Politics-administration Dichotomy Research Articles

Exchanging International Lessons on Contemporary Coalition-Led Governments: Implications for the “Political-Administrative Dichotomy”

ABSTRACT The discipline of public administration has long grappled with the issue of the political-administrative dichotomy. A lopsided binary and categorical approach to political and administrative relationships seems to have been unable to reveal the complexity and multifaceted contextual nature of most contemporary coalition-led governments. This article draws on international lessons from subject experts exposed to coalition-led governments and the political-administrative dichotomy in developed and developing countries. The article proposes an alternative multifaceted contextualized approach to creating a positive and engaging learning environment between developed and developing countries in order to improve the contemporary political-administrative interface.

Uncovering the Nexus Between Coalition Theory and the Political-Administrative Dichotomy

Uncovering the Nexus Between Coalition Theory and the Political-Administrative Dichotomy

Can Lamb And Lion Tango? Investigating Nigeria’s Practice of Public Administration and Peculiar Challenges from Structural Functional Theory

There is a gap in scholarly literature that has yet to be filled by scholars regarding the practice of public administration, challenges, and viable policy roadmaps for urgent governance situations in Nigeria. Anchored on functionalism, this study specifically examined the historical, phenomenological, and philosophical investigation of Nigeria's practice of public administration, the challenges of Nigeria's public administration, and how the politics-administration dichotomy influences Nigeria's practice of public administration. The type of data sought established the study through the qualitative method. Data were collected through primary and secondary means, and content analysis was performed. Drawing from interviews with professional administrators, this study revealed how corruption, godfatherism, irresponsible and irresponsive leadership, poverty, and procedural violations troubled public administration. Also, Nigeria’s public administration is characterized by a politics-administration dichotomy with its negative inputs and resultant effects. Due to the pervasive effect of these challenges, the country is not a developmental state and lacks appropriate governance structures that can usher in sustainable development (SD). Nigeria should be made a developmental state through robust development policies and effective implementation by responsive political leadership and administrative practices devoid of corruption, godfather politics, and procedural violations.

Reconceptualizing the Politics-Administration Dichotomy to Better Understand Public Leadership in the Twenty-First Century: A Multilateral Actors Model

The long-standing discussion of the politics-administration dichotomy is as relevant in contemporary public administration as at any time in the past. The significant changing context and persistence of the discussion on the practice of the politics-administration dichotomy calls for addressing what Overeem observes as the need to better describe the highly complex relations between politicians and administrators. Two implicit assumptions drive the continued relevance of the discussion of political-administrative interactions. First, the discussion matters because the actors in question fulfill various public leadership roles. Second, the political-administrative dialogue matters to questions of constitutionalism, values of representative government, and facilitating institutions of democracy. In this article, we offer a model of public managers’ engagement in the “how” with a framework that explicitly outlines the range of relationships. We draw on empirical research to outline the current reality of at least five significant types of actors, often working collaboratively in multilateral relationships. The first section of the article discusses the genesis and implications of the politics-administration dichotomy. It then proceeds to establish its persistence over time, followed by an explanation of the logic of our approach. Next, the discussion shifts to the analytic advantage of a continuum model across five categories of actors within the governance process, each possessing the potential for public leadership, showing how this model illustrates paths for addressing the problem we have identified. Finally, we discuss the implications of our proposed model for future research design and practice.

Teaching American government in public affairs education: Creating a foundation for success

Public administration has a long tradition of close connections to the field of political science. As the field of public administration evolved from a basic politics administration dichotomy, it became evident that the distinction between politics and administration was nebulous at best. As such, public affairs students need exposure to, and knowledge of, the founding documents and basic principles that underpin American government. This article explores the reasons for including American government instruction in introductory public affairs courses, student knowledge and preparation in American government, and strategies for enhancing the coverage of the principles of American government in public affairs programs.

