Answer:
APPROACH AND STRUCTURE
1. Write an introduction on Wilson.
2. Write some basics about Wilson.
3. Give some features of Study of Administration.
4. How it laid foundation for PA as a discipline.
5. Then show how his essay is still significant.
6. Discuss part: criticize a bit.
7. Conclude.
INTRODUCTION: Wilson is considered as the founding father of PA because his essay Study of Administration became the basis for commencement of PA as a separate discipline.
BODY: The intellectual roots of public administration as a discipline can be traced back to the pioneering contributions made by Woodrow Wilson. His essay marks the birth of public administration as a self‐conscious inquiry. The prevailing situation towards the end of the 19th century influenced his thoughts to establish a separate discipline with an efficient administration. The four factors from which the administration was suffering were:
1. Spoil System
2. Inefficiency
3. Lack of Comparative Analysis
4. Too much focus on policymaking
To overcome these challenges, he established a separate discipline of public administration which should focus on building theories and principles by application of science in order to run administration efficiently he gave following contributions:
1. Politics administration dichotomy
2. Business like administration
3. CPA
4. 3Es
5. Merit‐based civil service
6. A science of administration
(Note: students should elaborate them in brief.)
Why his essay is seminal in the discipline of PA?
- From paradigm1 to paradigm 6 the basis remains the same i.e. efficiency. The implementation part is the focus despite having gone through new aspects like policy making and policy adjudication.
- Even classicists and behavoioralists couldn’t ignore business like administration and meritocracy.
- The theme of NPM is also improving 3Es that is efficiency, effectiveness and economy. The concerns which led Wilson to write study of administration at that time for making the PA as a separate discipline still guide PA as an independent subject.
- Various initiatives by governments to define relationship between politics and administration like Administrative reforms e.g. ARCs etc. are influenced by Wilson so that state can run efficiently because the state faces the same basic problems of running the state efficiently which it faced during the time of Wilson.
- CPA school explored the tenets which had been conceptualised by Wilson in his essay.
- Even today the statement of Wilson that it is difficult to run a constitution to frame one seems relevant.
Discuss part: Wilson’s politics-administration dichotomy was seen as misconception. There is a view that as Wilson wanted business like admn, he was treating PA synonymous with private administration, which was heavily criticised. Critics called him naïve, vague and vacillating.
It has alsso been argued that the epistemological basis of the discipline has widened from the narrow idea of PA being only action part of the government then why only Wilson should be regared as father of PA.
CONCLUSION: Despite criticisms Wilson’s essay remains a thoughtprovoking contribution which influences the thinkers of PA for finding out solution to the comlexities of state especially how to run it efficiently. It has given rise to the six overlapping paradigms and as per Dwight Waldo, politics-administration-dichotomy is the DNA of public administration.
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