Politics/Administration Dichotomy and Economic Development

A Research Output

Presented to Prof. Georgina de Chavez Faculty Metro Manila College U-Site, Kaligayahan, Novaliches, Quezon City

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements In Social Science 115 (Trends and Issues in Social Studies)

By: Roy Java Villasor BSEd 2

25 October 2012

I. Discussion on Politics

Politics refers to as activities associated with government in which it is the theory and practice of government, especially the activities associated with governing, with obtaining legislative or executive power, or with forming and running organizations connected with government. This is also refers to as power relationship in specific field wherein there is an interrelationships between the people, groups, or organizations in a particular area of life especially in so far as they involve power and influence or conflict that uses tactics and strategy to gain power in a group or organization. B. Positive and negative of politics Politics is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. As such, it is an essentially social activity, inextricably linked, on the one hand, to the existence of diversity and conflict, and on the other to a willingness to co-operate and act collectively. Politics is better seen as a search for conflict resolution than as its achievement, as not all conflicts are, or can be, resolved. Politics has been understood differently by different thinkers and within different traditions. Politics has been viewed as the art of government or as what concerns the state, as the conduct and management of public affairs, as the resolution of conflict through debate and compromise, and as the production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence. There is considerable debate about the realm of the political. Conventionally, politics has narrowly been seen as embracing institutions and actors operating in a public sphere concerned with the collective organization of social existence. However, when politics is understood in terms of power-structured relationships, it may be seen to operate in the private sphere as well. A variety of approaches have been adopted to the study of politics as an academic discipline. These include political philosophy or the analysis of normative theory, an empirical tradition particularly concerned with the study of institutions and structures, attempts to introduce scientific rigour through behavioural analysis, and a variety of modern approaches including the use of rational-choice theory.

The study of politics is scientific to the extent that it is possible to gain objective knowledge about the political world by distinguishing it between facts and values. This task is nevertheless hampered by the difficulty of gaining access to reliable data, by values that are implicit in political models and theories, and by biases that operate within all students of politics. Concepts, models and theories are the tools of political analysis, providing the building blocks of knowledge. However, they are only analytical devices. Although they help to advance understanding, they are more rounded and coherent than the unshapely and complex realities they seek to describe. Ultimately, all political and social inquiry is conducted within a particular intellectual framework or ideological paradigm. Politics should not be an absolute path towards corruption. Politics should just be the means by which we cooperate with others. Whether it be the politics of government, the politics of groups, family politics or sexual politics, politics work best when they are used as a tool to cooperate with others. In his famous Discourse on Politics Aristotle had much to say about the issue. In fact, it is at the end of Nicomachean Ethics declares that any inquiry into ethics necessarily leads to politic. It is Aristotle who said: "For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is more dangerous." Law and justice are profound reasons for political action whether that be the law and justice of state or of family and to this degree politics is clearly a positive action.

II.

Discussion on Administration A. Weberian Bueareucracy

Weberian bureaucracy has its origin in the works by Max Weber (1864-1920), a notable German sociologist, political economist, and administrative scholar who contributed to the study of bureaucracy and administrative discourses and literatures during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Max Weber belongs to the Scientific School of Thought, who discussed such topics as specialization of job-scope, merit system, uniform principles, structure and hierarchy. Weber described many ideal types of public administration and government in magnum opus Economy and Society (1922). His critical study of the

