)

• Father of Human Relations theory
• Most famous  for his Hawthorne studies
• Based on extensive studies he concluded that the workers’ productivity is not the result of working conditions but the result of emotional response of the workers to the work performed.
• Hawthorne effect
• Emphasised group behaviour and dynamics in industrial organisation greatly influence the productivity of the worker
• Importance of informal groups in organisation
• Evaluation
  • He was a pioneer in understanding the problems of the industrial labour from an angle different from the traditional approach of scientific management era
  • Examined human relations in organisations, employee-employer relations, stability of the labour, supervision etc of industrial workers
  • Hawthorne studies have become historic and landmark
  • His work paved the way for adequate communication system between the lower rungs of the organisation and the higher levels
  • In nutshell, the significance of Hawthorne investigations by Mayo was in discovering the informal organisation, which it is now realised, exists in all organisations.
• Classicals vs Human Relation: Table on page 132 TMH

Chester Bernard (Functions of executive)

• Father of the social system school
• Books: The functions of the executive
• Formal Organisation as a system of human cooperation
  • Individuals constrained by factors of the total situation for cooperation
  • Limiting factors: Biological (most imp), physical and social
  • To overcome limitations: Cooperative social action
  • Builds his theory of organisation with the basic premise that individuals must cooperate
• Why should an individual contribute his activities to the operations of any organisation?
  • Bernard strongly disapproves the concept of economic man
  • Theory of contribution-satisfaction equilibrium
  • Contributions are possible only when it is advantageous to individuals in terms of personal satisfaction. So there must be some incentives/inducements.
• Identifies 4 specific inducements
  • Material inducements: money, things or physical conditions
  • Personal non-material opportunities: distinction, prestige and personal power
  • Desirable physical conditions of work
  • Ideal benefactions: respect, pride etc
• Maintains that economic rewards are ineffective beyond the subsistence level
• He feels that the primary function of the executive is to handle the economy of incentives within an organisation
• Organisations can be formal or informal
• Formal organisation: system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons
  • Three elements: communications, willingness to serve and common purpose
  • Willingness implies surrender of personal conduct and depersonalisation of personal action
  • Purpose is necessary for cooperation. There are cooperative and subjective aspects of purpose
  • A purpose shall secure cooperation as long as there is no serious divergence between the contributor’s subjective understanding of that purpose and its object
  • Distinction between organisation purpose and individual motive
  • The accomplishment of a common purpose through the persons contributing towards it can be achieved only through ‘communication’
  • Four characteristics of formal organisations: systems, depersonalisation, specialisation and informal organisations.
• Informal Organisations
  • Individuals in the organisation continuously interact based on their personal relationships rather than organisational purpose. Because of the continuous nature of interactions, relations become systematised and they result into what are called ‘informal organisations’.
  • Informal Organisation: The aggregate of personal contacts and interactions and the associated grouping of people.
  • Functions: Communication, maintenance of cohesiveness through regulating the willingness to learn and the ability of the objective authority, and maintenance of the feeling of personal integrity, self-respect and independent choice
  • Both formal and informal organisation are necessary for each other’s proper functioning
• Theory of Authority
  • Introduces ‘acceptance’ as the basis of authority
  • Four conditions to be satisfied for authority to be accepted
    • When the communication is understood
    • Consistency with the organisational purpose
    • Compatibility with personal interests
    • Physical and mental ability to comply
  • Orders will be accepted when:
    • Above four conditions are satisfied
    • Orders fall within the ‘zone of indifference’
    • When the group influences the individual resulting in the stability of the zone of indifference
  • The principle of good executive conduct is that the orders that cannot be obeyed should not be issued.
    • If such issue is necessary, then the group must be persuaded or offered inducements
  • Zone of indifference: The orders in this zone are unquestionably acceptable. The zone will vary depending upon the inducements offered and the burdens and sacrifices made by the individuals in the organisation.
  • The fiction of superior authority is needed because
    • It enables the individual to delegate upward or to the organisation, responsibility for what is an organisation decision
    • The fiction drives home the point that what is at stake is for the good of the organisation.
  • A superior is not an authority. Authority is of the organisation.
  • Authority is imputed to communications from superiors if they are consistent and are credited to the positions: Authority of position and authority of leadership
  • Authority depends on the cooperation of subordinates and the system of communication in the organisation. Principles of communication <in notes>
• Responsibility  <minor point>
  • It is the most important function of the executive
  • Definition: the power of a particular private code of morals to control the conduct of the individuals in the presence of strong contrary desires or impulses
  • Executive actions are always conditioned by the concepts of morality
  • Large organisations cannot be operated unless responsibility is delegated.
• Decision-making
  • Decisions as acts of individuals which are the result of deliberation, calculation and thought involving the ordering of means to ends
  • Decision-making in organisations is a specialised process
  • Two types of decisions
    • Personal: taken outside the organisation based on incentives organisations offer. Need not be logical
    • Organisational: relate to organisational purpose, information-based, logical and can be delegated
• Executive functions
  • Define purpose and objectives at all levels
    • The purpose of the organisation must be accepted by all the contributors to the system
    • Assumption of responsibility and delegation of authority are crucial aspects of the functions of the executive
    • Purpose, objective and direction get redefined at every level
  • Establish and maintain a system of communication in the organisation
    • Defining scheme of organisation
    • Maintaining a personnel system
    • Securing an informal organisation
  • Obtain  efforts and services from subordinates to achieve purpose
    • Two main aspects: bringing of persons into cooperative relationship with the organisation, and eliciting services after they have been brought into that relationship
    • Done by providing incentives, deterrents, supervision, control, education and training
    • Leadership is critical to achieve cooperation
• Criticism
  • Abstractness of the presentation
  • Not given full descriptive or prescriptive attention to the process of formulation of purpose
  • His theory of authority understates the role of objective authority and gives an impression that individuals will have an option to accept or reject authority in an organisation.
• Evaluation
  • Elucidated cooperation as a basic necessity of human life and the cause of human development
  • Presented the complexity of organisation processes
  • Decision theory and zone of indifference important
  • Role of informal organisations
  • Dismantles the concept of ‘economic man’
  • Combines the science of organisation with the art of organising