Democratic centralism: The root cause of poor municipal performance in South Africa

This paper is a product of a Doctoral study that applied grounded theory to derive a performance improvement model for a particular Municipality in South Africa. Drawing from this study, this paper argues that democratic centralism, which manifests in politicised bureaucracy and implemented through the ANC policy of cadre deployment, is the root cause of poor performance across South African municipalities. In advancing this argument, the paper interrogates public management literature to conceptualise poor municipal performance and justify the relevance of the politics-administration dichotomy as a framework for positioning democratic centralism as the root cause of poor performance in South African municipalities. In addition, interrogating public management literature allowed the author to identify methodological limitations of past studies and select grounded theory as the most appropriate research design to address these limitations. In applying grounded theory, the author used purposive sampling to identify research participants who were subsequently interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. In preparation for data analysis, the author recorded and transcribed the information obtained from the interviews. Thereafter, the author used open coding with particular emphasis on constant comparative analysis and theoretical sampling. The use of these techniques allowed the author to move the level of abstraction from open codes through to empirical categories leading to generation of empirical explanations that link democratic centralism to poor performance in South African municipalities. To this end, the paper empirically linked poor municipal performance, often displayed through violent protests, to democratic centralism, a phenomenon entrenched into the South African public service through the ANC policy of cadre deployment.

공공가치는 행정(학)의 정체성 위기 해결에 기여할 수 있는가?

This study is to explore the potential of public value theory in solving the identity crisis of public administration which was adopted as an alternative paradigm to new public management. Although the historical necessity of separating administration from politics in consequence helped to form public administration as a distinct field of study, unfortunately the politics-administration dichotomy has perverted the legitimacy and identity of public administration and has narrowed the scope of public administration discourse. Though the preceding similar and related concepts and theories to public value such as the public, publicness, administrative value, public service value, administrative ideologies and so on have played a leading role in identity discourse, they are limited in more fuller explication of public values. Now public value not only can integrate and look at those old concepts and theories in a new perspective, but also can expand the multi-disciplinary approach to public administration theory and practice. Lastly, reflective thoughts on the ligitimacy and status of public administration and future research agendas are suggested.

ПРЕЕМСТВЕННОСТЬ ПРОТИВ ПЕРЕМЕН: ЭВОЛЮЦИОНИРУЮЩИЕ ТРАЕКТОРИИ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО УПРАВЛЕНИЯ КИТАЯ

China’s public administration system has been shaped by incremental reforms since China started its reform and opening up in 1978. These reforms highlighted a delicate balance between continuity and change so gradual, incessant, and autonomous adaptation to China’s socioeconomic development as well as to its external environment could happen. Since China moved into the “deep-water zone” in the recent decade, does this reform strategy remain effective? This article examines the Chinese way of introducing public administration reforms, with a focus on the reforms in the past decade. Although incremental reform has in general been kept useful, changing internal and external conditions in China have made it more difficult to achieve innovations and systematic transformation through incremental reforms. An apparent approach to politicization has replaced the fragile politics-administration dichotomy and reshaped the way of value balancing in China’s administrative system.

Does politicized public service appointment strengthen political control over policy advice? The case of Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT In this study, a synthesized framework based on the policy advisory system (PAS) and the politics-administration (PA) dichotomy is applied to Hong Kong, a jurisdiction in transition from its previous status as a colony influenced by the Westminster system to a special administrative region of China. Based on interviews and questionnaire responses from policymakers and advisors in different structural positions of the PAS, the study finds that politicized public-service appointment has increased political control over the content of policy advice through three pathways: the selection of alternative policy advisors, the restructuring of sources of policy advice, and the opening-up of extant policy-advisory processes. Unlike in some non-Western and state-centered regimes, centralized political control in Hong Kong has both internalized and broadened the range of policy alternatives. The case of Hong Kong demonstrates that the dynamics of PA dichotomy provide pathways to policy advice politicization in the PAS, although the hybrid Westminster and Confucian traditions of Hong Kong shape the pathways toward, the degree, and the content of policy advice politicization. These findings affirm the PAS theory that the political-technical dimensions of policy advice do not fit neatly with the location or structural roles of policy actors.