his

bureaucratisation of society became one of the most enduring parts of his work. It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularization of this term. Many aspects of modern public administration go back to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the Continental type is called "Weberian civil service". As the most efficient and rational way of organizing, bureaucratization for Weber was the key part of the rational-legal authority, and furthermore, he saw it as the key process in the ongoing rationalization of the Western society. Weber listed several precondititions for the emergence of bureaucracy. The growth in space and population being administered, the growth in complexity of the administrative tasks being carried out, and the existence of a monetary economy requires a more efficient administrative system. Development of communication and transportation technologies makes more efficient administration possible but also in popular demand, and democratization and rationalization of culture resulted in demands that the new system treats everybody equally. Weber's ideal bureaucracy is characterized by hierarchical organization, delineated lines of authority in a fixed area of activity, action taken on the basis of and recorded in written rules, bureaucratic officials need expert training, rules are implemented by neutral officials, career advancement depends on technical qualifications judged by organization, not individuals. While recognizing bureaucracy as the most efficient form of organization, and even indispensable for the modern state, Weber also saw it as a threat to individual freedoms, and the ongoing bureaucratization as leading to a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in the aforementioned "iron cage" of bureaucratic, rule-based, rational control. In order to counteract bureaucrats, the system needs entrepreneurs and politicians. The Key Characteristics of a Bureaucracy Weber coined this last type of authority with the name of a bureaucracy. The term bureaucracy in terms of an organization and management functions refers to the following six characteristics: Management by rules. A bureaucracy follows a consistent set of rules that control the functions of the organization. Management controls the lower levels of the organization's hierarchy by applying established rules in a consistent and predictable manner.

Division of labor. Authority and responsibility are clearly defined and officially sanctioned. Job descriptions are specified with responsibilities and line of authority. All employees have thus clearly defined rules in a system of authority and subordination. Formal hierarchical structure. An organization is organized into a hierarchy of authority and follows a clear chain of command. The hierarchical structure effectively delineates the lines of authority and the subordination of the lower levels to the upper levels of the hierarchical structure. Personnel hired on grounds of technical competence. Appointment to a position within the organization is made on the grounds of technical competence. Work is assigned based on the experience and competence of the individual. Managers are salaried officials. A manager is a salaried official and does own the administered unit. All elements of a bureaucracy are defined with clearly defined roles and responsibilities and are managed by trained and experienced specialists. Written documents. All decisions, rules and actions taken by the organization are formulated and recorded in writing. Written documents ensure that there is continuity of the organizations policies and procedures. Advantages and Disadvantages of Webers Bureaucracy Webers bureaucracy is based on logic and rationality which are supported by trained and qualified specialists. The element of a bureaucracy offers a stable and hierarchical model for an organization. Nevertheless, Webers bureaucracy does have its limitations since it is based on the roles and responsibilities of the individuals rather than on the tasks performed by the organization. Its rigidity implies a lack of flexibility to respond to the demands of change in the business environment. B. New Public Administration. Public administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal... is to advance management and policies so that government can function. Some of the various definitions which have been offered for the term are: "the management of public programs"; the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day"; and "the study of government decision making, the analysis of the policies themselves, the various inputs that have produced them, and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies.

Public administration is "centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programmes as well as the behavior of officials (usually nonelected) formally responsible for their conduct. Many unelected public servants can be considered to be public administrators, including heads of city, county, regional, state and federal departments such as municipal budget directors, human resources (H.R.) administrators, city managers, census managers, state [mental health] directors, and cabinet secretaries. Public administrators are public servants working in public departments and agencies, at all levels of government. One scholar claims that "public administration has no generally accepted definition", because the "scope of the subject is so great and so debatable that it is easier to explain than define". Public administration is a field of study (i.e., a discipline) and an occupation. There is much disagreement about whether the study of public administration can properly be called a discipline, largely because of the debate over whether public administration is a subfield of political science or a subfield of administrative science". Scholar Donald Kettle is among those who view public administration "as a subfield within political science". The North American Industry Classification System definition of the Public Administration sector states that public administration "... comprises establishments primarily engaged in activities of a governmental nature, that is, the enactment and judicial interpretation of laws and their pursuant regulations, and the administration of programs based on them". This includes "Legislative activities, taxation, national defense, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and international assistance, and the administration of government programs are activities that are purely governmental in nature". From the academic perspective, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the United States defines the study of public administration as "A program that prepares individuals to serve as managers in the executive arm of local, state, and federal government and that focuses on the systematic study of executive organization and management. Includes instruction in the roles, development, and principles of public administration; the management of public policy; executive-legislative relations; public budgetary processes and financial management; administrative law; public personnel management; professional ethics; and research methods. Public Administration in the Philippines The Philippine Government is a presidential form with a Senate and a Congress and departments that rely on elected officials, i.e., the politicians, for their budget allocations.

Pork barrels have not been abolished; thus, public administration in our country is subject to whatever is the prevailing political climate among the Senate, Congress, and the Chief Executives office.