 

Herbert Simon

• Researched on a wide variety of fields in social sciences and computer science
• Books: Administrative Behaviour, Organisation, Public Administration, Human Problem Solving
• Administrative Science
  • Sought to develop a science of administration and made human decision-making as the central theme of his studies
  • Decision making as a process of drawing conclusions from premises
  • Equated administration with decision making
  • Recommended empirical approach to the study of administration as opposed to principles approach
  • Efficiency and economy as criteria for administrative effectiveness
  • Methodology of logical positivism
  • Disapproved policy-administration dichotomy
    • Proposed fact-value dichotomy
  • Two types of administrative sciences: Pure and Practical
• Critique of classical theory
  • Narrowness and sterility of traditional approach
  • Principles of administration as proverbs and myths
  • For every principle, an opposite principle exists
  • Description of the administrative situation is first required to come out with any kind of principles
  • The reason for the ambiguity classical principles is the ‘inadequate’ diagnosis of situations and definitions of terms and lack of detailed research into real situations.
  • The missing factor, he says, is correct decision-making
• Decision-making
  • Organisation as a structure of decision-makers
  • Decisions are made at all levels of the organisation
  • Each decision is based on a number of premises and Simon focuses his attention on how these premises are determined
    • These premises pertain to the decision maker’s preferences, social conditioning, and communications he receives from component units of the organisation
• Decision making involved three phases
  • Intelligence activity: finding occasions for decision-making
  • Design activity: finding possible courses of action
  • Choice activity: choosing among courses of action
• Fact and Value in decision making
  • One must exclude value judgments and concentrate on facts, adopt precise definition of terms, apply rigorous analysis, and test factual statements or postulates about administration
  • Every decision consists of a logical combination of fact and value propositions
  • Mixed issue of fact and value impinge on administration complicating the decision process
  • To bring out the difference between fact and value, the means-ends distinction is used
    • In so far as decisions lead to the selection of final goals, they may be treated as ‘value judgments’ and in so far as the decisions relate to implementation of such  goals, they may be treated as factual judgments
  • Behaviour in an organisation is intendedly rational in character, adjusted to the goals that have been erected
• Rationality in Decision-Making
  • Rationality requires a total knowledge and anticipation of the consequences that will follow each choice. It also requires a choice from among all possible alternative behaviours
  • Rationality in terms of means-ends construct. If appropriate means are chosen to reach desired ends, the decision is rational
  • Simon sums up the inherent problems of means-ends analysis
    • Ends through a particular behaviour alternative are incompletely or incorrectly stated through the failure to consider alternative ends through alternative behaviour
    • In actual situations a complete separation of means from ends is usually impossible
    • The means-end terminology tends to obscure the role of time element in decision-making
  • Different types of rationality: objective, subjective, conscious, deliberate, organisational, personal
  • Disputes the concept of total rationality in administrative behaviour. Human behaviour is neither totally rational nor totally non-rational. It involves bounded rationality
  • From optimising decisions to satisficing decisions
• Model of decision making
  • From economic man to administrative man
  • As administrative man cannot perceive all possible alternatives and consequences, he instead of arriving at optimal solutions, is satisfied with satisficing solutions.
  • Makes his choices using a simple picture of the situation and takes into account just a few of the factors he regards as more relevant
• Types of decisions
  • Programmed and Non-programmed
  • Programmed: repetitive and routine. Decisions based on established practices
  • Non-programmed: novel and unstructured and have to be tackled independently.
  • The main difference between these two types is that in the case of programmed the organisation provides the alternatives through routines and in the case of non-programmed the organisation only provides the parameters for the search procedures
  • It is possible to construct mathematical models to make decisions.
• Organisational Influences: internal and External
  • Internal influence through establishing in the employees attitudes and habits which lead him to desired decisions. Achieved through organisation loyalty, concern with efficiency and training
  • External influence involves imposing on the employee decisions reached elsewhere in the organisation. Achieved through authority and advisory and informational services. These are listed below
  • Authority: accepted in the zone of acceptance
  • Organisational loyalties: fulfils the function of making individuals in the organisation confine themselves to their tasks instead of probing into the basics of the problems
  • Advice and information: Collecting dependable information and proper utilisation of it ensures greater effectiveness in decision making
  • Training: An efficient training programme would facilitate greater discretion to the individual in decision-making.
• Administrative efficiency
  • An administrator should be guided by the criterion of efficiency
  • Efficiency dictates the choice of alternative, which produces the largest results for the given application of resources
  • When resources, costs and objectives are variable, decisions cannot be taken purely on the basis of efficiency criteria. However, when these are given, efficiency becomes the controlling factor of administrative choice.
  • In his later writings, Simon downplays efficiency. He applies it only to the lower level decisions, as higher level decisions do not lend themselves to measurement and comparability.
  • Refer notes as well
• Criticism
  • Relegated social, political, economic and cultural factors into the background
  • Exclusion of value premises would steer the study of public administration to mechanical, routine and less important aspects
  • Simon’s idea of fact-based administrative theory is more relevant to business administration than public administration
  • Bernard criticism of Simon: did not take into account the enormous amount of uncertainty involved in most decisions; did not pay sufficient attention to the processes of communication within organisations
  • Simon’s analysis assumes that administration plays a similar role in all societies
  • Efficiency need not be the only goal of administration because  there is a whole range of other major categories of organisational purposes
  • His theory of decision-making is extremely general. It does not provide details to guide the organisation planners.
• Argyris’ critique of Simon
  • Excludes variables like interpersonal relations, need for self-actualisation, etc that are central to organisation behaviour
  • Simon’s theory would have no place for self-actualising  individuals
  • Simon emphasises the importance of authority strcutures
• Evaluation
  • Provided insights into the interaction between decision-making process and administrative behaviour
  • Major contribution. Stimulated further research.