A Comparative Analysis of Research Trends of Education Policy in Korea from the Perspective of Education Administration and Politics of Education

본 연구는 전통적인 교육행정학의 정치-행정 이원론을 극복하기 위해 창립된 교육정치학회가 교육행정학회와 갖는 차별성을 탐구하기 위해 교육정치학회 출범 이후 두 학회의 연구동향을 분석하는 데 목적을 두었다. 이를 위해 교육정치학회의 학술지인 「교육정치학연구」와 교육행정학회의 학술지인 「교육행정학연구」의 교육정책 관련 논문 각각 192편, 389편을 대상으로 연구주제, 연구목적, 연구방법, 이론 및 모형의 근거 등 네 개 범주에 대해 연구동향을 비교ㆍ분석하였다. 분석 결과, 교육정치학회는 정체성이 확립되어 가는 과정인 ‘발전준비기’와 ‘정체성 확립기’ 사이에 자리해 있음이 확인되었다. 두 학문분야 간 학문 공동체의 공유로부터 비롯되는 학문적 유사성이 발견되기도 했으며, 이는 교육정치학회의 정체성 확립을 위한 경계 짓기의 필요성과 방법에 대한 논의의 필요성을 시사한다.The purpose of this study is to inductively and empirically analyze the academic boundaries and paradigms shared by the academic community of Politics of Education. This research focuses on the comparison of research trends in 'The Journal of Politics of Education' (192 articles) with ‘The Journal of Educational Administration’ (389 articles) of the studies in education policy in the last 25 years, after the Korean Society of The Politics of Education (KSPE) was founded. Especially taking the consequences of the politics-administration dichotomy into account - underpinned in the objective of the foundation of KSPE, the research intended to examine whether they gradually find academic identity in terms of research topic, research objective, research methodology, and theoretic framework. The results implied that KSPE is at the stage between ‘preparation for development’ and ‘identity Establishment’. However, in the case of similarity and redundancy that appear in the two academic fields, further discussion is required on the necessity and method of boundary building among their shared academic community.

Is New Public Management an Option for Post-Pandemic Public Service Delivery in Nigeria?

The expenditure and revenue trajectories which diverge sharply, as well as the increasing demand for better public service in the late 1970s around Western Europe and Northern America, necessitate the introduction of various principles coined as New Public Management (NPM) to reform the longstanding traditional public administration designed along Wilson's politics-administration dichotomy and Weber's ideal model of bureaucracy. With little or no doubt about its effects on the process of public service delivery in advanced nations, much has not been written on the impact on public service delivery in Nigeria and other developing countries amidst challenges impending in the post-pandemic public service delivery in Nigeria. This study evaluates the option of full implementation of new public management for post-pandemic public service delivery in Nigeria. Drawing on theoretical and empirical research, it explores the potential for service quality and cost recovery of public service, decentralization of decision making in public bureaucracies, and whether the process of public service delivery will be enhanced through performance measurement all within the regime of New Public Management. In exploring these issues, this paper sheds light on the potential of New Public Management to stabilize and improve public service delivery in the post-pandemic era of Nigeria.

Does governing board involvement impact strategy implementation effectiveness? The role of information sharing in the politics-administration interface

ABSTRACT Many local authorities are governed by a dual governance structure involving a political governing board and a chief administrative officer (CAO). The question if both strategic actors should collaborate has been long debated. The politics-administration dichotomy perspective advocates independence, while the complementarity view eulogizes interdependence. But, what is the appropriate level of governing board involvement during strategy implementation? We use data of 96 Flemish local authorities’ CAOs to investigate if specific strategic board role behaviours (SBRBs) stimulate governing board-CAO information sharing and, subsequently, foster strategy implementation effectiveness. Results confirm the relevance of overseeing SBRB in combination with information sharing.

Theory after Practice

Theory after Practice

Politics-Administration Dichotomy: Identify and Classify the indicators of differentiation between Political and Administrative Jobs in Iran Public Administration System