Market Segmentation of Philippine Consumers Our people, the Filipinos, are mostly poor. Only 1% of our population are rich, or what marketers call Class AB. Among the rich, there are three sub-classes, namely, the Established Rich like the Ayala family who owns the Makati Business District the financial hub of the Philippines, the Smart Rich like rags-to-riches Manuel V. Pangilinan who rose from being poor to becoming an Asian oligarch through diligence and scholarships and a successful climb up the corporate ladder, and the Nouveau Rich who suddenly become rich usually through corrupt means or through large winnings like our phenomenal world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao, who used to be a bakery worker. The Upper C or Upwardly Mobile Middle Class, that is, those among the middle class who have received good education and have landed in occupations that may enable them to climb out of the middle class segment and possibly join the smart rich sub-class of Class AB, is only 9%. The Broad C Class, who are characterized as downwardly mobile, meaning, they are getting poorer and poorer as a result of the economic and political instability in our country, is a big 45%. They are the ones who rely on luck to better their lot. Their class are the ones who queue in long lines to make lottery bets and who give the television networks their big bucks as those networks present game shows that thrive on the hopes of the majority of the Filipinos to become sudden millionaires and end their downwardly mobile lives. We, thus, have a thinning middle class, which is supposed to be the backbone of an economy. Low-income families and the poor, also called Class DE, comprise the remaining 45% of the Philippines consumer population. Class D are the families of salesladies and domestic helpers. Class E are the ones seen on international television features as living off garbage dumps. They are also found living on the precarious sides of railroads and squatting on unused lands. No longer counted in the consumer classification of the Philippines are the hundreds of thousands of extremely poor who cannot anymore purchase

anything. They beg in the streets, rely on the wastes of fast food restaurants for their meals, and live and sleep under bridges or on pavements in sub-human conditions.

Feasting on the Masses as a Revenue Source The consumer behavior of the Broad C, Class D, and even Class E segments have been fully exploited by the private sector and even by the Philippine Government. After all, these segments comprise 90% of our population. The Government, for example, has made betting a way of life for the Filipinos through lotto, where winnings can go higher than the winnings of world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao. Even the controversial illegal numbers game called jueteng, which has been a major source of campaign funds of several political candidates in the country since the last century, has recently crossed over to becoming legal since it cannot be stopped anyway and it is a sure moneymaking machinery for the Government. Thus, on a significant scale, our Government earns for its upkeep from feasting on our nations poor, low-income, and downwardly mobile citizens whose sheer number in a population of 82 million can turn habitual bets of ten pesos or twenty pesos into millions and billions of pesos. Our Government and economy are also kept afloat by the billion-dollar remittances of our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), many of whom are doing servile tasks in difficult situations in other nations. Again, sustaining the operations of public administration in our country are sourced from those who are already poor, oppressed, and desperate. Cost for Public Service Nationwide, there are public elementary schools and public high schools and public hospitals, but the state of public education and public health services in our country is pathetic in most areas. Only 2% of Grade Six public school students pass the national exams for entry into high school and only 1% of public high school students pass for entry into college. Our poor die unnecessarily in public hospitals because of inadequate hospital equipment and medical materials. A typical scene in public pediatric wards, for example, are two to four sick babies or children in one dilapidated pediatric bed with the parents sitting on a wooden bench side-by-side watching over their young

ones. And this scene happens in infectious wards where there should be quarantined areas and sanitation. Thus, there may be free education and free hospital service in our country but the high cost is on the lives and futures of our citizens, who suffer bleak futures because of poor public education and unnecessary deaths because of inadequate public health and hospital service. National Debt The figures vary depending on the sources, but all things considered, our national debt figure has gone as high as 6 trillion pesos(US Dollar to Philippine Pesos currency exchange rates these days fluctuate between Php 52 to 54 to US$ 1). Much of what our Government earns, thus, goes to debt servicing, with little left for public education and public health services. We have come to a point wherein debt pardon is necessary, at least for the debts incurred dubiously, for example, during corrupt administrations, just so we can channel our budgets more for public service rather than for debt service.

