Administrative Theory

Ineffective, governmental, useless, unresponsive or crooked is how citizens, the media, and occasionally political leaders and public servants perceive government. Citizens repeatedly criticize that governments offer services that are insufficient, wrong, or too costly of their hard-earned tax payments. Instead of reacting to the needs of citizens, people see government officials to be acting in their own benefits. The public wanting improvements in the ways in which governments serve citizens is proven in surveys and opinion polls. They want a public administration that provides improved services and spreads their reach and coverage more successfully and proficiently. To provide more and better services at lower cost is the capacity that citizens expect improvements (Rondinelli).

Several political leaders and government officials are aware that the demands of a more difficult and unified international economy are no longer being met by doing things the old way. Burdens on governments to produce economic, political and social conditions and tougher competition among businesses have been brought on by globalization. Government interference has been called by international organizations and progressive political leaders, over the past quarter of a century (Rondinelli).

It is now widely recognized the necessity to develop governance and public administration and to enhance the State’s ability to carry out new tasks and roles.
In a variety of ways in both developed and developing societies, the uncertainty about democratic governments is being demonstrated. Regarded as the same with corruption, more and more people do not trust their governments. Governments no longer draw the best, the most talented, or the most committed people and many government departments are finding it hard to recruit trained and skilled staff (Putnam).

The diminishing amounts of citizens who turn up to vote both in developed and developing countries are an image of the even more telling sign of deteriorating public assurance in government. So ordinary is the fraud, negligence, and obvious break of faith by public leaders that they stop to outrage citizens. To control the flexible powers of public officials is the most vital worry of those involved in public management change. The main concern of those functioning in the field of public management is stopping public officials from abusing their power. Those that take initiatives and risk bringing about change are penalized while those officials who hide behind red tape epitomize the best in government. The very purpose for which they were being paid by the taxpayers has been forgotten by many public services, under such conditions. The loss of public service philosophy was the death of public service itself. Not shockingly, governments have turned into administrative, and citizens, in spite of their opposing political likings, love to hate the bureaucracy (Putnam).

Rondinelli, Dennis. Reinventing Government for the Twenty-first
Century. Stanford, CT: Kumarian Press (2003).

Putnam, Robert. “What Makes Democracy Work?” IPA Journal, Vol. 47, No. 1 (1994)

While criticism of government is largely justified, this should not lead us to conclude that government or the State has become obsolete. Any expectation of the demise of government is not just premature but also mistaken and misplaced.
An efficient, effective, and democratic government is the best guarantor of social justice and order and government is, and will remain, central to society. The discussion about the “reinvention” or the re-conceptualization of government is about better and more effective governance. It is obvious that if the government is to regain popular trust and proactively advance social justice, it must become smarter, flexible, and innovative. We have to revisit the societal vision of the role of government, rethinking the whole concept of governance and developing a new paradigm for it.