هدف: طراحی و اعتبارسنجی مقیاسی به منظور سنجش و جانمایی صندلی‌های اداری در طیف سیاسی-حرفه‌ای.طراحی/روش‌شناسی/رویکرد: پژوهش حاضر با رویکرد قیاسی-استقرایی و در دو مرحله انجام گرفته است. در مرحله کیفی با مراجعه به مبانی نظری و انجام مصاحبه نیمه‌ساختاریافته با خبرگان گویه‌های مقیاس شناسایی شده است . در مرحله کمی با بهره‌گیری از روش‌های روایی صوری و محتوا و پایایی به روش‌های آلفای کرونباخ و آزمون-آزمون مجدد نسبت به اعتبار سنجی ابزار طراحی شده اقدام گردید.یافته‌های پژوهش: پس از مرور ادبیات و انجام مصاحبه و انجام اصلاحات پیشنهادی خبرگان پرسشنامه اولیه با 72 گویه تنظیم شد. در بررسی روایی صوری 5 گویه حذف شد. پس از محاسبه شاخص روایی محتوا 4 گویه و پس از محاسبه نسبت روایی محتوا 6 گویه دیگر نیز حذف و به این ترتیب پرسشنامه نهایی با 61 گویه در ده بعد تنظیم شد. محدودیت‌ها و پیامدها: کمبود پژوهش‌های میدانی بومی پیرامون موضوع پژوهش با هدف بهره‌گیری از یافته‌های آنها در تحقیق.پیامدهای عملی: با بهره‌گیری از مقیاس معرفی شده می‌توان به تعیین نوع صندلی‌ها در سازمان‌های اداری کشور پرداخت و بر اساس نتایج به دست آمده به بازنویسی شرح مشاغل سیاسی و حرفه‌ای متناسب با هر صندلی اقدام نمود. پیامد این کار ممانعت از تغییرهای فله‌ای در مناصب دولتی پس از هر انتخابات و استقرار سیستم برنامه‌ محوری بجای فرد محوری در کشور و در نتیجه تحقق اهداف تعیین شده در اسناد بالادستی است.ابتکار یا ارزش مقاله: ارائه شاخص‌هایی عملیاتی برای مشخص کردن حرفه‌ای یا سیاسی بودن سمت‌ها در نظام مدیریت دولتی.

The Weberian Politics-Administration Dichotomy in Time of Global Crisis: Neutral Competence or Cadre Organizations

The 2020 Coronavirus pandemic placed enormous pressures on local, regional, and national governments to remain responsive, open, and equitable when developing solutions to protect the public. The focus of this article is an examination of these challenges, the insufficient preparedness, and the resulting response to the pandemic through the lens of the Weberian politics-administration dichotomy. Despite the fact that China does not practice a Weberian democratic form of government, the nation has managed to become a global economic powerhouse. Through a high degree of centralized planning, China has implemented market-based economic reforms synchronous with sustained socialist practices. However, this system also presents unique challenges for effective governance. Some of these challenges are the result of the governmental system in China, the relationship between the central government and local cadre organizations. For China to continue to grow as a global leader, leadership will need to balance the pros and cons of the dichotomy between the centralized political planning and the local administration by promoting more flexibility in governance structure and the central-local relationship.

Educational Development Issues in Ghana in Light of Educational Policy and Planning

The persistent educational reforms and interventions in Ghana’s education system showcase the government’s ambition to make Ghana Education Service a first-class institution that guarantees the right to education for millions of Ghanaians and engenders the attainment of quality education (Sustainable Development Goal 4). This article shows how the Ghanaian government has provided free senior high school education, capitation grants, free lunch, personal protective equipment for all schools as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, and a new curriculum that includes complementary education for a sustainable educational system. Yet, it is interesting to note that the Ghanaian government continuously implements educational interventions without consideration for policies and implementation strategies to sustain them. This study implements textual analysis of some reviewed literature including articles, academic papers, magazines, books, and reports. It discovered that many educational reforms face great obstacles that mar the attainment of the reforms’ objectives because educational policies in Ghana are based on the incumbent president’s manifesto, causing policymaking in Ghana to suffer compromises and negotiations at the parliamentary level. This study suggests that educational policymaking in Ghana should be left in the custody of educational philosophers who are policymakers to separate it from political relationships (the politics-administration dichotomy) because politics and administration are inherently different. Also, teachers’ and principals’ professional development should be encouraged, and educational facilities and equipment should be provided to sustain educational development in Ghana.