Main Problems From the point of view of the citizens, the main problem is the dirty politics of traditional politicians. There is no end to election fraud and accusations of election fraud. Until now, the Commission on Elections is unable to get a clean contract to computerize elections, and so vote rigging is rampant. Then there are also politicians in power who bicker and accuse endlessly. Thus, our nation is in a constant mode of being destabilized from all sides from those in power and those who are not in power. From the point of view of entrepreneurs or the market, the main problem is graft and corruption in government offices. It has become abnormal not to pay under-thetable to get a business permit or a government clearance. From the point of view of politicians, the main problem is a personality-based politics wherein celebrities without any platform nor preparation for public service win by a landslide at the polls and end up mismanaging their public office and public funds.

From the point of view of public administration employees or civil servants, the main problem is low pay such that they need to earn extra from extortions and sidelineselling to adequately provide for their families. The new public administration model The fields of Public Administration, are contrived in five pillars: Human Resource Management in Public Administration is an in-house structure that ensures unbiased treatment, ethical standards, and promotes a values-based system. Organizational Theory in Public Administration is the study of the structure of governmental entities and the many particulars inculcated in them. Ethics in Public Administration serves as a normative approach to decision making. Policy Analysis serves as an empirical approach to decision making. Public Budgeting is the activity within a government that seeks to allocate scarce resources among unlimited demands. Given the array of duties public administrators find themselves performing, the professional administrator might refer to a theoretical framework from which he or she might work. Indeed, many public and private administrative scholars have devised and modified decision-making models. Niskanens budget-maximizing An relatively recent rational choice variation, proposed by William Niskanen in a 1971 article budget-maximizing model, argued that rational bureaucrats will universally seek to increase their budgets, thereby contributing to state growth, measured by expenditure. Niskanen served on President Reagans Council of Economic Advisors; his model underpinned what has been touted as curtailed public spending and increased privatization. However, budgeted expenditures and the growing deficit during the Reagan administration is evidence of a different reality. A range of pluralist authors have critiqued Niskanens universalist approach. These scholars have argued that officials tend also to be motivated by considerations of the public interest. Dunleavys bureau-shaping The bureau-shaping model, a modification of Niskanen, holds that rational bureaucrats only maximize the part of their budget that they spend on their own agencys operations or give to contractors and interest groups. Groups that are able to organize a flowback of benefits to senior officials would, according to this theory, receive increased budgetary attention. For instance, rational officials will get no benefit from paying out larger welfare checks to millions of low-income citizens because this does not serve a bureaucrats goals. Accordingly, one might should instead expect a jurisdiction to seek budget increases for defense and security purposes in place of domestic social programming. If we refer back to Reagan once again, Dunleavys bureau shaping model accounts for the alleged decrease in the size of government

while spending did not, in fact, decrease. Domestic entitlement programming was financially de-emphasized for military research and personnel.

Characteristics of Public Administration in a democratic institution Principles at the heart of good governance are participation, pluralism, subsidiarity, transparency, accountability, equity, access, partnership, and efficiency. The essence of public administration as a democratic institution is to use the principles of good (democratic) governance to design and structure state institutions, their internal processes and mechanisms, and their mission. Simply stated, it implies that public administration as a democratic institution has the following characteristics: It is accountable and transparent In the words of Francisco S. Tantuico Jr., former chairman of the Commission on Audit of the Philippines: Public accountability is the foundation of integrity. It cuts to the soul of government. It unmasks the government of the day of whatever faade it wears.The Constitution of the Philippines describes public accountability thus: Public Office is a public trust. Public Officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility,integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice and lead modest lives. It is decentralized The Philippine Government is decentralized the legislation of the Local government code of 1991, whereas the legislation gave lgu units responsibility for basic services in health, agriculture, public works, and social welfare and environment and natural resources. It is instrumental in ensuring fair and legitimate elections Various departments are held incharge to make sure that there will be fair and legitimate elections, such as comelec...The various departments in the government sometimes help to conduct the election to be fair and legitimate...Elections may be insufficient, but they are a necessary and essential element of democracy. By allowing certain government posts to be filled through the choices made by the electorate, elections function as a mechanism for determining the legitimacy of the political leadership, while at the same time guaranteeing the representational requirements of a modern democratic state. It is because of these characteristics that elections create opportunities, as minimum as they maybe, for altering the status quo and serve as a vehicle for political change.

