(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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(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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(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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(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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(PYQ Mock Answer: Public administration) NPM/Neo-Taylorism

 New Public Management has been branded by certain scholars as `Neo-Taylorism'. Is it a justified comparison? What factors have led to the decline of NPM so soon after its birth? (20 Marks)

New Public Management as a concept emerged to deal with the issues of economy and efficiency in Public Sector Enterprises. The government had to give huge amount of budgetary support to these PSEs and the losses incurred by PSUs resulted in high amounts of fiscal deficit for the government. Hence to promote economy and efficiency in the PSEs, the government decided to adopt the principles followed in private organisations for the PSEs as well. Since Private organisations were mostly following Scientific Management Theory or Taylorism, the government ended up adopting the same for PSEs. The following are the features of NPM, that justify why it can be called Neo-taylorism:

1. Emphasises on implementing scientific management principles to improve performance of PSEs 

2. Emphasises on cost-cutting – economy 

3. Providing responsive services to citizens 

4. Use of information Technology 

5. Emphasises on implementing scientific management principles to improve performance of PSEs 

6. NPM treat citizens as customers and the government considers itself a service provider so that the moral responsibility of bureaucracy is transformed into legal accountability 

7. Developing competition and ensuring performance control 

   

The reason for the decline of NPM so soon after its birth are as follows: 

1. NPM is based on market philosophy wherein market takes into consideration the needs of only those people who can pay for services whereas the needs of those who can't pay are ignored 

2. Government is not there to maximise profits, objective of government is to maximise the welfare of people. It's the responsibility of the government to provide basic needs to people irrespective of the costs involved in it. Even if loss is incurred in the process, Government has to provide those services. 

3. Critics said that NPM might be applicable for developing countries where in citizens can be treated as customers as they can pay for the services. Government can consider itself as service provider like other private sector providers. But applicability of NPM is restricted in developing countries because in developing countries people can't pay for services 

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