Taking the Advantage of the Coercive Effects of Legal Arrangements in Shaping Public Servants’ Political Behaviors: The Case of the Hatch Act

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of legal arrangements in terms of providing neutrality for public servants, and in this essence hindering them from behaving politically. The main rationale motivating this study is basic propositions about the possible political behaviors of public servants and the necessities of avoiding such behaviors. In fact, it can be assumed that the politics-administration dichotomy has an incredibly deterministic effect in the public administration field. In this scope, some roles have mostly been given to public administrators in terms of just implementing policies and some measures have been taken for providing administrators’ political neutrality. One of the bestknown of these measures is the Hatch Act in the USA. The Hatch Act has been built as an institutional order in providing political neutrality of federal, state and local employees. In can also be expressed that several coercive measures were established for building and maintaining this order. For analysis, specific archive documents and other relevant texts were collected by using open sources (i.e. legal documents and internet resources). After collecting data, the content analysis technic was used to find apposite answers for the research questions. This study’s potential contributions are manyfold. Firstly, it defines political or partizan behaviors or activities of public servants in general and more specifically in the scope of the Hatch Act to some extent. Besides this, many issues such as the coercive effects of legal arrangements in hindering political behavior of public servants, established actors and mechanisms for this aim and produced outcomes in implementation have been put forth in detail. Along with these it also clarifies the maintenance of such institutional orders. 

Searching for Newness in Management Paradigms: An Analysis of Intellectual History in U.S. Public Administration

Some management paradigms—traditional public administration (TPA), new public administration (NPA), new public management (NPM), and network governance—have long led the practice and theory of U.S. public administration during different time periods. Although each paradigm purports its newness, this study analyzes the truth of such claims. Thus, this study provides an in-depth analysis of management paradigms by differentiating new from old elements in each, and identifies certain underpinning streams or tides that penetrate from one management paradigm to another. Here, the primary conceptual focus is a two-by-two table that classifies management paradigms into four quadrants based on two dimensions: “politics-administration dichotomy” and “market-driven management.” Results indicate that TPA has various novel features such as neutral competence, political guidance, and procedural equality, and that NPA and NPM also have new features such as a policy-administration continuum and market-driven management, respectively. Finally, network governance appears to be a derivative of NPM’s market-driven management and NPA’s policy-administration continuum. Another important research finding of this study is that the four management paradigms are the mixtures of multiple “lenses.” Likewise, the four management paradigms are the combinations of “privateness”-oriented and “publicness”-oriented managerial norms. This study is significant as the first examination of the newness of management paradigms and in filling the gaps in previous categorization models of U.S. administrative reforms and public administration theory.

Mass casualty event scenarios and political shifts: 2020 election outcomes and the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 models indicate a mass casualty event may potentially occur in the United States. Among numerous social and economic changes, the potential to reshape the political landscape exists. The theoretical perspective of politics-administration dichotomy is used to examine the rhetoric, power, and authority of public health messages during the pandemic. This study considers political shifts using state-level data on population, historical voter turnout, and projected COVID-19 cases number coupled with national-level data on voter participation by age group and COVID-19 fatality rates. Developing a formula to calculate these data, we project the extent to which the number of voters from each party could diminish. The analysis shows the potential for significant political changes due to the disproportionate loss of older voters in key swing states in the months leading to the 2020 presidential election.

СОГЛАСОВАННЫЕ И ЗАПЛАНИРОВАННЫЕ ПРОГРАММНЫЕ ЦЕЛИ, НЕЗАВИСИМАЯ ОЦЕНКА И УПРАВЛЕНИЕ ПО РЕЗУЛЬТАТАМ В АФРИКЕ: ПУТЬ К ЗАСЛУЖИВАЮЩИМ ДОВЕРИЯ ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬСТВАМ НИГЕРСКИХ ПОЛИТИКОВ

The study examines the application of performance management (PM) to politics in the African context using Nigeria as a focus. It argues that PM will yield better results if it focuses on ways to improve and stabilize the results of politics based on the notion of politics-administration dichotomy and the leadership role of the political class in that relationship. The relevance of some key elements of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) such as the role of leadership, peer review, self-assessment, competitiveness and comparative learning and innovation are investigated as elements of performance management at this level. Documentary data based on the implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and evaluation of the application of performance information in relation to those critical roles of politicians were analysed. The authors found that although measures aligning with the CAF model of PM are in place, politicians remain poorly committed, inconsistent and irregular in submitting and using performance information. The study suggests strengthening PM at the political level of governance through energised support for an African Peer Review Mechanism framework and an international push for sustained application of peer review and results of various global performance indexes in dealing with African countries.