 

Behavioural Approach or New Management School: McGregor, Argyris, Likert

Douglas McGregor

• Demonstrated the unrealistic and limiting assumptions of traditional theories of management concerning human nature and the control of human behaviour in an organisational setting
• Proved that reliance on authority as the primary means of control in industry leads to resistance, restriction of output and indifference to organisation objectives.
• Book: The Human  Side of the Enterprise, The Professional Manager
• The main question he addressed in ‘The Human Side..’ was whether successful managers are born or made
• He says “the theoretical assumptions which the management holds about controlling human resources determine  the whole character of the enterprise”
• ‘Every managerial act rests on a theory’
• All control is selective adaption. Managerial control should not be violative of human nature if it has to be effective.
• “We can improve our control only if we recognize that control consists in selective adaptation to human nature rather  than in  attempting  to make human nature conform to our wishes”
• Control in  human affairs can be  viewed as an integration of human behaviour either through coercive compulsion or through motivational self-control
• Theory X: The coercive compulsions
  • Traditional view of direction and control. Carrot and stick theory.
  • Average human being has  an inherent dislike for work and will try to avoid it
  • Hence, most people must be corrected, controlled and threatened with punishment to get them to achieve organisational objective
  • Average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has little ambition and wants security above all
• ‘So long as the assumptions of Theory X continue to influence managerial strategy, we will fail to discover, let alone utilise the potentialities of the average human being.’
• Command and control environment relies on lower needs for motivation
• Theory Y: Assumptions of integration and self-control
  • Engaging in physical or mental effort is as natural as play or rest
  • Mass exercises, self-direction and self-control can be shown by people to achieve objectives
  • Commitment to objectives is a function of the awards associated with their achievement
  • Avg human being can learn not only to accept but also to seek responsibility
  • Creativity and ingenuity is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the problem
  • Conditions of modern industrial life lead to only partial utilisation of the intellectual potentialities of a human being
• Theory Y points to the fact that  the limits on human collaboration in the organisational setting are not limits on human behaviour but of management ingenuity in discovering how to realise the potential of human resources
• The central principle implicit in Theory Y is that integration of behaviour is the key process in management
• The concept of integration and self-control demands that the needs of the individual and that of the organisation should be recognised.
• McGregor calls Theory Y an open invitation to innovation
• Management by integration and self-control does not tack any new set of duties on top of the existing managerial load. Rather it is just a different  way of fulfilling responsibilities
• Scanlon Plan
  • Was a philosophy of management, by Lesiaur, based on theoretical assumptions entirely consistent with Theory Y
  • Was found that Scanlon companies performed better
• Participation, which grows out of the assumptions of Theory Y, offers substantial opportunities for ego-satisfaction of the workers or subordinates and hence effects motivation towards organisational objectives
• Relevance of Theory Y to line-staff relationship
  • All managers have both line and staff responsibilities
  • Theory Y stresses on the teamwork at each level
  • Helps in improving line-staff collaboration
  • Theory Y can contribute to the fullest development of the potentialities of the employees in their respective roles, which they can fill the best
• The concept of transactional influence
  • The management of differences or building a managerial team is not a simple matter of managerial powers or controls
  • When certain  social elements as trust and mutual support are present, there is no need for concern about power equalisation or the loss of responsibility and  status in managerial hierarchy
• Education of managers. Organisation reality is a matter of perception and world view of the individual.
• Working through  differences
  • Three ways to deal with differences
    • Divide and rule
    • Suppression of differences
    • Working through differences
  • The third one should be used so that the interplay between members may yield to innovation, commitment and decisions and strengthening of relationships within the group
• Evaluation
  • He was interpreted as advocating Theory Y as a new and superior ethic. He only wanted managers to investigate these two sets of beliefs and develop management strategies that made sense in a context
  • Impracticality and over-generalisation
  • Some criticised his ideas as being tough on the weaker members of society, those who need guidance and who are not necessarily self-starters
  • Made decision-makers realize the potential for collaboration, inherent in  human nature and human resources
  • Theory X & Y are analytical tools of reference through which managerial behaviour can be analysed, studied, predicted and corrected
  • His writings represent a mine of ideas from which the theorists of management and managers can learn strategies
  • Participative management