It is based on a system of checks and balances between the executive branch and the judiciary and legistlative. The principle of the separation of powers has been adopted in the Philippines in order to avoid arbitrary rule and abuse of authority. The so called checks and balances among the three major departments of the government -executive, legislative and the judiciary are no more than means of control by each and upon each of the departments. It is the duty of the departments to exercise moderation in their dealings with one another and their treatment of the public interest. This principle was instituted in the Philippine constitution for the purpose of impeding each branch from trespassing and seizing the power vested to others. Moreover, the provisions of the constitution in establishing limitations on the exercise of government authority also provide means of moderation It plays a central role in combating exclusion and protecting the rights of minorities and disadvantaged groups Government activities undertaken to protect society as a whole. This includes national defense, protective services like police, fire and jail, education and environment. The government protects the rights of the minorities and disadvantaged groups through various executive orders that is instituted, like the laws that protects the lands, of various ethnic groups, and minorites It has adequate management capacity to enhance access to justice. Free access to courts are not denied to any person by reason of poverty..The government make sure that the people are not deprived of their rights especially when they are facing criminal case, civil case,etc.. It protects public goods The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society, ensuring a well-run, fair, and effective public service are some of the goals of the field. Government activities are designed to provided assistance to economic, pressure, and social groups. It provides a facilitating environment for the active engagement and role of civil society and the private sector There government should not passed laws abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.

Government activities undertaken to regulate It utilizes the power of information and communication technology to promote citizens access and participation in the development process 1. Article 3, Bill of Rights, Section 7: The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law It promotes and strengthens partnerships of various types to achieve objectives. This characteristics is evident in the various political parties, interest groups and pressure groups in the Philippines.... Structural Features 1. Hierarchal structure of authority 2. Creation of sub units based on differ nation of functions or specialization 3. Recruitment and promotion based on merit and competence 4. A system of rules and procedures to guide action in the organization. Significance/ Need for Public Administration New Public Administration has seriously jolted the traditional concepts and outlook of the discipline and enriched the subject by imparting a wider perspective by linking it closely to the society.

III. Discussion on Development A. Meaning of Development Development word that refers to as event causing change in which there should be an incident that causes a situation to change or progress. It also refers to as the process of changing and becoming larger, stronger, or more impressive, successful, or advanced, or of causing somebody or something to change in a certain way. Development has traditionally been associated with economic growth, advancement and expansion. To become real development, it should be address the problems of poverty, inequity, and social justice which are fundamental problems especially for the developing countries.

Over the year, the notion of sustainable development has begun to gain currency and acceptance in which referred to as the process of meeting the needs of the present without sacrificing the needs of future generation. To promote sustainable development, it should be redistributive, sustainable, participatory and empowering. Over the years, there are development models of public administration as suited on the changing economic and social perspective of the government. Reinventing Government.The term "Reinventing Government" comes from a book with the same name written by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler. The concept however, has been in practice in the private sector since the mid 1980's where it is more commonly referred to as business process reengineering or simply reengineering. Today these terms are for the most part used interchangeably, although some in government still prefer to use the term reinvent as opposed to reengineer.

Reinventing Government was written to map out a radically new way of doing business in the public sector .Reinvention is a (r)evolutionary change process that had happened before in the Progressive and New Deal eras in the U.S. and has been occurring again in local governments and elsewhere. Instead of originating the model, they pieced the ideas embodied in it from the actual practices of those who have dealt with government problems in innovative ways. The model represents a basic, paradigm shift from the New Deal paradigm of 1930s to 1960s toward the entrepreneurial government model that they now advocate. Most entrepreneurial governments promote competition between service providers. They empower citizens by pushing control out of the bureaucracy, into the community. They measure the performance of their agencies, focusing not on inputs but on outcomes. They are driven by their goalstheir missionsnot by their rules and regulations. They redefine their clients as customers and offer them choices They prevent problems before they emerge, rather than simply offering services afterward. They put their energies into earning money, not simply spending it. They decentralize authority, embracing participatory management. They prefer market mechanisms to bureaucratic mechanisms. And they focus not simply on providing public services, but on catalyzing all sectorspublic, private, and voluntaryinto action to solve their community problems. Business process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization. According to Davenport (1990) a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-

