Public Administration - Essay Example

Running Head: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Public Administration Public administration is considered as the most important aspect of agovernment. Public administration includes problem identification, policy determination, analysis and proposing a solution to resolve an issue. To accomplish these tasks, administrators are appointed by the government. They are responsible for implementing the rules imposed by the government. In certain countries the public administrators are mere actors who perform the task of implementing the regulations of the government.

According to Max Weber’s policy, public administrators must be restricted to only laid down the policies in the discharge of their duties. But this would not help the country to have a proper and efficient public administration. The public administrators must have some amount of discretion as this would help them to resolve an issue based on the problem’s nature. The policies proposed by the government are generally common and it does not specify any external factor to tackle the problem.

In this situation, the administrators must decide how to solve the issue by altering or modifying the proposed rules. They should have the rights to modify and implement the proposed policies. They must also have some amount of discretion so that they can decide how to serve the public in a better way. In a democratic country, the public administration cannot be carried out in an effective way without proposing new techniques and strategies. (Denhardt, 2009). The problem differs based on the situation and the same regulation might not work effectively for all sorts of issues.

Instead it is better for the government to allow the public administrators to pursue their work with some discretion. This would enable them to help and serve people in a better way. In cases where the government does not provide complete information pertaining to a particular problem, the public administrators are pushed to a state where they have to decide on their own. If they are restricted to only laid down rules, the problem cannot be resolved. The major criteria in having discretion is, the administrator must provide a justifiable reason as to why he implemented such a task.

Else it would contribute to the existing problem there by leading to other administrative issues. Real world implementation of policies generally depends on the situation and thus the results might not be the same for every issue. But this discretion has certain disadvantages and problems. The discretion made in one case might lead to a situation where public expect the same sort of solution for every problem. (Denhardt, 2009).The leadership and decision making must be carried out without complicating the policies.

This discretion leads to abuse of administrative values, as the officials act according to their wish and this might worsen the situation. The administrators can work towards the needs of the people and can ascertain their interests to provide a proper solution to a problem. In case if he is permitted only to implement the proposed rules, the outcome might not be beneficial to the public. Discretion will enable the administrators to have an active involvement in the issues. This will make sure that the executives interact with the public to have a clear idea as to what has actually happened.

Hence it is better to permit the public administrators to discrete the problems and act accordingly. References Denhardt, R. (2009). Public Administration: An action Orientation. U.S.A: Thomson Wadsworth.