Chris Argyris

• Argyris’ researches relate to four areas:
  • Impact of formal organisational structures, control systems and  management  on individuals
  • Organisational change, particularly executive behaviour
  • Role of social scientist as a researcher and  actor
  • Individual and  organisational learning
• Many books: Personality and Organisation, Organisation and Innovation
• He focuses on the individual’s relationship to the organisation and the conflict between the individual’s social and psychological needs and the exigencies of the organisation
• Pioneer in the application of the T-group technique
• The formal organisation
  • There is an incongruence between the needs of a mature personality and the requirements of a formal organisation
  • This leads to situations in which: employees have minimal control over their work, they are  expected to passive and dependent, they have short-time perspective and are induced to perfect some shallow tasks repeatedly
  • Incongruence increases as:
    • Employees become more mature
    • Formal structure is made more clear-cut
    • One goes down the line of command
  • Creates in an individual feelings of failure and frustration, short-term perspective and conflict
  • It fails to satisfy the higher-order needs of the employees
• The individual adapts by either leaving the organisation, climbing up the organisational ladder, or becoming  apathetic. He also seeks group sanction for this. Informal groups are organised to perpetuate these adaptations
• Pressure oriented directive leadership compounds these faults of the formal organisation
• Strategies for organisational development
  • Organisation should provide an environment for the development of the personal and psychological maturity of the individual
  • Aim at improving the interpersonal competence of the employees
  • Transform the traditional pyramidal structure of the organisation
  • Techniques for programmed learning aimed at individual change should be introduced
• These strategies can be applied through the procedures mentioned below
• Maturity-Immaturity theory. The process of maturity from the immature stage consists of seven components
  • Infant passivity to adult activity
  • Dependence to relative independence
  • From limited behaviour to much different behaviour
  • From erratic, shallow, brief interests to more stable, deeper interests
  • Short-term to long term perspective
  • From a subordinate social position to an equal or superordinate social position
  • From lack of self-awareness to self-awareness and self-control
• If the organisation inhibits any of the above it causes frustration and demoralisation of the employees
• Since the employees of organisations are adults, they should be treated as mature individuals who are capable of accepting responsibility, pursuing long-term interests and concerned about the fulfilment of higher order needs
• The accent in organisational change strategies should be upon meeting the needs of mature individuals and providing opportunities to arouse and utilise their full psychological energy.
• Improving interpersonal competence
  • Interpersonal competence refers to the ability to deal effectively with an environment populated by other human beings
  • Three requirements for the development of interpersonal competence:
    • Self-acceptance <degree to which a person values himself positively>
    • Confirmation <reality testing of one’s own self-image>
    • Essentiality <opportunity to utilise the central abilities and express his central needs>
• Organisational Structures of the new system
  • The Pyramidal Structure
    • Should be used in the performance of routine operations
  • Modified formal structure
    • Similar to Likert’s link-pin concept. Enables a subordinate to be a member of the superior’s decisional unit
  • Power according to functional contribution
    • Each employee has equal opportunity to be provided information, power and controls, depending on  his potential contribution to the problem
  • The  Matrix organisation
    • Each individual has equal power and responsibility. He has unlimited opportunities to influence the nature of the core activities.
    • Removes superior-subordinate relationship and substitutes for them individual self-discipline
    • Project teams are created to solve specific problems
  • Executive education in the matrix organisation would focus on system effectiveness. The matrix structure enables jobs to be enlarged. ‘Enlargement’ also means to expand the use of the individual’s intellectual and interpersonal abilities
• Techniques of programmed learning
  • T-group or sensitivity training to improve the  personal effectiveness of employees
  • T-group technique consists of a laboratory programme designed to provide opportunities for individual employees to expose their behaviour, give and receive feedback, experiment with new behaviour and develop awareness and acceptance of self and sensitivity to the personalities of others
  • Such  sessions enable participants to forget hierarchical identities and develop distributive leadership and consensual decision-making
• Organisational Learning
  • Organisations also learn through the experience and actions of individuals
  • Organisational learning occurs when members act as learning agents for the organisation, responding to the changes in the internal and external environments
  • Single and double-loop learning
  • Single loop: individuals respond to errors by modifying strategies and assumptions within the organisational norms
  • Double loop: learning response to detected error takes the form of joint inquiry into organisational norms per se and resolves the inconsistency and makes new norms which can be realised effectively.
• Criticism: 3 categories
  • Benign view of man in relation to the organisation; concept of self-actualisation seems utopian
  • Antipathy to authority
  • Some key propositions of his methodology
    • No empirical support to the assertion that people are opposed to authority
    • Goal of self-actualization as a universal goal has been questioned
• Conclusion
  • His objective is to build healthier organisations and to raise the quality of life in them
  • Some of the propositions are normative and lack empirical validity
  • Importance contribution in the realm of interpersonal competence

