Thursday, February 11, 2021

(PYQ 2020 Mock Answer: Public administration) Indian Civil services

 B) There is a constant and continuous collision between bureaucratic values and democratic values which adversely affects development. Do you agree? Elaborate 


Answer: 


It is seen that democratic values like transparency, accountability, participative governance etc come in conflict with the bureaucratic values of the bureaucrats like Hierarchy, rules and regulations, efficiency, value neutrality etc. This conflict manifests in the following ways: 


  1. Accountability - The bureaucrats are not directly accountable to the people for their actions, there is only an indirect accountability mechanism via the elected representatives 
  2. Transparency is a democratic value but since we have inherited the colonial laws and procedures, the opaqueness in the system violates this principle 
  3. Bureaucracy tends to treat citizens as subjects to be governed rather than as citizens to be empowered 
  4. The bureaucracy keeps the citizens out of the process of governance and tends to treat citizens as outside beneficiaries in the process of development 
  5. Goal displacement - the bureaucrats are more interested in implementing rules and regulations than on maximising the welfare of the people.
  6. Failure of citizen centric reforms like RTI, Citizens charter and Social audit
  7. The colonial attitude of the bureaucrats
  8. Bureaucratic apathy 
The fact even after 75 years of independence development administration has been a failure is indicative of the impact this collision of values has on the development and growth of the country. 

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Wednesday, February 3, 2021

(PYQ 2020 Mock Answer: Public administration) - Mughal Administration

Q. Mughal administration incorporated a combination of Indian and extra-Indian elements. Discuss 


Answer : 


After the success of Babur in the first battle of Panipat in 1526, the Mughal rule was established in India. The Mughal empire was one of the prosperous empires at the point of time and was very well known for the sound administration system. 

The Indian elements in Mughal administration are as follows:

  1. Monarchial form of government: Kautilya in his work Arthashastra mentions that the Monarchial system is the preferable form of government. In the Mughal administration as well the administration is entered around the king. 
  2. Federal form of Government: Given the size and diversity of India, all major empires like the Mauryans and Guptas preferred dividing the kingdom into many provinces for ease of administration. 
  3. Tradition authority of the headmen at the village level. 
  4. Land revenue/tax: Since, agriculture was the main occupation at that point of time, the Mughals like their preceding kingdoms relied heavily on the land revenues. 
  5. Military nature of administration : The heads of the provinces and districts had civilian as well military roles
  6. Spoils system in filling top level positions. 


Extra-Indian elements are as follows: 

  1. Mansabdari system and jagirdari system had been influenced by the Iqtadari system, which in turn was not indigenous to India. 
  2. The religious powers of the sultan, by the infallibility decree issued by Akbar, the king became the ultimate interpreter of Quran. No other previous king in India exercised such religious powers
  3. Paper administration (Khagaj Raj) in india was introduced by the Mughals.


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Thursday, October 29, 2020

(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) Administrative Law

Q. "Administrative law is recognised by its substance rather than its form." Discuss. 10 Marks



The administrators were given huge amount of discretionary powers to carry out their functions, but this resulted in misuse and abuse of power. To check this arbitrary use of power, the concept of Administrative law emerged. 

Administrative law can take various “forms”,  it can appear in the form of constitutional provision, a statue/law by the parliament, administrative by-law, order etc. But an administrative law is never recognised by the form it takes but by the content (the substance).

For example, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is often referred to as a draconian law. AFSPA is recognised so because of powerful provisions like power arrest without warrant, search and seize vehicles, power to shoot after warning etc. Hence, from this example it is pretty clear that Administrative law is recognised by its content (substance) than by its form.  


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Sunday, October 25, 2020

(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) - Scope of Public Administration

 Q. "With every major transformation in the applied world of Public Administration, the study of Public Administration has grown in scope and intensity." Discuss the relationship between the evolution of the discipline and profession of Public Administration. (20 Marks)


Answer:


The scope of the discipline and profession of public administration is ever expanding. In a democracy, the expectations of people keeps on going up, to stay in power the political executive tries to satisfy the expectations of the people. Administration happens to be highly technical in natures, since the political executives are professional politicians and amateur administrators they tend to rely more on the bureaucracy to satisfy the aspirations of the people. In this manner the scope of profession of public administration expands. As it is the mandate of any academic discipline to solve the problems of the practitioners, the profession of public administration turned to the discipline of public administration to find solutions to the problems faced by the practitioners at the ground level. Hence, leading to expansion in the scope of public administration. 

The scenario can be better understood with the following examples:

  1. Post world war II, the process of decolonisation had started as countries started to gain independence from their colonial masters. The developing and underdeveloped countries tried to apply the Webers bureaucratic theory in administration, but it terribly failed. This was because Weber’s theory was meant for ensuring stability and continuity and was not meant for change, but the developing countries were in need of change and development.  To address this problem, when the practitioners turned to the thinkers, the discipline of development administration emerged within the discipline of Public Administration to solve this problem.
  2. In the digital era, with significant developments in the field of IT. Citizens expect the services of the government to be delivered via ICT Channels. To cater to this the discipline of public administration is trying to come up with universal principles to make e-governance a success, while the practitioners are trying to effectively deliver welfare maximisation services through ICT channels by following such theories/models of the discipline. 



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Friday, October 23, 2020

(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) - Theories of Motivation

 "Abraham Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Needs' and Frederick Herzberg's 'Two-Factor theory' have commonalities in the analysis of human motivations." Comment. (15 Marks)


Answer: 


Abraham Maslow and Fredrick Herzberg have significantly contributed to the content theories of motivation. Abraham Maslow in his need hierarchy theory has described an hierarchy of needs that need to be satisfied one after the other. He talks about Physiological needs, Security needs, Social needs, Self-esteem needs and finally about self actualisation. In this pyramid of hierarchy of needs, the Physiological, security and social needs are classified as lower level needs while the Self esteem needs and self actualisation are classified as higher level needs. 

On the other hand, Fredrick Herzberg is his two factor theory talks about motivators and Hygiene factors, The hygiene factors help avoid dissatisfaction while motivators promote satisfaction. Herzberg says that the hygiene factors are sought after by the people in the Lower levels of the organisation while the people in the higher levels of the organisation seek after motivators. On closer analysis, we realise that the motivators specified by Herzberg is none other the higher level needs talked about by Maslow, while the hygiene factors of Herzberg are none other than the lower level needs specified by Maslow. Hence we have established commonalities in the analysis of human motivation in the theories given by Herzberg and Maslow. 

  

(Draw the Diagram discussed in class)




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Thursday, October 15, 2020

(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) Chester Bernard

 "Executive positions imply a complex morality and require a high capacity of responsibility" — (Chester Barnard). Comment. (15 Marks)


Answer:


Chester Bernard says there are two kinds of people in an organisation: one’s who are unwilling to take responsibility while the others are those who are willing take responsibility for their own actions as well as for the action of the subordinates. If a person is holding an executive position then clearly he/she belong to the latter category, hence indicating a high capacity of responsibility. 

Chester Bernard gave theory of functional leadership wherein a leader has to perform 3 functions :-
1.
Establishing and maintaining the system of communication in the org.
2. Securing essential efforts and services from subordinates by motivating them to exert themselves for the org.’s purpose.
3. Formulating and defining purposes and objectives.

As a leader, the executive is expected to take the responsibility to perform the above three functions. This further substantiate the fact that executive positions require a high capacity of responsibility.


Chester Bernard also defines leadership as moral responsibility. Which means a person holding leadership position must avoid the tendency to misuse the resources of the organisation for private purposes. Hence,  we can conclude that Executive positions imply a complex morality.





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