engineering is the basis for many recent developments in management. The crossfunctional team, for example, has become popular because of the desire to reengineer separate functional tasks into complete cross-functional processes. Also, many recent management information systems developments aim to integrate a wide number of business functions. Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, knowledge management systems, groupware and collaborative systems, Human Resource Management Systems and customer relationship management. Business process re-engineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation, or business process change management. Business process re-engineering (BPR) began as a private sector technique to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. A key stimulus for re-engineering has been the continuing development and deployment of sophisticated information systems and networks. Leading organizations are becoming bolder in using this technology to support innovative business processes, rather than refining current ways of doing work. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is basically rethinking and radically redesigning an organization's existing resources. BPR, however, is more than just business improvising; it is an approach for redesigning the way work is done to better support the organization's mission and reduce costs. Reengineering starts with a high-level assessment of the organization's mission, strategic goals, and customer needs. Basic questions are asked, such as "Does our mission need to be redefined? Are our strategic goals aligned with our mission? Who are our customers?" An organization may find that it is operating on questionable assumptions, particularly in terms of the wants and needs of its customers. Only after the organization rethinks what it should be doing, does it go on to decide how best to do it. Within the framework of this basic assessment of mission and goals, reengineering focuses on the organization's business processesthe steps and procedures that govern how resources are used to create products and services that meet the needs of particular customers or markets. As a structured ordering of work steps across time and place, a business process can be decomposed into specific activities, measured, modeled, and improved. It can also be completely redesigned or eliminated altogether. Re-engineering identifies, analyzes, and re-designs an organization's core business processes with the aim of achieving dramatic improvements in critical performance measures, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.

Re-engineering recognizes that an organization's business processes are usually fragmented into subprocesses and tasks that are carried out by several specialized functional areas within the organization. Often, no one is responsible for the overall performance of the entire process. Re-engineering maintains that optimizing the performance of subprocesses can result in some benefits, but cannot yield dramatic improvements if the process itself is fundamentally inefficient and outmoded. For that reason, re-engineering focuses on re-designing the process as a whole in order to achieve the greatest possible benefits to the organization and their customers. This drive for realizing dramatic improvements by fundamentally re-thinking how the organization's work should be done distinguishes re-engineering from process improvement efforts that focus on functional or incremental improvement. New public management (NPM) denotes broadly the government policies, since the 1980s, that aimed to modernise and render more effective the public sector. The basic hypothesis holds that market oriented management of the public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side-effects on other objectives and considerations. Jonathan Boston, one of the early proponents of NPM[1], identified several ways in which public organisations differ from the private sector:

degree of market exposurereliance on appropriations legal, formal constraintscourts, legislature, hierarchy subject to political influences coercivenessmany state activities unavoidable, monopolistic breadth of impact subject to public scrutiny complexity of objectives, evaluation and decision criteria authority relations and the role of managers organisational performance incentives and incentive structures personal characteristics of employees every election cycle senior manager (Owners) change, along with changed priorities.

Some modern authors define NPM as a combination of splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more fragmented ones, competition between different public agencies, and between public agencies and private firms and incentivization on more economic lines. Defined in this way, NPM has been a significant driver in public management policy around the world, from the early 1980s to at least the early 2000s.

NPM, compared to other public management theories, is oriented towards outcomes and efficiency, through better management of public budget.[3] It is considered to be achieved by applying competition, as it is known in the private sector, to organizations in the public sector, emphasizing economic and leadership principles. New public management addresses beneficiaries of public services much like customers, and conversely citizens as shareholders.

