Public Administrator Restrictions Essay

Throughout the rigmarole of political history of the United States of America, the growth of the “fourth branch of government”, the Bureaucracy, has been a prominent, controversial topic. Peter Woll, in his article “Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power”, and James Q. Wilson, in his article “The Rise of the Bureaucratic State”, discuss this developing administrative branch. The Constitution has no written mention of an “administrative branch”, and today’s Bureaucracy is often tedious, corrupt, and even undemocratic. But such a branch’s development and expansion is necessary in order to keep par with an evolving and changing society.

Public administration is a intricate fact of living in the United States. One will always face public administration during their lives. It is waiting at the DMV to get a driver’s license; it is applying for a mail-in ballot; it is receiving Social Security checks or paying taxes to the IRS. Discretion lives in each of these bureaucracies. According to Merriam-Webster, discretion is defined as, “power of free decision or latitude of choice within certain legal bounds”. Many career bureaucrats are given latitudes of discretion. IRS agents have a certain amount of discretion in regards to audits and payment plans. Social Security employees have discretion in how urgently they want to pursue cases and how to decide on grey cases. Prosecutors have multitudes of discretion in regards to how and who they prosecute. Discretion is seen by many to be a work around of democracy; there is no consideration of public good, rather whatever the career bureaucrat sees fit. It has kept people out of jail due to arbitrary qualifications and ensured that minor mistakes do not completely destroy a life.

As defined a bureaucratic organization is a type of management with a pyramid command structure. A couple bureaucratic agencies that everyone has used at least once in a lifetime is UPS or Federal Express. UPS and Federal Express being two very fast paced and competitive environments in the package delivery market they must strive to keep their customers satisfied with their service. Another comparison would be at Walmart, and Kmart is enlarged discount retailers that use different customer service

According to Morgan he describes how organizations “are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of the machine” (Morgan, 13). Organizations that are “designed and operated as if they were machines are … usually called bureaucracies” (Morgan, 13). One of the benefits of having a bureaucracy is that it allows employees to work on one key function of the organization. It can enhance the organization’s internal controls and safeguard its assets by making people responsible to depend on others in order to carry out a specific

In fact, sound decision making is the cornerstone skill of any competent citizen administrator. Some citizen administrators are in charge of collecting taxes, organizing trash collection, or auditing other state agencies. For other citizen administrators, their job entails safety – literally these citizen administrators are in charge of people’s lives. The stakes go up considerably, when assessing an administrator’s responsibility, when people’s safety is at stake.

The bureaucratic era has been the traditional form of organization for more than a century, in simple terms described as hybridity, standardized operations and none flexibility inside the organization. The change to the post-bureaucratic is shown through personal influence, high trust relationships and the importance of the individuality of everyone (McKenna, Garcia-Lorenzo & Bridgeman, 2010). According to Kernaghan (2000) the characteristic of the bureaucratic era is “position power” and of the post bureaucratic “participate leadership”.

Articles 15, 40, and 54 from the classic literature gives us an overview of how the US public administration is established. Public administration as we know it involves organizations to make every effort to be a good corporate citizen of the community. Organizations must conduct their business to be in a fair, ethical and professional manner with customers, governments, suppliers, community neighborhoods, and the general public.

However, despite Max Weber’s theory that bureaucracies are like iron “iron cages” that are a efficient form of administration. Prior to modern government reform patronage, spoils, and bribery were just part of the political environment for Public Administrators. In today’s, modern government Public Administrators are hired based on the merit and technical qualifications that secure the individual can carry out the duties of the office. However, Public Administrators are forced to work in a hierarchical organization

An administrator's role in the old public administration was unclear when it comes to developing policies and their relationship with political leaders (Denhardt, 2015, p. 91). Scholars suggest that administrators need to be more involved with the governmental process. An administrator's role in the old public administration was simple but unclear. The uncertainty in policy making created flaws for the role of public administrators in the old public administration.

While public administration and business management share similar administrative duties, they differ in their fundamentals and execution. Traditional public administration principles created a sharp difference between public and business

It is important for citizens, all levels of government employees and the institutions they serve to understand this concept of bureaucratic discretion. With education, nuances of the complexities of the job, and proper policies and guidelines, when bureaucratic discretion are made by the street-level worker they need to be balanced with ethics and integrity for the various situations they face. There is such a broad spectrum of public servants that bureaucratic discretion will also have a very broad range of definitions.

In this analysis we will review a case titled “The Dilemma at the Public Service Department.” We will be discussing different issues, amongst them are: opinions on the honesty, malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance, accountability, competence, and why these particular responsibilities are identified. We will also discuss certain trade-offs made by the commissioner’s loyalty to the department as well as the governor, and public interest. We will also be discussing three barriers when it comes to deciding how the governor will be approached, along with the basic elements that are recommended in strategic management planning.

To become a public administrator, you must have the ability to work with different people from different background, different age groups, and various economy classes. A Public administrator cannot be biased towards one group of people and turn around and be favorable towards the other. As an administrator, you have to be transparent to everybody that you encounter, even people that you will be working with, and people that you are working for. According to the publication, “Ethical Dilemmas in the Public Service,” by the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management, describes that the ethical issue that government officials face in any organization is nepotism and bias. The reason why this event occurs is that some of the individuals in the public administrative positions are not transparent in the workplace and are also influenced by personal gain.

By discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of administration and politics dichotomy, an opinion of whether it is useful or impossible will be made. Wilson’s politics administration dichotomy refers to the idea that administrative decisions need to be made without political influence. One argument to this is that politics has transformed, let’s say, the role of a city manager from a neutral expert to a problem solver and dichotomy should be replaced with an expanded base of professional values for them.