Rensis Likert

• Known for his studies  on organisation  and analysis of management styles
• Developed the Likert’s Scale and the Linking Pin Model
• Books: New Patterns of Management, The Human Organisation, New Ways of Managing Conflict
• Tries to answer the question why do some managers get better results than  others by comparing the supervisory styles
• Classifies supervisors into two categories: job-centered and employee-centered
• Job Centered
  • Their primary concern is to ensure performance of assigned tasks and maintenance of prescribed standards
• Employee Centered
  • Primarily concerned with the human aspects of their subordinates and effective team building for high task performance
• Effective supervision is an adaptive and relative process
  • It needs constant adaptation to the background values, expectations and interpersonal skills between subordinates, peers and superiors
• Supportive Relationships
  • Based on his assessment of managers of high performance, he proposed the principle of supportive relationships as an organising principle
  • Leadership and other processes should be such that an individual should have a maximum probability in all interactions and all relationships with the organisation. Each member will view the experience as supportive and one which builds and maintains his sense of personal worth and importance
  • He conceives of an interaction-influence system to maximise skills, resources and motivation of individuals at different levels of the organisation
  • The interaction-influence system would facilitate integration of organisational and managerial processes such as coordination, communication, decision-making, direction etc
• An ideal interaction-influence system would have the following characteristics
  • Members will find personal values, goals reflected in the organisation
  • Every member would be identified with the objectives of the organisation
  • Spontaneous and accurate information flows
  • Every member can exert his influence on decisions and actions of the organisation
• Linking Pin Model
  • This model can remove the hurdles found in traditional hierarchies and facilitate the growth of interaction-influence system
  • Each member of an organisation has a twin role in two overlapping groups
  • He  is a member of a higher-level group and leader of a lower-level group
  • Likert reinforces upward orientation with horizontal linkages
  • Multiple linkages provide additional channels to share information and influence. They become the link pins to hold the organisation together.
  • No overlapping workgroups should exist than are absolutely necessary to perform the linking process
• Management systems 1-4
  • Exploitative-authoritative, benevolent-authoritative, consultative, and participative
  • They are not isolated categories but blend into one  another
  • Two dimensions of these systems
    • Type of authority or control
    • Operating characteristics of the organisation and the motivational forces used
  • His four systems describe the relationship, involvement and roles between management and subordinates in industrial settings
• Exploitative-authoritative system 1
  • Goal setting and decision-making by the  top management and communications flow downwards
  • No subordinate participation – not trusted – abide by decisions – organisation focus on completing the work – use of fear, threats  – no teamwork
• Benevolent-authoritative System 2
  • Decisions made by top management. But employees are motivated through rewards rather than fear and threats
  • flow of information from subordinates to managers but restricted – more rewards than system 1 – marginal autonomy of employees
• Consultative System 3
  • Involvement in decision process of employees – consulted by management even though management takes major decisions – greater flow of information from Sub to Mgmt
  • Partly trust subs – use both rewards and  involvement of employees – foster more responsibility – moderate teamwork
• Participative System 4
  • Complete confidence and trust in the employees, open communication flows and the employees participation in the decision process.  
  • Subordinates freely express their views – teamwork – collective responsibility for organisational goals – rewards
  • Three basic concepts: supportive relationships, group decision making and methods of supervision, high performance goals for the organisation.
  • Considered to be the most productive and ideal
  • Expected to result in better production, higher motivation and more profit than the other  systems
• The operational characteristics of one system cannot be grafted abruptly to another
  • In each system communication and motivation processes will be tailor-made to fit their unique decision making style
• System 1: low performance units; System 4: High performance units
• Emphasises the need to recognize the monetary value of human resources in organisations
• Science based management
  • Need to monitor the state of the organisation  and its  internal management system at periodic intervals or stages of growth
  • Use of mathematics and statistics can help in this measurement
• Applications of System 4
  • Validity of system-4 for realizing high performance goals
  • Uncoordinated and piecemeal efforts such as team building, job  enrichment, sensitivity training, participative decision-making and management by objectives will not pay high  dividends unless they are integrated into an overall strategy of changing the  management system.
  • He mentions four characteristics that a management system should possess to guide the efforts for human resource development. System 4, he says, fulfils all four specifications.
  • Using survey feedback method, Likert proposes an organisational improvement cycle comprising of five steps <in book>
  • Improve the causal variables. Intervening  variables and end-results will then improve
  • However, he is aware of the problems involved in adapting System 4 to all organisations. Actual realisation of system-4 conditions of management depends on the complex interplay of factors and forces at work in real organisation life.
• Managing conflicts
  • Conflict ‘as the active striving for one’s own preferred outcome, which if attained, precludes the attainment  by other of their own preferred outcome, thereby producing hostility’
  • Two kinds of conflicts; substantive and affective.
  • Substantive: rooted in the substance of the task.
  • Affective: derived from the emotional, affective aspects of interpersonal relations.
• Evaluation
  • Criticised for lack of contextual sensitivity
  • Linking pin model: slows down the process of decision-making
  • Advantage of LPM: fosters the upward and horizontal linkage in contrast to the only downward orientation of classical structure and strengthens the cross-functional linkages in complex organisations.
  • But how do we push management systems 1 and 2 towards 3 to 4?
  • System 4 structures and processes help to  resolve conflict constructively instead of suppressing them
  • System 4 holds out prospects of development of advanced form of human organisation.
  • Likert’s most important contribution to management thought and practice is his systematic analysis of good management practices and extending their frontiers of knowledge and application.