IV. Problems of Public Policy Implementation. Implementation is the process of turning policy into practice. However, it is common to observe a gap between what was planned and what actually occurred as a result of a policy. There are three major theoretical models of policy implementation. Top-down approach: This approach sees policy formation and policy execution as distinct activities. Policies are set at higher levels in a political process and are then communicated to subordinate levels which are then charged with the technical, managerial, and administrative tasks of putting policy into practice. Political scientists have theorized that the top-down approach requires that certain conditions be in place for policy implementation to be effective including:

Clear and logically consistent objectives Adequate causal theory (to how particular actions would lead to desired outcomes) An implementation process structured to enhance compliance by implementers (incentives and sanctions) Committed, skilful implementing officials Support from interest groups and legislature No changes in socio-economic conditions that undermine political support or the causal theory underlying the policy Adequate time and sufficient resources available Good coordination and communication

Problems associated with the top down approach:

It is very unlikely that all pre-conditions would be present at the same time Only adopts perspective of those in higher levels of government and neglects the role of other actors

And therefore, it risks over-estimating the impact of government action (neglects other factors) Difficult to apply where no single, dominant policy or agency is involved Policies change as they are being implemented

Bottom-up approach: This approach recognizes that individuals at subordinate levels are likely to play an active part in implementation and may have some discretion to reshape objectives of the policy and change the way it is implemented. The bottom-up approach sees policy implementation is an interactive process involving policy makers, implementers from various levels of government, and other actors. Policy may change during implementation. Problems of the bottom-up approach:

Evaluating the effects of a policy becomes difficult Difficult to separate the influence of individuals and different levels of government on policy decisions and consequences. (Important for bureaucratic accountability)

Principal-agent theory: In each situation there will be a relationship between principals (those who define policy) and agents (those who implement policy), which may include contracts or agreements that enable the principal to specify what is provided and check that this has been accomplished. The amount of discretion given to the agents and the complexity of the principal-agent relationship are affected by:

The nature of the policy problem- including scale of change required, size of affected group, simple vs. complex intervention, ill-defined vs. clear policy, many cause vs. single cause, degree of political sensitivity, length of time before changes become apparent. The context or circumstances surrounding the problem- political and economic climate, technological change The organization of the machinery required to implement the policy- number of formal and informal agencies, amount of skills and resources required

Whether policies are implemented from the top-down, bottom-up or according to the principal agent theory, policy implementation involves 3 activities. Interpretation: translation of the policy into administrative directives. Organization: establishment of administrative units and methods necessary to put a programme into effect.

Application: routine administering of the service. Interpretation of policy directives requires the translation of knowledge on interventions into the particular local context. Factors to take into account when interpreting health policy include

Local resources, including human resources and infrastructure Specific characteristics of the population Baseline incidence of the health problem The latency period before an effect of the intervention will be observed A balance between achieving targets that reflect process change and those that reflect risk factor change Local variations in the likely effectiveness of particular interventions

For example, in health sector there are ten identified common barriers to effective health policy implementation: 1. The circumstances external to the implementing agency impose crippling constraints 2. Lack of adequate time and sufficient resources 3. The required combination of resources is not available 4. The policy to be implemented is not based on a valid theory of cause and effect 5. The relationship between cause and effect is indirect and there are multiple intervening links 6. Dependency relationships are multiple 7. There is a poor understanding of, and disagreement on, objectives Tasks are not fully specified in correct sequence 8. There is imperfect communication and coordination Those in authority are unable to demand or obtain perfect compliance

Conclusion: Nevertheless, what kind of government we had, what public administration model we follow, what policies we implemented, the core of this evolutionary political, economic administrative problem is the behavioral approach of those who seats in the throne of governance. Understanding the relations between elected and administrative officials in government is hampered by inadequate models for assigning responsibility for governmental functions. Politics can be viewed as the search for consensus on underlying values to foster a sense of community. It challenges contemporary political and administrative leadership because the policy process increasingly involves interactions among amorphous and unstable issue-oriented coalitions rather than a smaller number of actors with more stable and predictable roles. It also discusses politics, administration, and markets as separate ways of thinkingas decision-making perspectivesthat produce a variety of expectations of accountability, often at odds. It presents a case study involving the contracting out of foster care services in in the community to illustrate these competing perspectives and examines how market-based challenges to traditional political and administrative perspectives complicate expectations of accountability. The result is a situation in which the challenge of accommodating three crosscutting expectations of accountability (derived from the three competing perspectives of politics, administration, and markets) makes the already complex job of public management even more difficult to implement on social development.

References:

The American Review of Public Administration December 1, 2005 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/administration dichotomy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/philippine administration