Differences between system 1 and 4

System 1	System 4
Steep Hierarchical Structure	Overlapping structures
Centralised Decision making	Group decision processes
Top down communication	Open and authentic three way communication (up, down and lateral)
Tight supervision	Adaptive supervision
Man to man rather than group to group relations	Cross-functional linkages
Performance under pressure	Individuals and workgroups with a high degree of achievement and motivation
Low degree of employee motivation

 

 

Theories of Motivation

Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of needs)

• Psychologist. Tried to understand human behaviour through psychoanalysis
• Father of humanistic psychology
• Books: Motivation and Personality, A Theory of Human Motivation, The Psychology of Science
• Human behaviour is a reflection of their conscious and unconscious goals
• <Maslow’s theory is not synonymous with behaviour theory, the motivations are only one class of determinants of behaviour. >
• He took human needs as the basis of human behaviour
• Need Hierarchy
  • All human actions are outcomes of several unfulfilled needs and motives.
  • Maslow’s theory is based on the idea of prepotency of needs
  • Developed a scale in  which at one end are lower order needs like physiological needs and at the other  end higher  order needs like self-actualisation. In between there are middle order needs
  • Each lower order need once satisfied gives way for an unfulfilled higher order need. A satisfied need no longer motivates a person
  • Fulfilment of lower order need is a precondition for a higher order need to surface.
• Physiological needs
  • Biological needs like hunger, thirst, sex etc
  • Once physiological needs are satisfied, humans look for social needs
• Security needs
  • Next goal (after physiological needs) is safety, security, stability, and protection.
  • Preference for a rhythm and routine in daily life
  • < expressed in people’s preference for a job with tenure and protection, desire for saving bank account, insurance etc>
• Belongingness and Love needs
  • Craving for affectionate relationships and a place of belongingness with his/her people
  • This need for love is not synonymous with sex which may be studied at a physiological level
• Esteem needs
  • Desire for respect and recognition from society, work place, family and friendship.
  • Can be divided into: achievement needs and recognition needs.
  • Achievement needs: self confidence, strength and independence
  • Recognition needs: respect, recognition in society, attention, desire to be an important person
• The above four needs are deficit needs or D needs. Deficiency motivation occurs when we lack something and attempt to meet that deficiency. He also calls these needs as ‘survival needs’
• Self-actualisation  needs
  • Highest need in the hierarchy of needs
  • Directed towards searching the meaning and purpose of life.
  • The desire for self-fulfillment, actualisation and living a meaningful life is reflected in this need.
  • The specific form of this need differs from person to person
  • These are also called B needs or being needs in contrast to the D needs.
• Some further characteristics of basic needs
  • Hierarchy is not as rigid as implied. There is scope for deviations
  • A person may sacrifice a lower order need for a certain period of time to satisfy his higher need and vice versa.
  • Emergence of a particular need, after satisfaction of a lower order need is not sudden but a gradual phenomenon
  • Need areas are more often unconscious than conscious
  • Basic needs and desires are the same irrespective of the societies and cultures they live in.
  • Human behaviour is multi-motivated needs as such cannot explain all human behaviour.
• Other thoughts in his writings
  • Peak experiences
    • Exciting moments in life involving feelings of happiness, well-being and an awareness of transcendental knowledge of higher truth.
    • All human beings are capable of peak experiences
  • Eupsychian Management
    • Organisations should be designed in such a way that employees can satisfy their safety, love and self-actualisation needs.
• Criticism
  • Criticised mainly on grounds of methodology. Drawing inferences from lives of few individuals
  • Sophistication and validity of his research data and the order of hierarchy of needs are also questioned
  • Self-actualisation concept is vague, imprecise and  too general
  • Overall attempts to establish evidence of Maslow’s hierarchy have failed <study by Wabha and Birdwell>
  • Michael Nash: Theories of Herzberg and Maslow are “Major Wrong Theories”
  • His theory cannot be turned into a practical guide for managers who are trying to make people productive.
  • Ignored environmental factors like schooling and personal support that can facilitate or impede self-actualisation.
• Significance
  • One of the pioneers in personality theory
  • Has had tremendous impact on modern management approach to motivation
  • Led to further research in the area of motivation

Frederick Herzberg

• Renowned psychologist and pioneer of job enrichment concept
• Books: The Motivation to Work, The  Managerial Choice, Work and the Nature of Man
• Studies on Motivation
  • All individuals have two sets of needs viz. To avoid pain and to grow psychologically
  • The motivation-hygiene theory grew out of the studies he conducted on about 203 accountants and engineers
  • He sought to identify: the events which resulted in marked improvement in individual’s job satisfaction; and events that  have led to marked reduction in job satisfaction
  • Study based on ‘critical incidents’

Hygiene Factors	Motivation Factors
Company policy and administration	Achievement
Supervision	Recognition
Salary	Work itself
Interpersonal relations	Responsibility
Working conditions	Advancement

 

• Two factor theory
  • Satisfiers: the factors associated with the growth and the task content of the job    
  • Dissatisfiers: factors associated with pain avoidance and  context/surroundings of the job

 

• • Satisfiers perform the role of motivators in hob
  • Hygiene factors, such as working conditions, company administration, salary, supervisory relations, and benefits and services are envisioned as environmental elements that have little or no relationships to the motivation of specific job-related behaviour
  • The motivation factors determine how a worker feels about his job, whereas hygiene factors only determine how a worker feels about his company or organisation in general.
  • An employee is either dissatisfied or not dissatisfied (neutral) with hygiene factors (maintenance factors), and he is either satisfied or not satisfied (neutral) with motivational factors (growth factors).
  • Hygiene factors must be adequate, or employees will not be attracted to an organisation. But when employed, manipulating hygiene factors cannot motivate a worker to do a better job.
  • Dissatisfiers only produce short-term changes in human attitudes and satisfiers produce long term attitudes.
  • The motivation and hygiene factors are separate and distinct and they are not opposite or obverse of each other.
• Three key principles of the theory
  • Factors involved in producing job satisfaction are separate and distinct from the factors that lead to job dissatisfaction
  • Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are discrete feelings. The opposite of satisfaction on the job is not dissatisfaction; it is no job satisfaction
  • The motivators have a much long-lasting effect on sustaining no satisfaction than hygiene factors have on preventing dissatisfaction.
• Hygiene and Motivation Seekers
  • Chart on page 177, P&P
  • To an organisation, it is easy to motivate through fear of hygiene deprivation than to motivate in terms of achievement and actualising  the goals
  • Such a policy would be injurious to the long-term interests of the organisation. Hence it is desirable to focus emphasis on motivating the people
  • For this, Herzberg suggests job enrichment and vertical overloading as important means
• Job enrichment
  • ‘the art of reshaping jobs’
  • The term designates a technique used by managers to maximize in individual workers the internal motivation to work, which is the true source of job satisfaction.
  • Job should have sufficient challenge to utilize full ability of the employee; employees showing increasing level of ability should be  given increasing levels of responsibility
  • Changing job content
• Job loading
  • Horizontal loading (mere job enlargement) cannot motivate. Only ‘vertical loading’ (job enrichment can.
• Herzberg describes a ten-step process for job enrichment. <pg 179 P&P)
• Pg 180. The process of job enrichment
• Criticisms
  • Criticised for adopting an industrial engineering  approach

 

Classical Theory

 

 

 

Scientific Management Movement

• Apart from Taylor, Frank Gilbreth, Lillian Gilberth and Henery Gantt were other important proponents of SM
• The Gilbreths studied work arrangements to eliminate wasteful hand and body motions. They used motion picture films to study hand-and-body motions. They contributed to an efficient way of bricklaying for buildings.
• Gnatt created a graphic bar chart that could be used by managers as a scheduling device for planning and controlling work. He also devised an incentive system that gave workers a bonus for completing their jobs in less time than the allowed standard.
• Importance of the movement: productivity was pretty low at the time when SM was introduced. It helped the industrial units in achieving greater efficiency. Taylor’s method was adopted in the curriculum of HBS. His techniques spread to other countries as well.
• The application of SM principles contributed to raising the standard of living of entire countries.

Promotion/Performance Appraisal

• Seniority or merit as the basis for promotion?
• Demerits of the seniority principle
  • The principle of seniority assumes that all members of a particular grade are equally fit for promotion. Such an assumption may do not much harm in the lower grades of the service; but it cannot be generally accepted when dealing with promotion in or to the top grades.
• Merits of the seniority principle
  • Its operation is very nearly automatic and it avoids the need for making invidious distinctions between one person and another
• In the higher grades of the service considerations of fitness must have precedence over the claim of seniority.

Union Government

Cabinet Secretariat

Origin

Before the adoption of the portfolio system in the Government of India, all governmental business was disposed of by the Governor-General-in Council, the Council functioning as a joint consultative board. As the amount and complexity of business of the Government increased, the work of the various departments was distributed amongst the members of the Council only the more important cases being dealt with by the Governor-General or the Council collectively.
This procedure was legalised by the Councils Act of 1861 during the time of Lord Canning, leading to the introduction of the portfolio system and the inception of the Executive Council of the Governor-General. The Secretariat of the Executive Council was headed by the Private Secretary to the Viceroy, but he did not attend the Council meetings. Lord Willingdon first started the practice of having his Private Secretary by his side at these meetings. Later, this practice continued and in November, 1935, the Viceroy's Private Secretary was given the additional designation of Secretary to the Executive Council.
The constitution of the Interim Government in September 1946 brought a change in the name, though little in functions, of this Office. The Executive Council's Secretariat was then designated as Cabinet Secretariat. It seems, however, at least in retrospect, that Independence brought a sort of change in the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat. It no longer remained concerned with only the passive work of circulating papers to Ministers and Ministries but developed into an organisation for effecting coordination between the Ministries.
Functions
•    Secretarial assistance to the cabinet and cabinet committees
o    Convening of the meetings of the Cabinet on the orders of the Prime Minister.
o    Preparation and circulation of the agenda.
o    Circulating papers related to the cases on the agenda.
o    Preparing a record of discussions taken.
o    Circulation of the record after obtaining the approval of the Prime Minister.
o    Watching implementation of the decisions taken by the Cabinet.
•    Responsible for the administration of the GoI (TransactionRules of business) Rules 1961 and the GoI (Allocation of Business) Rules 1961
•    Facilitating smooth transaction of business in Ministries/Departments of the Govt
•    Inter-ministerial coordination, ironing out differences amongst ministries/departments and evolving consensus through the instrumentality of the standing/ad hoc Committees of Secretaries
o    Removing difficulties.
o    Removing differences.
o    Overcoming delays.
o    Coordination in administrative action.
o    Coordination of policies.
•    There are other important functions which it discharges, viz.
o    Monitoring.
o    Coordination.
o    Promoting new policy initiatives.
•    The Cabinet Secretariat ensures that the President, the Vice President and Ministers are kept informed of the major activities of all Ministries/Departments by means of monthly summary of their activities.
•    Management of major crisis situations in the country and coordinating activities of various Ministries in such a situation is also one of the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat.
The Cabinet Secretariat is seen as a useful mechanism by the departments for promoting inter-Ministerial coordination since the Cabinet Secretary is also the head of the civil services. The Secretaries felt it necessary to keep the Cabinet Secretary informed of developments from time to time. The Transaction of Business Rules also requires them to keep the Cabinet Secretary informed of developments from time to time, especially if there are any departures from these rules.
Structure
•    Three wings
o    Civil
o    Military 
o    Intelligence
•    Directorate of public grievances
•    National Authority Chemical Weapons Convention
o    NACWC has been established under the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, 2000 for implementing the provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, signed on behalf of the Government of India at Paris on the 14th day of January, 1993.
•    Performance Management Division
•    Disputes Committee
Cabinet Committees
•    To facilitate decision making in specific areas
•    Business Rules provide for the constitution of standing committees of the Cabinet to ensure speedy decisions on vital questions of political and economic significance and other matters of importance as also to ensure coordination in well defined fields of administration
•    Instruments to organise coordination in clearly defined fields
•    Flexibility in membership of these committees enable interested Ministers to exchange views, and arrive at agreed solutions without involving the Cabinet
•    There is considerable sharing of work with the result that many matters which could otherwise travel upto the Cabinet for decision making are settled at the level of Cabinet Committees
•    The Cabinet may often accept the decision already taken by the Cabinet Committees
•    Drawbaks
o    Some of these committees have not been uniformly or consistently effective
o    Do not cover all important areas of governmental functioning
o    They can take up a matter only when it is referred to by the Minister concerned or by the Cabinet
o    Do not meet regularly
•    There are 10 cabinet committees as of now. 
o    Appointments committee
o    Accommodation committee
o    Economic Affairs
o    Parliamentary Affairs
o    Political Affairs
o    Prices
o    Security
o    WTO matters
o    Infrastructure
o    UID
•    Functions
o    Specialized group for deliberation and discussion

Group of Ministers
•    27 GoMs exist
•    12 EGoMs exist

Cabinet Secretary
•    Head of the civil services
•    Under the direct charge of the PM
•    Executive head of cabinet secretariat
•    Ex-officio chairman of civil services board
Functions
    Provide assistance to the Council of Ministers
    Act as advisor and conscience keeper of the civil services
    Handle senior appointments
    Prepare of the agenda of the Cabinet
    Attend the meetings of the Cabinet
    Ensure that the Cabinet decisions are implemented
    Advise the Prime Minister of India
    Act as the Chairman of the Committee of Secretaries on Administration
    Act as the Chairman of the Chief Secretaries Committee
    Provide an element of continuity and stability to administration during crises
    Act as a buffer between the politicians and the civil servants and protect the interests of the latter in situation of conflict between the two
    Act on his own discretion at times
    When a minister desires to have a prosecution launched against the publisher or editor of a newspaper in cases of defamation the sanction of the Cabinet Secretary shall be obtained.

No fixed tenure
Does not and should not interfere in the working of the departments

<< Go back to Main Page

Courtesy: Neeraj Singh